https://doi.org/10.4081/jae.2021.1139
Assessment of an expanded-polypropylene isothermal box to improve logistic sustainability of catering services
Published: 28 June 2021
Abstract Views: 1181
PDF: 739
HTML: 98
HTML: 98
Publisher's note
All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.
All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.
Authors
The European catering sector is hugely expanding and serves over 6 billion meals every year, which translate in 65 million meals per day. The aim of our study was to investigate the environmental performance of the expanded-polypropylene (EPP) box production process to improve sustainability in catering services. Moreover, a quantification of the environmental benefit in using the EPP box instead of the conventional packaging was performed. The life cycle assessment was conducted following the ISO 14044:2006 standard. The EPP box for food delivery makes it possible to design a catering service characterised by –37% of overall impacts compared to the use of the common box. EPP represents a useful solution for environmentally sustainable catering services due to its mechanical response and the insulating properties of the polymer foam. The environmental impact of the EPP box life cycle can be further reduced (–29%) by changing the energy country mix and applying a circular economy model, thus recycling the 100% of the EPP box. In conclusion, the EPP box represents a useful solution for an environmentally sustainable catering service.
Baldwin C., Wilberforce N., Kapur A. 2011. Restaurant and food service life cycle assessment and development of a sustainability standard. Int. J. Life Cycle Assess. 16:40-9.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11367-010-0234-x
Balzaretti C.M., Ventura V., Ratti S., Ferrazzi G., Spallina A., Carruba M.O., Castrica M. 2018. Improving the overall sustainability of the school meal chain: the role of portion sizes. Eat. Weight. Disord. 1-10.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40519-018-0524-z
Cerutti A.K., Ardente F., Contu S., Donno D., Beccaro G.L. 2018. Modelling, assessing, and ranking public procurement options for a climate-friendly catering service. Int. J. Life Cycle Assess. 23:95-115.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11367-017-1306-y
Cerutti A.K., Contu S., Ardente F., Donno D., Beccaro G.L. 2016. Carbon footprint in green public procurement: Policy evaluation from a case study in the food sector. Food Policy 58:82-93.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foodpol.2015.12.001
Ciappellano S., Foschino R.C., Giovanelli G., Giubilesi M.A., Guidetti R., Lavelli V., Montanari A., Porrini M. 2009. Manuale della ristorazione: management, progettazione dei pasti, nutrizione, igiene, merceologia, tecnologia, legislazione. Ed. Casa Editrice Ambrosiana, Distribuzione Zanichelli, Bologna, Italia.
EPD. 2008. General programme instructions for environmental product declarations. Available from: http://www.environdec.com/documents/pdf/EPD_instructions_080229.pdf
European Union. 2004. Regulation (EC) No 1935/2004 of the European Parliament and the Council of 27 October 2004 on materials and objects intended to come into contact with food and repealing Directives 80/590/EEC and 89/109/EEC. O. J. Eur. Union 4-17.
FERCO. 2014. European Industry Overview. Food Service Europe. Available from: www.foodserviceeurope.org/
Fusi A., Guidetti R., Azapagic A. 2016. Evaluation of environmental impacts in the catering sector: the case of pasta. J. Clean. Prod. 132:146-60.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2015.07.074
GarcÃa-Herrero L., De Menna F., Vittuari M. 2019. Food waste at school. The environmental and cost impact of a canteen meal. Waste Manage. 100:249-58.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wasman.2019.09.027
Giordano P., Caputo P., Vancheri A. 2014. Fuzzy evaluation of heterogeneous quantities: measuring urban ecological efficiency. Ecol. Model. 288:112-26.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolmodel.2014.06.001
ISO 14040. 2006. Environmental management - life cycle assessment - principles and framework. International Organisation for Standardisation, Geneva, Switzerland.
ISO 14044. 2006. Environmental management - life cycle assessment - requirements and guidelines, International Organisation for Standardisation, Geneva, Switzerland.
ISO 668. 2020. Series 1 freight containers - Classification, dimensions and ratings, International Organisation for Standardisation, Geneva, Switzerland.
Licciardello F, 2017. Packaging, blessing in disguise. Review on its diverse contribution to food sustainability. Trends Food Sci. Tech. 65:32-9.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tifs.2017.05.003
Lopes J.A., Tsochatzis E.D., Robouch P., Hoekstra E. 2019. Influence of pre-heating of food contact polypropylene cups on its physical structure and on the migration of additives. Food Packag. Shelf Life 20:100305.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fpsl.2019.100305
Manzini R., Accorsi R. 2013. The new conceptual framework for food supply chain assessment. J. Food Eng. 115:251-63.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jfoodeng.2012.10.026
Mistretta M., Caputo P., Cellura M., Cusenza M.A. 2019. Energy and environmental life cycle assessment of an institutional catering service: an Italian case study. Sci. Total Environ. 657:1150-60.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2018.12.131
Morton D.T., Reyes A., Clausen A.H., Hopperstad O.S. 2020. Mechanical response of low density expanded polypropylene foams in compression and tension at different loading rates and temperatures. Mater. Today Commun. 100917.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mtcomm.2020.100917
Neto B., Boyano A., Espinosa N., Quintero R.R., Wolf O. 2017. Revision of the EU GPP criteria for Food procurement and Catering services, 3rd Technical Report. JRC Science for Policy Report, European Commission.
