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Climate change impact of food distribution: The case of reverse logistics
for bread in Sweden
L. Weber
a
,L.Bartek
a,
⁎, P. Brancoli
b
,A.Sjölund
a
, M. Eriksson
a
a
Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Department of Energy and Technology, Uppsala, Sweden
b
University of Borås, Department of Resource Recovery and Building Technology, Borås, Sweden
abstractarticle info
Article history:
Received 15 October 2022
Received in revised form 24 January 2023
Accepted 24 January 2023
Available online 27 January 2023
Editor: Prof. Shabbir Gheewala
Efficient and purposeful transport of food, from primary production to waste management, is essential to drive
the necessary transition towards sustainable production and consumption of food within planetary boundaries.
This is particularlythe case for bread, oneof the most frequentlywasted food items in Europe. In Sweden, bread is
often sold under a take-back agreement wherebakeries are responsible for transportation up to thesupermarket
shelf and for thecollection of unsold products. Thisprovides an opportunity for reverse logistics, but creates a risk
of inefficient transport that could reduce the environmental benefits of prevention and valorization of surplus
bread. This study assessed the climate change impact of bread transport in Sweden and evaluated the impact
of alternative food transport pathways. Lifecycle assessment revealed the climate change impact of conventional
bread transport, from bakery gate to waste management, to be on average 49.0 g CO
2
e per kg bread with 68 %
deriving from long-distance transport, 26 % from short-distance delivery, and 6 % from waste transport. Evalua-
tion of alternative bread transport pathways showed the highest climate savings with a collaborative transport
approach that also reduced the need for small vehicles and decreased transport distances. The overall contribu-
tion of wastetransport to the total climate impact of foodtransport was low forall scenario routes analyzed, sug-
gesting that food waste management facilitating high-value recovery and valorization could be prioritized
without increasing the climate impact due to longer transport. It has been claimed that conventional take-back
agreements are responsible for most of the climate change impact related to bread transport, but we identified
long distances between bakeries and retailers as the main contributor to transport climate impacts.
© 2023 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd on behalf of Institution of Chemical Engineers. This is an open access
article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
Keywords:
Life cycle assessment (LCA)
Resource recovery
Transport emissions
Valorization
Food transport
Take-back agreement
1. Introduction
Maintaining a stable supply of high-quality food products, without
compromising planetary boundaries, is a fundamental cornerstone of
sustainable food systems. The current food supply chain often heavily
relies on long-distance transport supporting import and export of
goods, which requires various means of transportation. Meanwhile,
over one-third of the food produced globally is wasted, with recent es-
timates indicating that 17 % is wasted solely at retail, food service, and
household level (UNEP, 2021). This means that considerable amounts
of food are produced in vain and also transported unnecessarily. Trans-
port has been shown to account for around 19 % of total greenhouse gas
emissions from the food system (Li et al., 2022), so avoiding unneces-
sary transport could reduce the environmental burden of food and
help achieve important sustainability goals. Food waste reduction
through prevention, resource recovery and valorization are recognized
as critical measures to reduce the climate impact related to food (Bos-
Brouwers et al., 2020), but the influence of avoidable food waste trans-
port is rarely considered. There is also a risk that a shift to more circular
systems, where food waste is valorized to a larger degree, will require
even more transportation. This potential trade-off must be assessed, as
whether the benefits of valorization and recovery of surplus food justify
the required transportation is still unknown. Thus, in order to achieve
sustainable production and consumption of food, the impact of food
transport must be quantified.
Bread is one of the most frequently wasted food products in the
European Union (EU) (Narisetty et al., 2021), and thereforethe environ-
mental impact of the bread supply chain is attracting much scientificat-
tention. In Sweden alone, around 80,000 tons of bread are wasted each
year, which correspond to roughly 20 % of total bread produced
(Brancoli, 2021). This bread is thus produced and transported without
fulfilling its intended purpose: to be sold and consumed as food. Around
90 % of pre-packaged bread distributed in Sweden is sold under a take-
back agreement (TBA) which, rooted in the concept of reverse logistics,
involves combined delivery and pick-upof bread by the producers. The
Sustainable Production and Consumption 36 (2023) 386–396
⁎Corresponding author.
E-mail address: louise.bartek@slu.se (L. Bartek).
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.spc.2023.01.018
2352-5509/© 2023 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd onbehalf of Institution of Chemical Engineers. This is an open access articleunder the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.
org/licenses/by/4.0/).
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Sustainable Production and Consumption
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/spc
benefits of TBAs are that they allow a clean waste stream and avoid
empty backhaul by trucks. However, the prevalentparadigm of deliver-
ing as fresh as possible affects the logistics infrastructure and transport
distances covered to use shelf space effectively. Moreover, it has been
established that take-back practices for surplus food, such as bread,
fresh vegetables, and milk, constitute a major risk factor for waste gen-
eration at the supplier-retailer interface. When operating under a take-
back policy, retailers only payfor the amount sold and producers are re-
quired to remove unsold items and refill shelves with fresh produce. For
the Swedish bread market, which is dominated by a few large compa-
nies with a handful of bakeries with a combined market share of around
86 %, this inevitably requires considerable transportation and logisticsto
maintain efficiency. Both long- and short-distance transport are re-
quired within the Swedish bread system, although the climate burden
of this transport is unknown despite the established relation between
transport and climate change impact (Kreier, 2022).
To our knowledge, no previous study has performed an in-depth as-
sessment of the transport required to facilitate food waste transport in
Sweden. A detailed and comparative assessment of the climate change
impact from of transportation on food systems is also lacking. This
might be because the agricultural process stages often tend to dominate
climate change impact along the supply chain (Notarnicola et al., 2017),
and have therefore been the main hotspot for improving the food
supply chain. However, this general research gap prevents holistic
evaluation of potential benefits and limitations of the food supply
chain, especially considering the goal conflicts of food waste reduction
and lower transport emissions. The environmental burdens of food
transport must be assessed in order to fully achieve sustainable produc-
tion and consumption of food. Ultimately, this will require identification
of potential trade-offs between transportation to facilitate valorization
and reduced food waste, on one hand, and high climate impact on the
other. The aims of this study were to quantify the climate impact of
the TBA system and of alternative bread supply chain scenarios in
Sweden, and to identify climate impact hotspots and opportunities to
make the bread supply chain more environmentally sustainable.
