Sustainability assessment of mobile juice processing unit: Farmers perspective

Abstract

Downscaling of food processing with application of innovative technologies is becoming a viable and sustainable strategy for efficient utilization of agricultural unconditional materials and by-products. Application of mobile and modular units could lead to more flexible approaches for food processing at the place of biomass cultivation. Environmental impact of such production approaches and technologies are not quite known and should be thoroughly analyzed to define the feasible scope of application and potential hotspots. The current study reports an environmental sustainability assessment of a mobile and modular system (FOX system), and a stationary juice production system using conventional treatment, on an example of apple juice production. Based on primary data collected in an industrial environment, the study identified FOX system including innovative processing technologies for juice extraction (spiral filter press) and preservation (Pulsed Electric Fields) to be environmentally beneficial compared to traditional stationary counterpart. The scenario analysis revealed that it is more beneficial from the environmental perspective to transport the mobile unit and thus decrease the distance for apple transportation.