Browsing by Subject "bakery"

In this master´s thesis the quantity of the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions produced by food supply chain was studied. Also results from life cycle studies related to GHG emissions of bread, flour and some other food material were collected. In the experimental study the carbon footprints (GHG emissions, CO2 equivalents) of wheat and rye breads were calculated. Industrial scale production, Finnish grown wheat and rye, and simplified bread recipes were used as starting points. The life cycle calculations included cultivation, milling and baking phases and also consumer´s action. The amounts of GHG emissions for these phases were obtained from previous studies and the information reported by food enterprises and organizations. The cultivation of wheat and rye were studied separately, but the milling and baking processes were considered similar. The data were collected from two mills and seven bakeries and included details from energy and water consumption and the amount of organic waste and waste water produced. The emissions associated with the production of salt, baker´s yeast, vegetable fat, sugar and packaging material were also included. For consumer´s, there were two scenarios, one included transportation of bread from grocery by car, and 10 % wastage. The other included also toasting of the bread. It was calculated that the carbon footprint of bread was 1400-1500 g of CO2-equivalents/ kg bread. The cultivation´s share was 40 %, the mill´s share was 2 %, the bakery´s share was 45 % and the consumer´s share was 13 %. When the toasting of bread was included, this action alone resulted approximately 180 g more GHG emissions. There was a small difference between the carbon footprint of rye and wheat bread. The difference results mainly from differences in recipes of breads. There are not yet uniform standards to calculate the carbon footprint. Therefore a lot of generalizations and assumptions had to be made in the calculations. Nonetheless the carbon footprint obtained in this study is of the same magnitude as recently obtained in other studies performed in Europe.