2. Literature review
Due to its short supply chain lead time, perishability and limited
shelf-life, bread has high potential for waste generation (Ghosh and
Eriksson, 2019;Ciccullo et al., 2022). Additional factors contributing to
bread waste generation at the supplier-retailer interface are quality
standards, cost pressure, and consumer demand for variety and fresh-
ness (Brancoli et al., 2019;van Herpen and Jaegers, 2022). Overfilling
of shelves to attract customers and removalof items from shelves before
their expiration date are other identified drivers of waste (Rosenlund
et al., 2020;Goryńska-Goldmann et al., 2021;Riesenegger and
Hübner, 2022). A few studies have touched upon the supplier-retailer
interface of bread in Sweden (Eriksson et al., 2017;Brancoli et al.,
2019;Bergström et al., 2020), although without exploring possible re-
organization options for alternative pathways.
The food system requires transportation to enable recycling, valori-
zation, and food waste management, especially for food products dis-
tributed under reverse logistics agreements and TBAs (Eriksson et al.,
2017). Food distributed under such agreements offers unique potential
for recovery and valorization of clean waste flows, since it is not mixed
with other organic waste. Clean waste flows in turn can enable use of
higher valorization or prevention methods, such as food donations
(Sundin et al., 2022) or animal feed production instead of anaerobic
digestion or incineration commonly used for mixed food waste
(Johansson, 2021;UNEP, 2021). Despite these potential benefits, take-
back clauses have previously been identified as a potential hotspot for
food waste generation (Cicatiello et al., 2017;Rosenlund et al., 2020;
Goryńska-Goldmann et al., 2021). In particular, overproduction (with
increased returns as a consequence), pre-store waste and excess stock
due to lack of supplier-retailer communication, combined with
inefficient forecasting and long transport, are known risk factors
(Priefer et al., 2016;Bergström et al., 2020). Research on the Swedish
bread supply chain has primarily focused on the power relations within
the TBA system and bread waste treatment options, but assessments
quantifying the transport impact on climate change are increasingly
demanded (Kreier, 2022;Li et al., 2022;Pradhan, 2022). When evaluat-
ing the bread return process for commercial plant bakeries in South
Africa, Muzivi and Sunmola (2021) found similar areas for improve-
ments, in relation to reverse logistics, as for the Swedish bread supply
chain. Someof the identified improvement areas were waste generation
arising from current return policies, alongside oversight regarding man-
agement returns and fresh bread. Bottani et al. (2019) evaluated multi-
ple reverse logistics scenarios for food waste management in Italy, and
concludedthat there are also important trade-offs to consider between
impacts on the environment and the most economically profitable solu-
tions. However, theclimate change impact related to logistics and trans-
port inherent to food distributed under TBAs in Sweden, particularly
relating to possible re-organization of food distribution in a non-TBA
system, has not yet been determined.
The European Commission (2019) has recognized return policies as
a possible point to reduce food waste, while the latest IPCC report
(2020) highlighted that reducing food wastage also is a key lever in
combating climate change. Food waste reduction is further addressed
in United Nations Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 12 (Sustainable
consumption and production), which explicitly identifies the need to
halve global food waste per capita at the retail and consumer levels. A
study on retail waste management by Mondello et al. (2017) suggested
that the transport network organization can also affect the environmen-
tal performance of waste management options. Reducing food waste
can also improve the energy and resource-efficiency of food systems
(Garnett, 2011), lower greenhouse gas emissions along the supply
chain (Wunder et al., 2020), reduce the pressure on natural resources,
and help to meet increasing demand (FAO, 2019). Efficient food trans-
port can thus also contribute positively to SDG 13 (Climate action)
and the climate goal to reduce greenhouse gas emissions within the
transport sector by 60 % (compared with 1990) by 2050. A more sustain-
able transport sector will therefore play an important part in achieving the
Paris Agreement (United Nations, 2020), especially considering that
transport-related greenhouse gas emissions are projected to increase sub-
stantially in the coming years (Liimatainen et al., 2014a). This is especially
important given that the transport sector still relies to 65 % on petroleum
products (Swedish Energy Agency, 2021) and is responsible for about
one-third of Sweden's emissions, of which 90 % derive from road trans-
port (Xylia and Olsson, 2021). Road transport is one of the three largest
sources of greenhouse gas emissions in the EU, causing around 72 % of
total domestic and international transport emissions (EEA, 2021;IEA,
2021;Aminzadegan et al., 2022). The main factors influencing transport
emissions are vehicle type and size, fuel type and consumption, traffic
conditions, vehicle load and fuel efficiency, empty trips, and factors such
as refrigeration (Liimatainen et al., 2014b;Liang et al., 2016;Stelwagen
et al., 2021). With improved infrastructure, fossil free means of transpor-
tation and efficient logistic, future transport pathways could facilitate re-
duced emissions of greenhouse gases on one hand, and reduce food
waste by allowing more high-value valorization on the other.
While prevention and valorization of food waste have been shown to
reduce the environmental burden of the food supply chain (Brancoli et al.,
2020;Despoudi et al., 2021;Do et al., 2021), the environmental impact of
transportation required for these measures is often omitted or assessed
using a constant value (Notarnicola et al., 2017;Magalhães et al., 2021).
Compared with other food chain stages, such as primary production and
waste management, the influence from transport is often assumed to
have a small contribution to greenhouse gas emissions (Wakeland et al.,
2012). However, the dependency on fossil fuels and the frequency of
food transport can add considerably to the climate change impact.
When considering the entire upstream food supply chain, Li et al.
(2022) showed that 19 % of total climate emissions from the food system
L. Weber, L. Bartek, P. Brancoli et al. Sustainable Production and Consumption 36 (2023) 386–396
387
originate from transport. This corresponds to around 3.0 GtCO
2
eperyear,
a considerably higher value than previously estimated (Pradhan, 2022).
