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Meal Kits And The Environment
Meal kit services have become extremely popular in recent years. These are companies that deliver a box of pre-portioned ingredients and a chef-created recipe to your door to make home-cooked meals easy and practical for busy people. Leading companies like Blue Apron, HelloFresh, and Plated have been joined by dozens of others competing in the meal kit market. As of last year, annual sales for these things were over $3 billion and growing at more than a 20% annual rate.
A major rap against meal kits has been their environmental impact,
mostly centered around the amount of packaging waste they generate. While there is most certainly lots of
packaging waste associated with meal kits, it turns out that their overall carbon
footprint is actually rather good compared with conventional ways to make
homecooked meals.
A study from the University of Michigan looked at the cradle-to-grave
impact of meal kits, taking into account every major step in the lifetime of
the food ingredients and the packaging – agricultural production, packaging
production, distribution, supply chain losses, consumption, and waste
generation.
Surprisingly, meal kits have a much lower overall carbon footprint
than the same meals made from ingredients purchased at the grocery store – even
including their packaging. The main
reason is that pre-portioned ingredients and a streamlined supply chain lower
overall food losses and waste for meal kits compared to store-bought
meals. Pre-portioning simply results in
fewer ingredients that end up being wasted.
Meal kits also have radically different supply chain structures than
foods sold in supermarkets.
Whether the economics and culinary aspects of meals kits are
advantageous for many people is an open question, but apparently from an
environmental perspective, they are just fine.
**********
Web Links
Climate change has worsened global economic inequality
Photo, posted June 11, 2018, courtesy of Marco Verch via Flickr.
Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.
View all episodes
By Randy Simon
4.7
1515 ratings
Meal kit services have become extremely popular in recent years. These are companies that deliver a box of pre-portioned ingredients and a chef-created recipe to your door to make home-cooked meals easy and practical for busy people. Leading companies like Blue Apron, HelloFresh, and Plated have been joined by dozens of others competing in the meal kit market. As of last year, annual sales for these things were over $3 billion and growing at more than a 20% annual rate.
A major rap against meal kits has been their environmental impact,
mostly centered around the amount of packaging waste they generate. While there is most certainly lots of
packaging waste associated with meal kits, it turns out that their overall carbon
footprint is actually rather good compared with conventional ways to make
homecooked meals.
A study from the University of Michigan looked at the cradle-to-grave
impact of meal kits, taking into account every major step in the lifetime of
the food ingredients and the packaging – agricultural production, packaging
production, distribution, supply chain losses, consumption, and waste
generation.
Surprisingly, meal kits have a much lower overall carbon footprint
than the same meals made from ingredients purchased at the grocery store – even
including their packaging. The main
reason is that pre-portioned ingredients and a streamlined supply chain lower
overall food losses and waste for meal kits compared to store-bought
meals. Pre-portioning simply results in
fewer ingredients that end up being wasted.
Meal kits also have radically different supply chain structures than
foods sold in supermarkets.
Whether the economics and culinary aspects of meals kits are
advantageous for many people is an open question, but apparently from an
environmental perspective, they are just fine.
**********
Web Links
Climate change has worsened global economic inequality
Photo, posted June 11, 2018, courtesy of Marco Verch via Flickr.
Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.
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