How much bread do eight people eat in seven days? Quantity rules of thumb, the reality of a boat fridge, and a method that takes the crew's allergies and preferences into account automatically.
In short
For self-catering on board in the Mediterranean and the Adriatic, allow €10 to €15 per person per day; restaurant meals come on top. You need 2 to 3 litres of drinking water per person per day, more in great heat — depending on the charter, water from the boat's tank is better suited to cooking. The real lever, though, is not quantity but order: first record the crew's allergies, diets and dislikes, then build the meal plan, then go shopping.
Arrival day in Split. The charter handover took two hours longer than planned, you want to cast off in three hours — and now the whole crew is in the Konzum supermarket pushing three trolleys through the aisles. Eight people, one week, and nobody knows how much bread eight people eat in seven days. Two are vegetarian, one is lactose intolerant, one picks the olives out of every dish. In the end there is no breakfast for day 5, while two kilos of tomatoes are going mouldy on day 3 in a fridge that is far too small. That is what meal planning on a sailing trip feels like without a system.
On every charter trip, food is the underestimated source of stress. It decides the mood, the budget and whether the galley becomes a feel-good zone or a war zone. In this article we show you the typical problems with meal planning on a sailing trip — and how to clear them out of the way completely with a little structure (and the right app). Including quantity rules of thumb to take away.
On land, meal planning is trivial: you go to the supermarket when something runs out. On a sailing trip that safety buffer disappears. The next shop may be a day's sail away, the fridge holds a fraction of what yours at home does, and you are cooking for a group whose eating habits you often barely know. Three things make provisioning a boat particularly fiddly:
Two vegetarians, one vegan, one person who is lactose intolerant, plus someone who hates fish: a crew of eight almost always brings four different dietary profiles. If you only notice while cooking, you end up with a pot of bolognese that half the crew will not eat. Diets and allergies need to be known before the shop — not at the stove.
How much pasta for eight people? How many breakfasts will actually be eaten on board and how many at the harbour bakery? Underestimate and you are sitting in a bay with no supermarket and no dinner. Overestimate and half of it goes off in the 40-litre fridge — expensive and annoying.
A typical charter fridge holds much less than the one at home, cools less well and shares its space with the drinks. Fresh food needs to be rotated cleverly: whatever goes off first gets eaten first. Supplies that do not need refrigeration — hard cheese, eggs, robust vegetables, tins — are worth their weight in gold at sea.
Drinking water, coffee for the early risers, soft drinks for the afternoon, the evening beer at anchor: drinks make up a large share of weight and budget — and yet they are the thing most often forgotten in planning. Water in particular is underestimated: in summer heat, 2 to 3 litres per person per day is realistic.
The handover drags on, the supermarket is unfamiliar, the labels are in another language, and you want to reach the first bay before dark. Without a finished shopping list, this shop turns into a headless race — with three trolleys buying the same tomatoes side by side.
Without clear responsibilities, either one person buys everything alone (and gets fed up) or everyone buys at random (and you end up with duplicates). And at the end comes the question of how to settle the food fairly through the kitty.
Allergies are the hard limit — but preferences also decide the mood on board. One person hates coriander, another loves it spicy, a third does not drink alcohol. Details like these disappear in WhatsApp threads instead of being in one place where the person cooking will actually see them.
The good news: meal planning on a sailing trip is not rocket science if you break it down into five steps.
These guideline figures have proved themselves on Mediterranean and Adriatic trips. They are generous — appetites are bigger at sea than on land.
| Item | Per person per day | Practical tip |
|---|---|---|
| Drinking water | 2–3 litres | More in the heat; tank water for cooking only |
| Bread / breakfast | 100–150 g or 60 g muesli | Crispbread and rusks keep for weeks |
| Fruit & vegetables | 300–400 g | Robust produce first: apples, carrots, cabbage |
| Side dish (pasta/rice) | 100–125 g (uncooked) | Dry, easy to store, filling |
| Snacks | 1–2 bars / a handful of nuts | For night watches and long passages |
| Coffee / tea | 2–3 cups | A stovetop espresso maker needs no machine |
| Beer / wine | depends on the crew | Only plan for crew members who drink alcohol |
This is exactly where Sailto comes in. Instead of WhatsApp threads and a note on the chart table, all the food-related information comes together in one place — and an AI assistant turns it into a plan at the push of a button.