When assessing the impact of valorization of surplus bread in Sweden,
Brancoli et al. (2020) recognized the inadequacy of using a constant
value to account for food transport impact. In later work, Brancoli
(2021) emphasized the need for research on this issue. When examining
the distribution of food products in Sweden, Tidåker et al. (2021) found a
high climate impact from transport, especially for food produced and
packaged far from their final destination. When assessing the environ-
mental benefits of reusing bread waste as animal feedstock, Castellani
et al. (2017) highlighted collection and redistribution of waste as one of
the most critical challenges needed to be overcome. In previous life
cycle assessments (LCA) on bread conducted outside the scope of
Sweden, transport was not identified as an impact hotspot, contributing
to only 5 % of the carbon footprint for bread in a study by Espinoza-
Orias et al. (2011).Jensen and Arlbjørn (2014) compared the results
of several LCAs and found that transport made up between 2.4 % and
35.4 % of estimated life cycle emissions from bread, excluding waste
management and consumption. When applying a constant value for
long distance transport and local distribution of food items, Notarnicola
et al. (2017) found that around 10 % of the total climate change impact
originated from the logistics.
Efficient, low-emissions transport is also a key aspect of sustainable
production and consumption of food (Cohen et al., 2021), especially
considering the current high dependence on fossil fuels to power logis-
tics in all stages of the food supply chain (Meyer, 2020;Kreier, 2022). A
pioneering study by Menna et al. (2019) found that transport of surplus
food from generation to waste treatment considerably contributed to
the overall climate impact in multiple European countries.They further
concluded that efficient transport involving shorter distances, alterna-
tive modes of transport with high utility rates, and fossil-free vehicles,
is one of the most important factors to maximize the environmental
benefits of surplus food valorization. Stelwagen et al. (2021) further
concluded that the environmental impact of the last mile in urban
food systems (i.e., due to consumer choices) can be considerable, but
has been overlooked in most previous studies. A similar conclusion
was reached by Croci et al. (2021), who emphasized the benefits of re-
placing fossil fuels with renewable alternatives in transport vehicles.
The importance of addressing the future need for transport and infra-
structure, rather than primarily relying on the estimates and demands
of today, was also raised by Metson et al. (2022) when addressing the
logistical requirements for future food recycling. At present, only a few
data on the transport required for Swedish bread have been made pub-
lic, with somewhat conflicting information stating that bread transport
in Sweden is either short (Brödinstitutet, 2016;Sitell, 2020) or that both
long- and short-distance transport are required (Polarbröd, 2020). The
general order of magnitude for bread transport in Sweden can be exem-
plified by the distance between bakery and retail. For bread baked in
Fig. 1. Illustration of transport requirements in the Swedish bread supply chain,from bakery gate to waste treatment facility,for the current take-back agreement systemand for the six
alternative systems. The dashed line represents the system boundary.
L. Weber, L. Bartek, P. Brancoli et al. Sustainable Production and Consumption 36 (2023) 386–396
388
southern Sweden (Malmö) and sold in the northernmost supermarket
in Sweden (ICA Nära Riksgränsen, 2022), the required transport dis-
tance is 1973 km for the quickest freight route. Although most bread
is transported between more densely populated areas (southern and
central) in Sweden, this example shows that long-distance transporta-
tion is needed. Given the established connection between climate
change impact and supply chain logistics, the importance of adequately
accounting for the environmental impact of food transportin Sweden is
evident. The outcomeof this study therefore aim to fill this researchgap,
by modeling and assessing multiple transport pathways for bread. By
identifying key hotspots for impact, this study further aims to evaluate
potential trade-offs between climate change impact driven by transport
and food waste management.
3. Material and method
3.1. Goal and scope
A systematic life cycle assessment following the ISO (2006a, 2006b)
standards was used to quantify and identify the climate change impact
of bread waste transport. The functional unit (FU) of 1 kg bread leaving
the bakery gate was selected to capture the main function of thesystem,
with the system boundary including all transport necessary from the
bakery gate to delivery at the waste management facility. The return
trip, when applicable, was accounted for in the waste transport stage.
All bread was assumed to be edible when discarded at the retail level,
as assumed by Ghosh and Eriksson (2019). Additional energy use and
emissions related to construction, maintenance, and disposal of infra-
structure were excluded from theanalysis. Primary datawere obtained
from an ongoing internal data collection drive via e-mail conversations
and semi-structured interviews with retailers,bakeries, and other rele-
vant industry stakeholders. These data were combined with data from
publicly available company information and reports, documents of pub-
lic authorities, and scientific articles. Data on electricity and vehicles
were used from Ecoinvent 3.8 and DEFRA (2021).
3.2. Description of scenarios
The currentTBA system for bread in Sweden was assessed as a base
scenario, to which alternative transport pathways were applied to en-
able the evaluation of six alternative scenarios based on either TBA or
non-TBA systems (Fig. 1).
The three largest bakery companies producing pre-packaged bread
in Sweden were included in the analysis, as approximately 90 % of the
pre-packaged bread sold in Sweden is sold under TBA (Eriksson et al.,
2017) and the three largest companies together account for 85 % of
the market share (Brancoli, 2021). A route from each bakery to each of
three selected reference cities (Uppsala, Gävle, Gothenburg) was
modeled (Fig. 2) and emissions calculated with regard to their market
share. An average emissions result for each bakerywas then determined
and the values for all bakeries were combined. A default route for local
delivery to retail wasmodeled based on available data and information.
The waste transport was calculated for each scenario assuming an opti-
mal transport route based on the shortest distance, available infrastruc-
ture, or company-specific information. In all scenarios, a return rate of
7.7 % at the retail level was assumed, representing the average return
rate for bread in Sweden (Brancoli, 2021). The distance of transport
routes required from the bakery gate, via distribution hubs and retail,
to the waste treatment facility, was quantified and mapped for the
Swedish bread supply system, and the value was used as input to design
a transportation model. A total of seven scenarios were modeled
(Table 1), toassess the impact of transport on bread waste management
for the three Swedish reference cities.
The first two scenarios were designed to on one hand capture the
conventional TBA system for bread in Sweden with bread waste di-
rected to either bioethanol or animal feed, and on the other hand to cap-
ture a conceptual scenario in which bread is delivered without a TBA.