Palacios-Argüello L., Gonzalez-Feliu J., Gondran N., Badeig F. 2018. Assessing the economic and environmental impacts of urban food systems for public school canteens: case study of Great Lyon Region. Eur. Transp. Res. Rev. 10:37.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1186/s12544-018-0306-8
PlasticsEurope. 2018. Annual Review 2017-2018 - Karl-H. Foerster executive director of PlasticsEurope. Association of Plastic Manufactures.
Raps D., Köppl T., De Anda A.R., Altstädt V. 2014. Rheological and crystallisation behaviour of high melt strength polypropylene under gas-loading. Polymer 55:1537-45.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.polymer.2014.01.036
Roy P., Nei D., Orikasa T., Xu Q., Okadome H., Nakamura N., Shiina T. 2009. A review of life cycle assessment (LCA) on some food products. J Food Eng 90:1-10.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jfoodeng.2008.06.016
Saxe H., Jensen J.D., Laugesen S.M.B., Bredie W.L. 2019. Environmental impact of meal service catering for dependent senior citizens in Danish municipalities. Int J Life Cycle Assess 24:654-66.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11367-018-1487-z
Silva V.L., Sanjuán N. 2019. Opening up the black box: A systematic literature review of life cycle assessment in alternative food processing technologies. J. Food Eng. 250:33-45.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jfoodeng.2019.01.010
Srivastava V., Srivastava R. 2014. A review on manufacturing, properties and application of expanded polypropylene. MIT Int. J. Mech. Eng. 4:22-8.
Williams P.G., DipNutrDiet M.H.P. 1996. Vitamin retention in cook/chill and cook/hot-hold hospital foodservices. J. Am. Diet. Assoc. 96:490-8.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/S0002-8223(96)00135-6
Xu Z.M., Jiang X.L., Liu T., Hu G.H., Zhao L., Zhu Z.N., Yuan W.K. 2007. Foaming of polypropylene with supercritical carbon dioxide. J. Supercrit. Fluids. 41:299-310.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.supflu.2006.09.007
Yu L., Zhu Q., Yu J. 2013. Development and application of expanded polypropylene foam. J. Wuhan Univ. Technol. 28:373-9.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11595-013-0698-1
Zhai W., Kim Y.W., Park C.B. 2010. Steam-chest molding of expanded polypropylene foams. 1. DSC simulation of bead foam processing. Ind. Eng. Chem. Res. 49:9822-9.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1021/ie101085s
Zhai W., Kim Y.W., Jung D.W., Park C.B. 2011. Steam-chest molding of expanded polypropylene foams. 2. Mechanism of interbead bonding. Ind. Eng. Chem. Res. 50:5523-31.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1021/ie101753w
How to Cite
Casson, A. (2021) “Assessment of an expanded-polypropylene isothermal box to improve logistic sustainability of catering services”, Journal of Agricultural Engineering, 52(2). doi: 10.4081/jae.2021.1139.
Copyright (c) 2021 the Author(s)
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
PAGEPress has chosen to apply the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0) to all manuscripts to be published.
Similar Articles
- Fernando Ferreira Abreu, Luiz Henrique Antunes Rodrigues, Monitoring mini-tomatoes growth: A non-destructive machine vision-based alternative , Journal of Agricultural Engineering: Vol. 53 No. 3 (2022)
- Annachiara Berardinelli, Luigi Ragni, Chiara Cevoli, Adriano Guarnieri, ASSESSMENT OF THE TOTAL SOLIDS AND FAT CONTENTS IN WHOLE LIQUID EGG PRODUCTS BY ELECTRICAL AND THERMAL CONDUCTIVITY MEASUREMENTS , Journal of Agricultural Engineering: Vol. 42 No. 1 (2011)
- Sergio Castellano, Giacomo Scarascia Mugnozza, Giovanni Russo, Demetres Briassoulis, Antonis Mistrotis, Silke Hemming, Dries Waaijenberg, DESIGN AND USE CRITERIA OF NETTING SYSTEMS FOR AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTION IN ITALY , Journal of Agricultural Engineering: Vol. 39 No. 3 (2008)
- Igor Kovacev, Daniele De Wrachien, Report on the 45th International Symposium: Actual Tasks on Agricultural Engineering, 21st-24th February 2017, Opatija, Croatia , Journal of Agricultural Engineering: Vol. 48 No. 2 (2017)
- Siti Hanggita Rachmawati, Zakaria Hossain, Jim Shiau, Shear strength of soil by using clam shell waste as recycle aggregate , Journal of Agricultural Engineering: Vol. 51 No. 3 (2020)
You may also start an advanced similarity search for this article.
