Food life cycle assessment method and its application

Resources, energy consumptions and the environmental performance throughout the entire food life cycle were discussed. Life cycle assessment was introduced to food processing field, and food LCA system was established with four parts: goal and scope definition, inventory analysis, impact assessment and improvement assessment. The problems of developing food LCA in China were analyzed. A case of beer brewing process was studied, the results show that the main potential environmental factor influence orders are eutrophication, dust and solid wastes, and the corresponding evaluation values are 0.061, 0.015, 0.003, respectively. Based on it, the environmental impacts can be reduced by conducting effective wastewater treatment, improving material comminution technique and reutilizing the waste diatomite, respectively. The study shows that developing food LCA can provide basic data support for improving the environmental performance of food products, and can be of benefit to food industry sustainable development in China.