Without the TBA in place it can be assumed that more bread waste
will be treated via anaerobic digestion, as is done for the majority of
food waste in Sweden (Johansson, 2021). Transport distances and vehi-
cles used to model these scenarios are presented in Table 2. Calculations
Fig. 2. Map showing important locations in the bread supply chain and surplus bread
transport in Sweden.
Table 1
Summary of the seven scenarios assessed, with specific characterizations and modeled waste treatment practice. U = Uppsala, Gä = Gävle, Go = Gothenburg, TBA = take-back
agreement.
No Scenario name TBA Key characteristics Waste treatment
1 Take back agreement Yes Conventional system, representing the current transport and logistics used for pre-packaged bread in Sweden. Ethanol (U)
Animal feed (Gä/Go)
2 Anaerobic digestion No Conceptual scenario in which retailers handle surplus bread, using different waste transport distance compared
with scenario 1.
Anaerobic digestion
3 Food donation Yes Same as scenario 1, but using different waste transport distance. Donation
4 Animal feed Yes Same as scenario 1, but using different waste transport distance. Animal feed
5 Ethanol Yes Same as scenario 1, but using different waste transport distance for Gävle and Gothenburg. Ethanol
6 Co-logistics Yes Same as scenario 1, with larger vehicle size representing an integrated logistics system. Ethanol (U)
Animal feed (Gä / Go)
7 Frozen bread Yes Same as scenario 1, but with all bread delivered frozen, requiring freezer vehicles for all transport except waste
transport.
Ethanol (U)
Animal feed (Gä / Go)
L. Weber, L. Bartek, P. Brancoli et al. Sustainable Production and Consumption 36 (2023) 386–396
389
of all transport stages, including a detailed version for long-distancede-
livery, are provided in Supplementary Material.
Other scenarios were designed to account for other common food
waste management strategies applied for surplus bread in Sweden,
namely food donation, reuse as animal feed, and ethanol production
(Johansson, 2021). These are in line with the priority levels suggested
by the food waste hierarchy (Papargyropoulou et al., 2014). Moreover,
a collaborative logistics (co-logistics) scenario was developed to simu-
late an integration of a multiple-actor approach to bread waste treat-
ment (Liang et al., 2016). Long-distance and short-distance transport
were assumed to be the same as for the TBA scenario, with changes to
waste transport in the alternative scenarios shown in Table 3.
The final scenario considered the option of delivering all bread in
frozen form (Table 4), as a way to adapt and adjust shelf volumes by
storing bread frozen (van Herpen and Jaegers, 2022). In theory, this
could also be an option for a non-TBA scenario, and could reduce
bread waste generation at retail.
3.3. Sensitivity analysis
To increase the robustness of the results, several sensitivity analyses
were performed (Table 5). Transport distances in all three transport
stages considered (long, short, waste) were identified as influential
parameters in this study and were therefore adjusted in several sepa-
rate analyses. For the short-distance (delivery to retail) stage, the dis-
tance was adjusted to facilitate detailed analysis of the influence of
short-distance on the final results. A similar sensitivity was tested for
the waste transport stage in the anaerobic digestion scenario, allowing
for closer analysis of the limitations of local waste treatment. For both
mentioned sensitivity analyses an increase and decrease in distance
was assumed to 20 % and 50 %, which aimed to capture the influence
of local transport variations and delivery to more rural areas in
Sweden. The waste transport distance for the donation scenario was in-
creased to 25 km, to test whether its benefit is lost in the case of limited
local availability for bread donations. To adjust long-distance delivery
transport distance, it was assumed that all bread is baked centralized,
taking Eskilstuna as a reference point. This allowed to test the influence
of the long-distance delivery stage, by simulating baking closer to the
consumer. Bread return rate, i.e., bread waste rate, was also identified
as an influential parameter as it affects the weight of bread transported
per functional unit. The sensitivity to changes in this parameter was
assessed by increasing the waste rate to 10 % and decreasing it to 2 %,
to simulate the highest and lowest waste rates previously reported
(Brancoli, 2021). Moreover, the presence of a threshold transport dis-
tance beyond which the animal feed scenario outperformed the anaer-
obic digestion scenario was evaluated.
4. Results
The conventional take-back agreement transport system for bread in
Sweden was found to emit on average 49.0 gCO
2
e per kg bread leaving
the bakery gate, of which 68 % occurred during long-distance transport,
26 % during short-distance delivery, and only 6 % during waste transport
(Fig. 3). In all scenarios assessed, Uppsala was found to have a higher cli-
mate impact than the other reference cities, with anet difference of 14g
CO
2
e per kg bread compared with Gothenburg, with city with the
lowest climate impact. The lowest emissions in all three cities were
found for the co-logistics scenario, which gave an average reduction of
13 % for Uppsala, 10 % for Gävle, and 16 % for Gothenburg.
For all three cities assessed, the food donation scenario gave on aver-
age a 7 % emissions reduction compared with the current TBA transport
pathways, while the animal feed and ethanolscenarios showed negligi-
ble reduction potential. Directly comparing the TBA and anaerobic di-
gestion scenario revealed on average 5 % lower climate impact when
considering all cities, but with higher climate impact mitigation poten-
tial for Gävle and Uppsala than for Gothenburg. The frozen bread
Table 2
Transport distances and vehicles assumed for the conventional take-back agreement sys-
tem (scenario 1) and a conceptual Anaerobicdigestion system (scenario 2), expressed per
1 kg bread leaving the bakery gate.
1: Take back
agreement
scenario
Long distance
(km)
Short distance
(km)
Waste transport
(km)
Uppsala Train (180.1 km)
Freight (341.1 km)
Train
Frozen
(132.0 km)
Freight
Frozen
(2.5 km)
Truck (25.6 km) Truck (225 km)
Gothenburg Train (214.0 km)
Freight (77.0 km)
Train
Frozen
(216.0 km)
Freight
Frozen
(3.0 km)
Truck (31 km) Truck (133.5 + 26 km)
Gävle Train (137.0 km)
Freight (341 km)
Train
Frozen
(112 km)
Freight
Frozen
(2 km)
Truck (18 km) Truck (418.8 + 55 km)
2: Anaerobic
digestion
scenario
Long distance
(km)
Short distance
(km)
Waste transport
(km)
Uppsala Train (180.1 km)
Freight (341.1 km)
Train
Frozen
(132 km)
Freight
Frozen
(2.5 km)
Truck (25.6
km)
Truck (4.3 km)
Gothenburg Train (214 km)
Freight (77 km)
Train
Frozen
(216 km)
Freight
Frozen
(3 km)
Truck (31 km) Truck (13.5 km)
Gävle Train (137 km)
Freight (341 km)
Train
Frozen
(112 km)
Freight
Frozen
(2 km)
Truck (18 km) Truck (20.2 km)
Table 3
Transport distance and vehicles used in the alternative transport scenarios for bread waste (scenarios 3–6), expressed per 1 kg bread.
