A life cycle assessment of processed meat products supplied to Barrow Island: A Western Australian case study

• LCA of two value added processed meat products for Western Australia has been conducted.
• The operations of processed meat value adders have an impact of less than 10% of the total environmental impacts.
• The real culprits in the environmental impact of processed food are the primary producers.
• Chicken based value added processed meat products are environmentally superior to beef based products.

This research aims to assess the emissions of greenhouse gases (GHGs) as well as the embodied energy associated with two value added processed meat products supplied to an offshore mining site at Barrow Island, Western Australia. A beef product (Canon Foods Swedish Meatballs) and a chicken product (Canon Foods Crunchy Garlic Chicken Breast) are produced at the Canon Foods facility in Cannington, Western Australia and transported to the final location of Barrow Island by way of their gateway port at Dampier, Western Australia. Using streamlined life cycle assessment (SLCA) methodology, it was estimated that the environmental impact of 1 kJ equivalent amount of Canon's Swedish Meatballs is 1.09 g CO2-e of GHG emissions and 4.15 kJ of embodied energy, while the impact of Canon's Crunchy Garlic Chicken Breast is 0.38 g CO2-e of GHG emissions and 5.08 kJ of embodied energy. The life cycle assessment demonstrates that the main cause of the GHG emissions and the high final embodied energy of the product can be linked primarily to the pre-farm inputs of the meat products and not the value adding process itself. The bulk of the GHG emissions of the final value added product can be attributed to the livestock ingredients, particularly beef based products, while the high embodied energy can be attributed to the amount of processing that inputs underwent prior to the Canon value adding process.