LCA Food 2012 in Saint Malo, France! - Manifestations et colloques ...

GROUP 5, SESSION B: FOOD PRODUCTS 8 th Int. Conference on LCA in the
Agri-Food Sector, 1-4 Oct 2012
844
125. Prioritising retail food waste prevention - potatoes, tomatoes or
carambolas?
Ingrid Strid
Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Dept of Energy and Technology, P.O. Box 7032, SE-750 07
Uppsala, Sweden, E-mail: ingrid.strid@slu.se
Loss of food is a major problem world-wide with regard to the environment and to food security. To prevent
waste efficiently, a better understanding of the conditions behind the wastage is needed. This study is part of
a research project focusing on food wastage at the retail level of the Swedish food supply chain, conducted
by the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences during 2010-2013 (www.slu.se/foodwastage). After
identifying the main products driving the food wastage, the question of how to prioritise prevention options
arises. In the present study, the fruit and vegetable department at six Swedish retail stores were studied. Data
on sold and wasted quantities for 2010 and 2011 were obtained from the retail company. The resulting top
lists of wasted items, in tonnes and as a percentage of sold volumes, gave a quantitative background necessary
for the subsequent task to priorities between mitigation targets. Potatoes and lettuce dominated the
wastage by mass, while rare exotic fruits had the highest waste percentage. In the next phase, the product
specific carbon footprints were multiplied with the wasted amounts to quantify the carbon footprint of each
waste fraction. These LCA-based results shifted the list, so that tomatoes and sweet peppers now dominated
the impact. In absolute numbers, the carbon footprint of food wastage was highest for tomatoes and peppers,
leading to a possible conclusion to target these products for waste prevention measures at the fruit and vegetable
departments studied. However, an alternative evaluation method was also tested in order to relate the
burdens from the wasted fraction to the benefit of the respective product. The benefit of each product was
indicated with its sold volume, reflecting the food supply capability of the product. In this additional analysis
the wastage carbon footprint was divided by the sold quantify of each product type to give an index of the
un-necessary environmental impact per kg sold product. The result gave that rare exotic fruits totally dominated
this recalculated list, where the carbon footprint of the wastage from bulk products added grams to the
total results, while the corresponding figure for each kg sold rare exotic fruit was 7.2 kg CO2-eq extra to the
(already high) product specific carbon footprint of 11 kg CO2-eq. When relating the environmental burden of
the wastage to the sold quantity of products, the conclusion became that rare exotic fruits should be prioritised
for waste prevention measures at the vegetable departments of the retail chain studied.
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