Abstract
The confectionary and frozen desserts sectors are important parts of the food industry but have received relatively little attention from a life cycle cost perspective. Thus, the purpose of the current study is to evaluate the life cycle costs (LCC) and value added (VA) in these sectors in the UK, focusing on four major product categories: biscuits, cakes (ambient and frozen), chocolates and ice cream. In total, 18 products are considered along their life cycles, including the raw materials, manufacturing, packaging, distribution, retail, consumption and waste management stages. The results suggest that cakes have the highest LCC (£1.52–2.64/kg) and the biscuits the lowest (£0.72–0.91/kg). The LCC of chocolates and ice cream fall within a similar range (£1.16–1.46/kg and £1.03–1.30/kg, respectively). Divergent trends are noted between LCC and VA: for instance, ‘premium’ ice creams have only 18% higher costs than their ‘regular’ counterparts, but a four-fold higher VA. For all the products, raw materials contribute most to the costs (43%–95%), followed by packaging (1%–29%) and manufacturing (1%–14%). The annual LCC at the sectoral level are estimated at £3.455 billion, to which biscuits contribute 42%. The share of chocolates and cakes is 24% and 19%, respectively, with ice cream contributing the remaining 15%. By contrast, chocolates contribute more than 50% of the total sectoral VA, which is five-fold higher than that of ice cream. The study also demonstrates how LCC can be used to evaluate the eco-efficiency of products and sectors. With respect to global warming potential, whole cakes are the most eco-efficient and vanilla regular ice cream the least efficient products. Overall, the confectionary sector is nearly 60% more eco-efficient than the frozen desserts sector. These results can be used for benchmarking and to drive innovation towards more economically-sustainable and eco-efficient confectionary and frozen desserts supply chains.
Highlights
The food sector is an important part of the global economy and a significant contributor to costs of living
The results suggest that cakes have the highest life cycle costs (LCC) (£1.52– 2.64/kg) and the biscuits the lowest (£0.72–0.91/kg)
3 Results and discussion This section first presents the LCC and value added (VA) estimates by product type, followed by sensitivity and uncertainty analyses. The latter part of the section discusses the LCC and VA estimates at the sectoral level
Summary
The food sector is an important part of the global economy and a significant contributor to costs of living. In developing countries, it accounts for 38.6% of household expenditure (World Bank, 2010). Despite its importance, relatively little work exists within the scientific literature related to the life cycle economic sustainability in the food sector. A handful of studies have assessed the costs of food products or specific sub-sectors across their entire life cycle. Other studies include that by Settani et al (2010) who considered the LCC of pasta and by Nguyen et al (2012) who evaluated the cost of environmental impacts of meat production. A similar approach was adopted by Laso et al (2018) in the evaluation of fresh anchovies
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