Life cycle costs and environmental impacts of production and consumption of ready and home-made meals

Ximena C Schmidt Rivera,Adisa Azapagic

doi:10.1016/j.jclepro.2015.07.111

Abstract

Consumption of ready-made meals is growing rapidly and yet little is known about their economic and environmental impacts. This paper focuses on the economic aspects to estimate the life cycle costs, value added and consumer costs of ready-made meals, in comparison with the equivalent meals prepared at home. Their life cycle environmental impacts are also considered. A typical roast dinner is considered, consisting of chicken, vegetables and tomato sauce. Different production and consumption choices are evaluated, including sourcing of ingredients, chilled or frozen supply chains and types of appliance used by the consumer to prepare the meal. The estimated life cycle costs of the ready-made meal range from £0.61–£0.92 per meal and for the home-made from £0.68–£1.12. The lowest life cycle costs are found for the chilled ready-made meal heated in a microwave, 11% below the costs of the best home-made option. The life cycle costs of the frozen meal are similar to the best home-made option. The chilled ready-made meal has the highest value added (£2.01) compared to the frozen (£1.22) and the home-made meal (£0.44). However, from the consumer perspective, the cheapest option is the home-made meal (£1.17) while the chilled ready-made option is most expensive (£2.61). If the meal options are compared on both the life cycle costs and environmental impacts, the home-made meal is the best option overall. These findings can be used to inform both producers and consumers on how their choices influence costs and environmental impacts of food.

Highlights

The convenience food sector is growing rapidly, with the global ready-made meals market predicted to grow by 17% by 2016, from $1.11 trillion in 2011 to $1.3 trillion (Key Note, 2013)
The results are first presented for the life cycle costs (LCC) and value added (VA) of the readymade meal (Sections 3.1 and 3.2), followed by an equivalent analysis for the home-made meal options (Sections 3.3 and 3.4)
This paper has considered the life cycle costs (LCC) of readyand home-made meals

Summary

Introduction

The convenience food sector is growing rapidly, with the global ready-made meals market predicted to grow by 17% by 2016, from $1.11 trillion in 2011 to $1.3 trillion (Key Note, 2013). The majority of the expansion is expected to occur in China, the fastest growing market for ready-made meals in the world (Key Note, 2013). The USA and the UK hold the largest market share in the world, estimated at £7.2 bn (Sheely, 2008) and £2.6 bn (Mintel, 2013), respectively. In the UK, chilled meals hold the vast majority of the market share (84%) with the rest belonging to frozen meals (Mintel, 2013). It is expected that the UK market will grow by a further 35% by 2017, reaching an estimated value of £3.5 bn (Mintel, 2013). 8.8 kg of chilled and frozen ready-made meals are consumed in the UK per capita per year (Millstone and Lang, 2008)

Objectives

Methods

Results

Conclusion