Each crew member enters in their own profile what they can and like to eat: diet (omnivore, vegetarian, vegan, pescatarian), allergies (such as gluten, lactose, nuts), food dislikes (what is a no-go) and their favourite soft, hot and alcoholic drinks — and whether someone does not drink alcohol at all. This happens once, when they join via the invite link. The skipper does not have to chase anyone.
The AI meal planner built into Sailto (based on Claude) knows all these profiles — plus crew size, trip length and region. On request it creates a complete meal plan or a ready-made shopping list that can be transferred straight into the boat's shopping list. The principles:
With one tap, the AI suggestion becomes a shared shopping list: sorted by category, tickable by the whole crew, with the option of assigning individual items to specific people. On arrival day you split up the aisles instead of buying the same tomatoes three times — and see in real time what is already in the trolley.
You can start for free — crew profiles, shopping list and packing lists are free for good, for any number of trips and with no crew limit. The AI meal planner is part of the Trip Pass, a one-off €14.99 per trip, which unlocks it for the whole crew.
As a rough budget rule, allow €10–15 per person per day for self-catering on board (Mediterranean/Adriatic); restaurant evenings come on top. For quantities, the rule-of-thumb table above helps — more important than accuracy to the gram is packing a little extra long-life dry food (pasta, rice, tins) as a reserve.
2 to 3 litres per person per day for drinking, more in great heat. Depending on the charter, water from the boat's tank is better suited to cooking and washing up — drinking water is usually bought separately in bottles or containers.
Quite a lot: one-pot pasta, risotto, curries, stews, couscous dishes, shakshuka. Anything that works in one or two pans. Dishes that need an oven or grill are out — Sailto's AI meal planner takes this into account automatically.
The simplest approach is a vegetarian base that can be topped up: one main dish for everyone, with meat or fish as a separate side for those who want it. That way nobody cooks twice. In Sailto, each person records their own diet in their profile, and the AI plans from the outset so that everyone is well fed.
For the first evening, a dish prepared at home is worth it (a chilli, for example) — on arrival day there is rarely time to cook after the handover. The rest is best bought fresh locally, with a finished list in your luggage.
The most annoying catering problems on a sailing trip do not arise in the galley but beforehand — through missing information and missing structure. If you know the crew's dietary profiles, have a rough meal plan and go to the supermarket with a finished shopping list, you save yourself stress, money and spoiled food.
Sailto takes exactly this groundwork off your hands: crew profiles fill themselves in, the AI meal planner turns them into a meal plan and shopping list, and the shared list makes sure everyone knows what to do on arrival day. Start for free here and keep your crew well fed on your next trip, stress-free.
As a budget rule, allow €10–15 per person per day for self-catering on board in the Mediterranean; restaurant evenings come on top. In terms of quantity: better to carry a little extra long-life dry food such as pasta, rice and tins as a reserve, and less fresh produce that goes off in a small fridge.
After the check-in, but with a finished list. Before it, you do not know how big the fridge really is or what is already on board. With a prepared shopping list sorted by category, the big shop afterwards takes a good hour instead of half a day.
Not by asking round the WhatsApp group, because the answers get lost there. A crew profile in which each person enters their own restrictions works better: vegetarian, vegan, lactose, gluten, allergies and dislikes. When you plan, the information is then all in one place instead of scattered across a chat history.
Allow at least 2 to 3 litres of drinking water per person per day, more in high summer in the Mediterranean. The yacht's tank water is meant for cooking and washing up, not for drinking — plan bottled water separately and stow it low, because it is the heaviest single item in the shop.
As little as possible. Harbour days are the chance to eat out and empty the fridge before restocking. Plan for this deliberately rather than scheduling a full meal on board for every day — otherwise part of the shopping travels home again untouched.
The framework, yes; the decision, no. The AI meal planner in Sailto uses crew size, trip length, cruising area and the dietary restrictions on file to create a complete suggestion, and can turn it straight into the shopping list if you want. What actually gets cooked is still up to the crew — the plan is a starting point, not a dictate.