Exploring supply chain management challenges in food provisioning on maritime training vessels: post-consumer food waste and the potential role of digitalisation

Achieving sustainable consumption at sea requires understanding the organisational mechanisms that shape food provisioning under uncertainty. Using a mixed-methods case study of a maritime training vessel, this study combines semi-structured interviews with key provisioning stakeholders and an exploratory survey of student–cadets to examine the organisational mechanisms generating plate waste and the potential contribution of digitalisation to more sustainable provisioning. The findings show that waste arises primarily from precautionary overordering, fragmented information flows, institutional constraints, and shifting consumption patterns rather than from operational failures. Lower satisfaction with system fit to operational conditions, meal timing, system predictability, and nutrition-performance alignment was significantly associated with higher plate waste, while perceived caloric adequacy was not. Although based on a single case without direct waste measurements, the study identifies organisational mechanisms that may inform digital decision-support and feedback systems to reduce plate waste while maintaining food security and operational reliability.