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

GROUP 6, SESSION B: METHODS, TOOLS, DATABASES 8 th Int. Conference on LCA in the
Agri-Food Sector, 1-4 Oct 2012
158. LCA as an evaluation tool for new food preservation techniques
Anna Aronsson * , Karin Östergren, Christoffer Krewer
Swedish Institute for Foods and Biotechnology (SIK),
anna.aronsson@sik.se
Corresponding author. E-mail:
Alongside with new technology development it is becoming more common to evaluate the environmental
impact using LCA. (e.g. Hospido et al., 2010, Sonesson, 2010).The demand for environmentally sustainable
food products is increasing and it is a challenge for the food and drink sector to reduce environmental impact
along the food chain while at the same time maintaining and improving quality. These demands have resulted
in an increased focus on environmental quality aspects during the development of new food products
and new technologies. Freeze protection with anti-freeze protein (AFP) (Phoon et al., 2008) and carbon dioxide
(CO2) drying (Agterof et al., 2005) are new preservation technologies under development. Soft vegetables
and fruits such as strawberries (Fragaria ananassa) are suitable for both preservation methods. Both
technologies lead to complete new products as freeze protected fruits can be thawed without cell damage
and can be used as fresh fruits and dried fruits can be rehydrated resulting in recovered natural turgor. The
environmental benefits of the new preservation technologies is the possibility of extending shelf life and
substitution of imported fresh fruit and vegetables when out of season. The aims of this study were to (1)
compare the environmental impact from cradle to retail of fresh, AFP freeze protected and CO2-dried strawberries
and (2) identify the key environmental issues after “farm-gate” to be able to evaluate the supply chain
from processing to retail to support the technology development. Frozen / CO2-dried and fresh strawberries
were assumed to be cultivated and processed in Sweden and Egypt respectively. The study was performed
using LCA methodology with a functional unit of 1 kg of ready to use strawberries. Global warming potential
(GWP) and fossil energy use (MJ, data not shown) per functional unit in terms of primary energy was
calculated. The resulting preliminary GWP for fresh, freeze protected and CO2-dried strawberries after LCA
was carried out were 4.6, 0.63, and 2 kg CO2eq/kg strawberry respectively. The novel preservation technologies
emitted less greenhouse gas emissions than the current method of freezing and the fresh imported strawberries
(Fig. 1). The energy required for the novel technologies at the processing step accounted for 60-80%
of the total GWP post-farm (Fig. 1). The results also demonstrate the importance of taking the full chain into
account when evaluating new process technologies. An increased impact in one step may still lead to an
overall improvement of the chain under given conditions. This study demonstrates how LCA can be applied
to support the development of new technologies for food processing in an early stage by identifying potential
hot spots early the development phase and by pinpointing suitable applications in relation to choice of
inputs and production site.
References
Agterof, W.G. M., Bhatia R., Hofland G. W., 2005.Dehydration method. Feyecon Development & Implementation
December 2005: WO 2005/122776
Hospido, A., Davis, J., Berlin, J. & Sonesson, U. 2010, LCA of novel products – Application to food processing,
Int. J. Life Cycle Assess. 15, 44–52
Phoon, P.Y., Gomez Galindo, F., Vicente, A., Dejmek, P., 2008. Pulsed electric field in combination with
vacuum impregnation with trehalose improves the freezing tolerance of spinach leaves. J. Food Eng. 88,
144-148
Sonesson, U., Novel Processing and Sustainability – a perfect match or not? New Food, Issue 5, 2010
895