3: Food donation scenario
Waste transport (km)
4: Animal feed scenario
Waste transport (km)
5: Ethanol scenario
Waste transport (km)
6: Co-logistics scenario
Waste transport (km)
Uppsala Truck (6.2 km) Truck (413.9 + 9 km) Truck (225 km) Truck (6.2 km)
Gothenburg Truck (3.9 km) Truck (133.5 + 26 km) Truck (319 km) Truck (3.9 km)
Gävle Truck (3.3 km) Truck (418.8 + 55 km) Truck (330 km) Truck (3.3 km)
Table 4
Transportdistance and vehiclesneeded for frozen bread transport (scenario 7), expressed
per 1 kg bread.
7: Frozen
bread
scenario
Long distance
(km)
Short distance
(km)
Waste transport
(km)
Uppsala Train
Frozen
(312.5 km)
Freight
Frozen
(343.6 km)
Freezer truck (25.6km) Truck (225 km)
Gothenburg Train
Frozen
(430 km)
Freight
Frozen
(80 km)
Freezer truck (31 km) Truck (133.5 + 26 km)
Gävle Train
Frozen
(249 km)
Freight
Frozen
(344 km)
Freezer truck (18 km) Truck (418.8 + 55 km)
L. Weber, L. Bartek, P. Brancoli et al. Sustainable Production and Consumption 36 (2023) 386–396
390
scenario was found to give the highest emissions of all scenarios, 40 %
higher than average. The conventional TBA, animal feed and ethanol
scenarios had considerably lower emissions than the frozen bread sce-
nario and performed similarly in the case of Uppsala and Gävle, but
gave notably lower emissions for Gothenburg.
4.1. Sensitivity results
Changing thedefault bakery location to Eskilstuna lowered the aver-
age long-distance delivery emissions per scenario by 17 % (Fig. 4). For
Uppsala the climate impact was reduced by more than half and for
Gävle it was reduced by almost 40 %, while for Gothenburg the climate
impact increased by 40 % (see Supplementary Material). Since a bakery
was located in Gothenburg in the baseline scenario, changing location
to Eskilstuna was not beneficial. Long-distance delivery proved to be
the most sensitive stage in all sensitivity analyses, which is logical con-
sidering the large fraction of total emissions caused by long-distance
transport. However, the Eskilstuna baking location gave a similar rank-
ing of the scenarios in terms of emissions reduction potential (co-logis-
tics, food donation, anaerobic digestion, animal feed, conventional TBA
system, ethanol, frozen bread).
Emissions in the waste transport stage were found to increase or
decrease proportionally with the change in waste rate, with a 1.7 %
increase in emissions for 10 % waste rate and a 6 % decrease for 2 %
waste rate. On adjusting the transport distance in the waste transport
stage of the donation scenario to 25 km, the climate impact of this
stage increased by 3 % on average, making the donation scenario third
lowest in terms of climate impact(changing position with the anaerobic
digestion scenario in the order of results). Adjustments to the local de-
livery distance caused smaller changes in climate impact, e.g., a 20 % dis-
tance increase led to a 5 % emissions increase and a 50 % distance
increase caused a 14 % emissions increase, while a 20 % and 50 % dis-
tance decrease led to a 5 % and 14 % emissions decrease, respectively.
This is primarily attributable to the fact that this stage only made up a
small proportion of total emissions. The ranking of scenarios and cities
remained the same, so despite the medium strong sensitivity of this
transport stage, changes in distance did not affect the favorability of
the scenarios. Despite the different transport pathways simulated, the
non-TBA anaerobic digestion scenario always outperformed the animal
feed scenario. Therefore, the threshold value was 0 km, for all assessed
cities.
Adjustments in the distance for local delivery in theanaerobic diges-
tion scenario had a negligible and under-proportional effect on the total
sum of emissions. An increase/decrease of 20 % led to less than 1 %
change in emissions, while for an increase/decrease of 50 % the change
was only ~1 %. This indicates that the results were not very sensitive
to changes in this part of the transport system, for the anaerobic diges-
tion treatment option, but once again this must be viewed in light of the
low contribution to total emissions of this transport stage. These results
must be considered within the context of waste treatmentand emission
savings potential, which was outside the system boundary of this study.
5. Discussion
One important outcome of this study was the quantification of po-
tential climate change impacts from transportation of food waste,
using pathways within the Swedish bread supply chain as a realistic ex-
ample. Previous studies on bread waste and bread waste management
in Sweden have not assessed the logistics system and distribution alter-
natives of its supply chain in detail, so the novel findings in this study
improve knowledge of the actual climate impact and relevant hotspots
in future logistics options for the bread supply chain. Although exempli-
fied specifically for the bread supply chain, the results illustrate the
Table 5
Sensitivity tests performed, showing parameter values changed for the respective
scenarios (1–7).
No. Scenario Parameter changed Value of parameter change
1–7 All Short-distance Distance changed ±20 %
and ± 50 %
2 Anaerobic digestion Waste transport Distance changed ±20 %
and ± 50 %
3 Food donation Waste transport Increased distance to 25 km
1–7 All Bread waste rate Decreased to 2 % and
increased to 10 %
1–7 All Long-distance Bakery location changed,
centralized in Eskilstuna
Fig. 3. Climate impact results for all scenarios and reference cities. The contribution of each process to total impact is indicated.
L. Weber, L. Bartek, P. Brancoli et al. Sustainable Production and Consumption 36 (2023) 386–396
391
importance of adequately accounting for waste transport, especially
long-distance transport, within the food system.
