Life cycle assessment of a packaged tomato puree: a comparison of environmental impacts produced by different life cycle phases

This study aims to assess the life cycle of tomato puree production by considering the impacts related to the phases of cultivation, processing, packaging and transport, in order to identify potential improvements for each stage of its life cycle. The case study involves companies in the tomato supply chain in northern Italy, with 700 g tomato puree packaged in a glass jar as a reference product. All the operations related to cultivating tomatoes are considered: land preparation, production and transplanting of tomato seedlings, fertilization, watering and harvesting. Each step of the post-harvesting processing is examined, including: unloading, washing and selection of tomatoes, blenching, concentration, pasteurization, filling, packaging and storing. All transport involved in the entire supply chain of this product is accounted for. The life cycle of glass jars, caps and secondary packaging is further evaluated. Primary data are gathered from farmers and a processing company located in the region of analysis, whilst Ecoinvent database v2.2 is used as source of secondary data. The assessment is performed using the CED, CML 2001 and ReCiPe methods. The water footprint for both the cultivation and the processing phase is evaluated too. The results show that packaging is the main cause of environmental impacts, and this is due particularly to the high energy demand for its production. Tomato cultivation phases have a higher environmental impact than the puree processing in most of the impact categories considered, and transport contributions show significant values too. Finally several possible improvements, such as reduction of glass weight, logistic and energy optimization, are analysed. The use of lighter primary packaging material appears to be the option with the largest environmental benefits for environmental sustainability within the whole supply chain.