Life cycle environmental impacts of ready-made meals considering different cuisines and recipes

Abstract

Convenience is one of the main determinants of modern society where products, such as ready-made meals, playa key role. However, the continuing growth of this market has raised environmental concerns, which have notbeen well studied yet. This paper evaluates life cycle environmental impacts of meals consumed in the UK, thesecond largest consumer of ready-made meals in the world, after the US. Thirteen representative ready-mademeals are evaluated in the British, Italian, Chinese and Indian cuisines, considering variations in recipes foundon the market, as well as different meat replacement options. The results suggest that environmentally themost sustainable meal option is pork roast dinner while the worst alternatives are spaghetti Bolognese, cottagepie, lamb masala curry and lasagne. For example, the global warming potential of pork roast is 2.1 kg CO2eq.and that of lasagne 5 kg CO2eq. The ingredients contributeN50% to the impacts, followed by the distribution(~14%) and manufacturing (~12%) stages. Using seitan or soy granules as meat replacements improvesfive outof 11 impacts considered, including global warming potential, by up to 27%; the other impacts are largely unaf-fected. However, if tofu is used, four impacts are improved while four others are worsened. The annual consump-tion of ready-made meals in the UK accounts for GHG emissions of 12.89 Mt. CO2eq., equivalent to emissions of awhole country, such as Jamaica. This contributes 15% to the emissions from the UK food and drink sector. It alsorepresents 8% and 15% of the personal carbon budgets for food related to climate targetsof 2 °C and 1.5 °C, respec-tively. The results of the study will be of interest to both food manufacturers and consumers, showing how theirchoices affect the environmental sustainability of this fast-growing sector.