5.1. Environmental impact of bread waste transport
The primary climate impact hotspot within bread waste transport
was found to be long-distance transport, generating 68 % of total trans-
port emissions, which is in line with previous findings (Tidåker et al.,
2021). However, itis important to note that the modeled transport sys-
tem in this study assumed a constant share of long-distance transportin
all scenarios. Part of the long-distance delivery in this study (long-dis-
tance transport below 350 km) was assumed to be fully via truck, thus
offering future emissions reduction potential through increased rail
freight. Liang et al. (2016)found that multi-modal approaches including
rail transport can improve transport energy efficiency. However, to
make this feasible, cost-benefit and time aspects must also be assessed,
to determine whether they might outweigh environmental benefits.
Comparing each city, it was evident that hosting a bakery (in this
study Gothenburg) gave the lowest climate impact (Fig. 3). This sug-
gests a benefit in producing close to the consumer. In the calculations,
hosting a bakery avoided a full route that would otherwise increase
the average distance. It is important to note that this study excluded
raw material sourcing and a considerable associated transportation ef-
fort, which could lead to different conclusions. Furthermore, trade-offs
across value chain stages are possible. Sensitivity testing showed that
the climate impact could be reduced by 17 % by reducing long-
distance transport distance. Thus, an argument can be made for moving
large-scale bread production closer to more densely populated regions,
in order to reduce transport emissions and thereby also lower the total
climate impact of the food supply chain. When evaluating future devel-
opment strategies for low-emissions transport of food, this fact should
be considered.
Local delivery to retail also had a high climate impact (Fig. 3), which
can be explained by the location of redistribution centers quite far out-
side the assessed cities. As voiced by Stelwagen et al. (2021), this under-
lines the importance of the last mile covered in delivering goods which
commonly involves smaller trucks with higher emissions per kg load, as
reported previously. Moreover, sensitivity analysis evaluating increased
transport distance for delivery to retail showed an under-proportional
increase in emissions, and therefore short distance transport was
found not to be sensitive to assumptions made in this study. This
stage could benefit from electrification of vehicles, which could reduce
air pollution, traffic congestion, noise, and accident risks, although elec-
tric vehicles still lack sufficient range to transport heavy goods over c on-
siderable distances (Liimatainen et al., 2014a, 2014b).
Average transport emissions were found to be 49 g CO
2
eper
functional unit, which is broadly in line with findings in previous LCA
studies on bread supply of 70 g CO
2
e(Jensen and Arlbjørn, 2014) and
on the transport stages in bread supply of 29 g CO
2
e(Espinoza-Orias
et al., 2011). The difference in results could be due to several reasons.
For example, Jensen and Arlbjørn (2014) assumed a distance of
175 km from depot to retail, much higher than the 18–31 km assumed
in this study, likely increasing the emissions as this transportstage typ-
ically involves use of small vehicles, and Espinoza-Orias et al. (2011) as-
sumed a distance of 50 km from bakery to retail, which is much lower
than the distance modeled here. In general, the results in this study
can be considered to support previous findings as they are within the
same orderof magnitude and highlight similar climate impact hotspots.
A study by Angervall (2011) found transport to be, on average, the sec-
ond highest contributor to the climate impact of industrialized baked
bread in Sweden. They considered the whole life cycle, showing
that the carbon footprint of bread was around 700 gCO
2
e per kg of
bread. Combined with average climate impact of transport assessed in
this study, this translates to roughly 7 % impact origin from transport.
This is in line with previous findings (Espinoza-Orias et al., 2011;
Jensen and Arlbjørn, 2014). The findings from Angervall (2011)
on climate change impact from transport indicates a wide variation
(~40 to ~300 gCO
2
e per kg bread). This variation could be explained
by the fact that did not use average values based on market share, as
done in this study. Instead they performed calculations separately for
four bakeries located at different sites throughout Sweden and using
different transport systems (e.g. with or without freezer units and/or
using only trucks or using both trucks and trains for the long-distance
transports). Their analysis also included inbound transport of raw and
packaged materials to the bakeries, which was outside the system
boundaries of the present study, and they did not explicitly describe
how waste transport was accounted for.
The climate impact from waste transport was found to account for
on average only 6 % of the total transport required. On the one hand
this low number is connected to the small amount of bread transported,
amounting to only ~0.079 kg, on the other hand this percentage is nota-
bly an average value which takes into account both larger distances, for
instance to ethanol production or in the case of the TBA, but also short
waste transport distances of around 5 km. Nevertheless, waste trans-
port was still highly dependent on the waste treatment pathway. The
climate impact of transport to waste treatment facility was found to
be lowest for the food donation scenario (1 % of total impact) and
highest for the ethanol scenario (8 % of total impact). The anaerobic di-
gestion scenario performed slightly better than the scenarios involving
changes to the conventional TBA transport system for bread, but did
not reduce the climate impact considerably. This again indicates that
Fig. 4. Climate change impact resultsfor the average Swedish city, with respectto all assessed sensitivity analyses. The magnitude ofimpact from each scenario is indicated to enable com-
parison between the different sensitivity results.
L. Weber, L. Bartek, P. Brancoli et al. Sustainable Production and Consumption 36 (2023) 386–396
392
the conventional TBA system itself might not be the primary cause of
transport-related impact, but rather the transport and waste treatment
options used and their locations. In transport for the food donation sce-
nario and theanaerobic digestion scenario, a benefitoflocalwastetreat-
ment was found. Compared withthe ethanol scenario, where the waste
was assumed to be transported farther away from cities, the local trans-
port alternatives performed on average 7 % better in terms of emissions
per kg bread (Fig. 3), regardless of whether smaller or larger vehicles
were used. This indicates a clear benefit of short-distance waste trans-
port, but the advantages of short-distance waste transport were also af-
fected by the location of the waste treatment plant, as shown by the
slightly higher emissions for anaerobic digestion waste transport in
Gävle. This should be taken under consideration when assessing differ-
ent waste treatment options in more rural areas.
Overall, the waste transport stage was strongly limited by the cur-
rent TBA, but was not identified as a primary impact hotspot. However,
the difference in emissions from the waste transport stage between the
TBA scenario and non-TBA scenario was on average 66 % for allthree cit-
ies assessed, indicating an important leverage point for future improve-
ments towards more sustainable transport of food. In the TBA scenario,
waste transport resulted in thesecond largest emissions of all scenarios.
