Award is plain sailing for shipboard restaurants

The healthyliving award green apple logo can be found in all sorts of unusual places throughout Scotland, on land and even at sea. The award is already in place on a number of North Sea oil platforms as well as on board the Northern Lighthouse Board’s supply vessels.

Now one of the latest award winners, NorthLink Ferries, has become the first passenger ferry operator to achieve the award.

L-R: Peter Hutchinson, Senior Manager Vessel
Support Services; Lindsay Holmes, A la Carte
Head Waiter; Tony Matson, Executive Chef;
Derek Walker, Senior Executive Chef

NorthLink provides a year-round lifeline ferry service to the Northern Isles carrying 300,000 islanders and visitors a year, as well as goods and supplies.

The NorthLink ships MV Hjaltland and MV Hrossey - which operate on the Aberdeen to Kirkwall and Lerwick routes - have now achieved the healthyliving award for their on-board à la carte restaurants.

Peter Hutchinson, Senior Manager Vessel Support Services, explained why NorthLink became involved: “We were very keen to promote healthy living on board, to the crew as well as passengers.

“We wanted the crew to be fit and healthy, so we looked at our crew meals and put all our chefs through the Royal Environmental Health Institute of Scotland (REHIS) Food and Health training course.

“The next step was to go for the healthyliving award, and we decided to start with the à la carte restaurants, which offer fine dining as good as any to be found ashore. The menus already made extensive use of high quality island produce, such as locally landed fish and seafood from Shetland and lean island-reared beef from Orkney.

“This healthy produce gave us a good head-start towards meeting the award criteria, while remaining true to our policy of supporting local producers.

“We take bookings in advance for the à la carte restaurants, and they are very popular with our passengers and often get booked up. The menus, which we have tweaked to meet the award criteria, are going down well with our diners and we have received a very positive response so far.”

Peter summed up: “Gaining the healthyliving award is great news for our company, as it recognises the staff’s achievement in looking to provide healthier options. It underpins the training they have received and also highlights that produce from the Northern Isles is both high quality and healthy.”

NorthLink Ferries’ achievement is a great example of how the healthyliving award can be good for customers, good for business and also good for the local economy - a win for all concerned.

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