“The biggest challenge we face today is on import restrictions,” said Vina Jumpp, associate vice president for food, beverage, hotel, galley and private destination procurement at Royal Caribbean Group.

“What can we import into the various countries? That’s number one. We know animal products are the biggest challenge in regards to Europe, and now I see South America and some of the Asian ports.”

Before any sourcing decision is made, her team maps what certificates are required for each destination country. Once restricted items are identified, they come out of the export pool entirely and shift to local sourcing.

Royal Caribbean has been driving toward regional sourcing for five years. In Europe, the group is now at approximately 80 percent local sourcing across all product categories, including animal products.

“We don’t export meat across the world and put the containers at risk for not clearing in time to meet our ships,” Jumpp explained.

New products are evaluated through the company’s food cutting program, a structured annual process in which chefs travel to regional markets and evaluate 150 or more items onboard actual ships, using the same equipment that will be used in service. The program has covered Europe, Asia, Australia and South America, with a Miami-focused edition planned for later this year.

Availability

“What keeps me up at night is availability. Nobody wants to hear it. But I keep saying it,” Jumpp said. “We think product is readily available but I see more and more shrinkage in particular products.”

Lobster production has declined by nearly 40 percent in recent seasons, driven by ocean temperature changes affecting migration patterns. Branzino has become nearly unavailable in some markets despite being farmed. Lamb has been affected by weather, and beef production is at a historic low.

“If you think of all the cruise lines that have duck or lamb or lobster, we’re all going after the same proteins. How do we sustain that?”

“It’s not about the cost,” she continued. “I talk about cost because as important as it is, if there’s no product, no amount of money can buy it.”

Royal Caribbean has also developed an AI-driven demand planning tool that factors in demographics, regionality and other variables to generate item-level forecasts by region.

“With this demand forecasting tool that we’ve been using for at least three years, we have seen more exact forecasting,” Jumpp said.

Excerpted from the Summer 2026 Cruise Industry News Quarterly Magazine.