This underlines the disadvantage of transporting bread back to the
bakery, even when using a large vehicle, for a treatment option that is
likely available locally. Interestingly, the frequently recommended op-
tion of using the clean stream of TBA bread for ethanol production
(Hirschnitz-Garbers and Gosens, 2015;Brancoli et al., 2020), to achieve
considerable emissions reductions while obtaining an economic return
for the waste, had a less positive ranking in this study, giving the second
highest transport emissions (Fig. 3). Thus it can be questioned whether
its benefits might be outweighed by the transport emissions. Many of
these transport emissions are connected to the current limited infra-
structure for ethanol production, with only two bioethanol plants cur-
rently operating in Sweden. This indicates a need for further plants,
but also shows the benefit of local waste treatment. The results for the
ethanol scenario make it clear why some bakeries decide to direct
bread from the Uppsala and Stockholm regions to ethanol production,
but bakeries in other parts of Sweden choose not to do so. Overall, the
results show that transport network organization can affect the envi-
ronmental performance of waste management and that distance is par-
ticularly critical for ethanol production, which is in line with previous
findings (Mondello et al., 2017;Brancoli, 2021).
5.2. Limitations and scenario analysis
Although offering a cleanwaste flow for surplus bread, which in turn
allows for valorization and prevention according to higher prioritization
levels, the current TBA system for bread limits additional climate sav-
ings by not allowing incorporation of alternative transport pathways
such as co-logistics. The results obtained in this study indicated the fol-
lowing preferred ranking of the fresh bread scenarios, from lowest to
highest climate impact per kg bread: co-logistics, food donation, anaer-
obic digestion, animal feed, conventional TBA system, and ethanol.
However, indirect effects of the TBA system on the long-distance deliv-
ery stage are possible and it could be speculated that delivery frequency
would increase with a non-TBA system, with more frequent deliveries
of smaller volumes to maintain the standard of freshness and a wide
product range on supermarket shelves, without requiring removal of
older bread. Higher delivery frequency with smaller volumes could re-
sult in greater usage of smaller trucks, thus increasing emissions. Incor-
porating weekly or monthly delivery volumes into the model in future
analyses would enable assessment of delivery frequency and bread re-
moval and refill rates in different bread supply chain scenarios. This
would allow for an in-depth investigationof the effect of the TBA system
on long-distance transport and possible rebound effects. An assessment
of the impact of prospective solutions, such asthe non-TBAscenarios in
this study, is always associated with limitations, as LCA cannot account
for the influence of future developments. The differences between a TBA
and non-TBA system, particularly at the delivery stages, can be evalu-
ated for different vehicle load utilization rates, depending on whether
unsold bread is picked up during the delivery trip or not. However,
the change in load was minimal in the present model, and the datasets
used did not allow modeling of small percentage changes in load.
Delivery to retail made a relatively small contribution to total im-
pact, but emissions in this transport stage are primarily connected to
the use of small vehicles and can further increase due to urban traffic
conditions, a factor not accounted for in this study. Importantly, future
assessments should take both urban and rural areas into account,
which will likely result in higher climate impact for the latter, as more
transport efforts are needed to maintain a stable distribution of bread.
Additionally, this study assumed conventional diesel fuel use in trans-
port, a simplification that could cause overestimation of climate impact
values since use of biodiesel in Sweden has increased to roughly 20 % of
the total energy use within the transport sector. Therefore, use of alter-
native fuels such as biodiesel and electricity should be accounted for in
future studies. Notably, the relative benefit of biofuels over fossil diesel
decreases when taking its impact on land-use change into account. In
this study, including a single impact category allowed for a detailed in-
vestigation of the different scenarios, but could also have increased the
risk of burden-shifting, as stressed by Jensen and Arlbjørn (2014).This
underlines that greenhouse gas emissions alone are not a reliable
indicator of the environmental impact of transportation. Thus, future
researchwould benefit from employing an even more holistic approach,
by assessing the food transport impact including multiple impact cate-
gories such as smog, land use, or acidification potential.
The assumptions made regarding bread waste rates affected the
transported mass and thereby transport emissions, but also revealed
the most feasible waste treatment option. The return rate modeled in
this study influenced the amount of waste requiring transportation to
waste management and the amount of bread that needed to be
transported in order to have 1 kg available at retail. In the non-TBA sce-
nario, this might have caused less waste, and consequently less bread
would need to be transport to maintain the same amount of bread on
retail shelves, but this was not considered in modeling because of the
functional unit chosen. Moreover, although LCA is an established
research method for environmental impact assessment, the results
must be viewed with caution as they primarily provide an indication
of environmental impact, and not an exact prediction of total impact
(Klöpffer and Grahl, 2014). In this study we primarily used secondary
data, average transport distances, and median dataset values to model
bread supply chain transport, which may have influenced the reliability
of the results. Additional simplifications were also necessary, such as
only accounting for the three largest bakeries based on their market
share in Sweden. Moreover, some methodological choices might have
influenced the results, e.g., the same operations were assumed in all
scenarios. A focus on modeling the differences in waste transport as a
less static factor compared with the bakery locations was considered
reasonable.
Even though bread donations also provide a social benefitandin
theory can be recovered locally, the amount of bread wasted currently
exceeds the amounts accepted by donation organizations. If the future
demand for donated bread in Sweden is low (Ungerth, 2021), the sur-
plus would need to be sent to either anaerobic digestion or incineration.
