A comparative life cycle assessment of fresh imported and frozen domestic organic blueberries consumed in Indiana
2019
Chapa, James | Salazar T, Maria Belen | Kipp, Sierra | Cai, Hua | Huang, Jen-Yi
Blueberries are a crop with significant economic value and nutritional quality. Consumption of locally grown produce is generally considered more environmentally sustainable, but blueberries cannot be grown in all regions of the U.S. in all seasons. During the winter months, consumers in Indiana have the choice of purchasing domestically grown frozen blueberries or fresh blueberries imported from abroad, most commonly Chile. Although freezing uses more energy than refrigerating blueberries, the long transport distance between Chile and Indiana makes the consideration of which alternative is more sustainable a non-trivial question. Therefore, in this study, a comparative Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) was conducted to evaluate the environmental performance of Chilean fresh organic blueberries and frozen organic blueberries produced in two representative states in the U.S. This cradle-to-consumer LCA covered the farming and harvesting, processing, transportation, and storage stages. The farming and harvesting, postharvest processing, and transportation were identified as the environmental impact hotspots. The imported fresh blueberries were more sustainable than the domestic frozen blueberries in terms of acidification, global warming, ozone layer depletion, human toxicity, fresh water and marine aquatic ecotoxicity, and photochemical oxidation, as well as human health endpoint impact. Whether consumers should choose the frozen or fresh blueberries was found to be highly sensitive to the length of frozen storage and the type of refrigerant used.
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