Optimal allocation of tomato supply to minimize greenhouse gas emissions in major U.S. metropolitan markets

Abstract

Our food system is very resource and emissions intensive and contributes to a broad range of environmental impacts. We have developed cradle-to-market greenhouse gas emissions estimates of supplying fresh tomatoes to 10 of the largest metropolitan areas in the United States and applied a linear optimization algorithm to determine the optimal tomato distribution scheme that will minimize tomato-related greenhouse gas emissions across all 10 areas. Monte Carlo simulation was performed to assess the uncertainties in the data. Results indicate that the current tomato distribution scheme is suboptimal. Reallocation of the fresh tomato supply across the 10 areas could decrease transportation-related emissions by 34% and overall tomato-related greenhouse gas emissions by 13%—from 277,000 metric tons of CO2e to 242,000 metric tons of CO2e. Production practices and geographic conditions (such as soil and climate) are more significant for GHG emissions than the supply allocation or the seasonality of supply.