Similarly, the animal feed scenario has geographical limitations since
the majority of animal feed production, and animal farms, are located
in southern Sweden. Therefore, considerable amounts of surplus bread
generated at bakeries or retailers would have to be transported over
long distances if reuse in animal feed were the sole waste treatment op-
tion. Our results (Fig. 3) suggest that a more favorable approach would
be to combine different solutions, e.g., directing waste bread to animal
feed would be more beneficial for bakeries located in southern
Sweden, while other treatment options should be considered in areas
further north. Moreover, in the scenario for animal feed considered
L. Weber, L. Bartek, P. Brancoli et al. Sustainable Production and Consumption 36 (2023) 386–396
393
here there was only one change (waste transport distance) compared
with the conventional TBA scenario, whilebread waste from all bakeries
was assumed tobe sent to pig farms in both cases. For the case of Upp-
sala this resulted ina similar climate impact as for the ethanol scenario,
as that city is relatively close to an ethanol production plant (Fig. 2),
i.e., there was no extra benefit from directing the bread waste to animal
farms instead of ethanol production. The co-logistics scenario demon-
strated the climate benefit of using larger and fewer vehicles, with aver-
age emissions reduced by up to 40 % for short distance and waste
transport compared with the TBA system. The environmental benefit
of collaborative logistics, which also results in efficiency improvements,
has been highlighted in previous studies (Eriksson et al., 2017;
Bergström et al., 2020;Croci et al., 2021). However, considering the
current market share of the three largest bread suppliers in Sweden
(86 %), a further increase in logistics cooperation might not be entirely
realistic, especially considering its limited acceptability by industry
stakeholders and the feasibility of integrating complex logistics opera-
tions with established logistics chains. Innovations of a collaborative
nature must also consider a company's priorities, as optimizing cost,
time, and sustainability of transport could come with trade-offs. The
large climate benefit achieved with this scenario also points to improve-
ment potential for the long-distance delivery stage, but it is more static
due to the fixed position of bakeries, so integration would likely be more
difficult and would require strong joint commitment of all players.
Choosing the option to freeze bread after baking and defrost it on the
way to the retail store could reduce food waste at retail level and also
enable more high-value recovery, as bread quality could be maintained
for longer. However, the impact of vehicles with a freezer unit should
not be under-estimated, as a 60 % increase in climate impact was ob-
tained for long-distance transport of frozen bread compared with the
current TBA system. The results also indicated that the increasing trans-
port distance from the bakery, frozen transport becomes worse from a
climate impact perspective. This highlights the potential for trade-offs
between economic and environmental aspects, since the environmental
benefits from valorization pathways might outperform the environ-
mental impacts of longer transportation to a certain degree. Similarly,
although transportation of raw materials was outside the scope of this
study, moving the bakeries to Eskilstuna would probably increase the
need for transport of raw materials while reducing the transport of
baked bread. This could also be a relevant trade-off to consider, and
would benefit from being further assessed in future studies. It should
also be noted that conclusions and recommendations regarding bakery
location must consider variations in electricity prices depending on
location, as these would influence profit margins, production aspects,
and other possible trade-offs in supply chain organization, transport
impacts, and food wastage. However, this sensitivity analysis allowed
evaluation of the potential future impact related transport and
infrastructure. As emphasized by Metson et al. (2022), this is an impor-
tant aspect when addressing the logistical requirements of future
food systems.
5.3. Future outlook
Transport is a necessary step in the value chain of almost all
food products, so any comprehensive evaluation of the climate impact
of bread wastage must address transport emissions. Excluding previ-
ously identified climate impact hotspots for bread, namely production
of raw materials, processing, consumption stages, and the waste treat-
ment itself, often offering considerable emission savings potential, the
present study allowed for in-depth evaluation of the transportcontribu-
tion to climate impact. Using all food produced at its highest value pos-
sible, and with optimal transportation, is especially important to
maintain the potential benefits of recovering resources via valorization.
Modifications to bread transport in Sweden could facilitate more high-
value recovery pathways than in current practice. The high contribution
of long-distance delivery in terms of total emissions raises questions
about whether the polarized debate on the TBA system is reasonable
and whether food transport chainsneed general reformto acknowledge
the importance of local food production and, from a consumer perspec-
tive, choosing food according to local seasonality. As voiced by Bartek
et al. (2022) multiple simultaneously adapted solutions are needed to
drive the necessary transition towards sustainable food systems. Never-
theless, the results in this study indicate that long- and short distance
deliveries, together or separately, have the highest potential for adjust-
ments in their logistics to reduce climate impact. This result can be used
in practical implications when designing transport pathways or when
promoting valorization of surplus food, which in turn further can drive
the transition towards lower transport emissions. Moreover, the results
show that waste transport has the lowest climate impact of all transport
stages, regardless of the route required for each waste treatment option.
This indicates that waste management according to the higher waste
priority levels can likely be prioritized without jeopardizing the climate
benefits of high-value food waste recovery. These results can be used to
support holistic assessment of food systems and can serve as a founda-
tion for company development to maintain future efficiency, sustain-
ability, and profitability.
6. Conclusions
This study showed that the current transport pathway for bread in
Sweden has great potential to contribute to increased environmental
sustainability within the food supply chain. An important finding was
that the TBA system per se is not the primary cause of transport-
related impacts, but rather the distance between bakeries, consumers,
and waste treatment facilities. Compared with the conventional TBA
system, alternative transport pathways such as co-logistics and valori-
zation via food donations, were found to reduce the climate change im-
pact by up to 13 % per kg pre-packed bread leaving the bakery gate.
Long-distance transport was identified as a key climate impact hotspot,
while waste transport represented an important leverage point to ex-
ploit the considerable benefit of producing close to consumers. Waste
transport made the lowest contribution to the transport impact of
bread, indicating that high-valuewaste management, including preven-
tion and valorization, could be prioritized without being compromised
by the alternative transport routes. This study thereby provided an
important insight to the potential trade-offs between environmental
impacts driven by transport and food management. Practical imple-
mentation of alternative food transport pathways will require
acceptance by companies and consumers, along with feasible infra-
structure.
Declaration of competing interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial
interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influ-
ence the work reported in this paper.
Acknowledgments
This work was supported by the H2020 project LOWINFOOD
(—Multi-actor design of low-waste food value chains throughthe dem-
onstration of innovative solutions to reduce food loss and waste).
LOWINFOOD is funded by the European Union's Horizon 2020 research
and innovation programme under Grant Agreement no. 101000439.
The views reflected in this article represent the professional views of
the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the European
Commission or other LOWINFOOD project partners.
Appendix A. Supplementary data
Supplementary data to this article can be found online at https://doi.
org/10.1016/j.spc.2023.01.018.
L. Weber, L. Bartek, P. Brancoli et al. Sustainable Production and Consumption 36 (2023) 386–396
394
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