Life Cycle Assessment of the Production of a Large Variety of Meat Analogs by Three Diverse Factories

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

9-2-2020

Keywords

greenhouse gases, Life cycle assessment, meat analogs, meat substitutes, sustainable food, vegetable protein products

Abstract

© 2019 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC. Meat analogs have been proposed as a viable ‘lower carbon’ alternative to meats. However, data on the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from those products are limited. We performed partial (farm to factory gate) life cycle assessment (LCA) with Simapro 8.1 to calculate the GHG emissions from a wide range of meat analog products from three factories. The mean GHG footprint was 2.19 kg CO2e/kg, and the range was from 1.33 kg CO2e/kg to 2.79 kg CO2e/kg. Most of the GHG emissions (45%) resulted from manufacturing processes, followed by agricultural production and transport of food ingredients. Meat analogs generated relatively low GHG emissions, across all categories, factory sizes and countries of production.

Journal Title

Journal of Hunger and Environmental Nutrition

Volume

15

Issue

5

First Page

699

Last Page

711

DOI

https://doi.org/10.1080/19320248.2019.1595251

First Department

Population Health, Nutrition & Wellness

Link to Full Text

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