MIAMI, Fla.(March 12, 2002) - Miami-based Apollo Ship Chandlers has shifted into an expansion mode. Founded in 1969 by President Rafael A. Ordoņez, today Apollo is the cruise industry's largest independent caterer; however, a diversified corporate agenda is taking Apollo's roster of products and services to a new 21st-century level.

By way of background, for more than three decades, Apollo has been a worldwide cruise line food and beverage concessionaire. Headquartered atop a 75,000-square-foot warehouse equipped with freezers, refrigeration systems, bonded warehouse space and a state-of-the-art test kitchen, Apollo purchasers, operations specialists and executive chefs labor around the clock to make the food and beverage service aboard its client cruise lines as impeccable as it is memorable.

To achieve this seamless execution, Apollo's network of purveyors and sources of local specialties extends from the coasts of North and South America to every major port in Europe, Africa, Asia and Polynesia. And all the while, Apollo is simultaneously dispatching indispensable American staples to as many as 16 ships around the globe at any given time.
It's a daunting task made more so because Apollo's stock and trade is highly perishable food, which makes precision, efficiency and reliability that much more essential. As the master of all three, Apollo is now putting its range of talent and depth of resources to work to become, not just a provider of products, but also a provider of maritime hospitality solutions. In short, after 32-plus years of applying these solutions internally, the company is now developing and marketing its customized technology and delivery systems to third-party cruise line, hospitality, and tour and travel end users.

Apollo's new operations solutions include software packages to meet specific needs and consultancy services designed to translate Apollo's extensive expertise into custom programs that can be adapted for a single ship or an entire fleet. These solutions are now being offered in the following specialized areas: food and beverage management, human resources, purchasing, food and beverage facility design, quality control, culinary consulting and software, reservations, USPH compliance and pest control.

As an example, Apollo's purchasing service and software is tailor-made for small cruise lines and resorts in the Bahamas and Caribbean. This solution allows customers to benefit from Apollo's $100 million purchasing power while monitoring the integrity of the purchasing process to better control inventory. The software also includes features that track historical buying data, allowing for an efficient projection of consumption for upcoming cruises.

Similarly, in response to the phenomenal growth of the worldwide cruise fleet and a subsequent shortage of qualified staff, Apollo is making a new recruiting and training service available to the cruise industry overall. The company's recruiting managers conduct global searches for skilled staff, most of whom receive comprehensive training in one of Apollo's nine training facilities before joining a ship. Additionally, in February 2002, the company launched its new Professionals in Pastry program at the prestigious Sekolah Tinggi Parwisata Bandung in Indonesia.

Apollo's new human resource software efficiently systemizes both crew and scheduling based on a crew database that currently totals 40,000 crewmembers, with the capacity to accommodate up to one million entries. The application is user-friendly and allows for the rapid sorting of skill-set criteria based on defined needs. It also features automatic functions such as sign-on and sign-off based on lengths of contract, itineraries and management rotation.

Finally, Apollo's consulting services capitalize on the company's vast knowledge of ship sanitation, U.S. Public Health requirements, food and beverage facilities design, and quality control practices and procedures. Moreover, software packages that support Apollo's consultancy services are available separately and can be customized to meet any user's specialized needs. For more information on Apollo's new software packages and consultancy services, visit Apollo online at www.apolloships.com