ENVIRONMENTAL, ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL SUSTAINABILITY OF FOOD CHAINS BASED ON LIFE CYCLE APPROACH AND MULTI-CRITERIA DECISION ANALYSIS APPLIED TO NOVEL TOMATO PRODUCTS

Date

2024-5-7

Author

Ayhan, Dilber

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Designing agricultural systems and food value chains to reduce their impact on the world is a priority. This study evaluates the environmental, economic and social sustainability of six novel dried tomato products, namely, tomato leather product-1 with rubisco protein and tray dryer, tomato leather product-2 with pea protein and tray dryer, tomato bar product-1 with rubisco protein and MW vacuum dryer, tomato bar product-2 with pea protein and MW vacuum dryer, tomato bar product-3 product with rubisco and conventional dryer, and tomato bar product-4 product with pea protein and conventional dryer. Life cycle assessment (LCA) was used to assess environmental sustainability. With respect to economic sustainability, this research has extended the life cycle costing (LCC) approach by including economic aspects. Social impacts, which have not been studied much on food products, were also analyzed using social LCA by developing a hybrid model consisting of micro or product-specific criteria and global criteria at the macro level. The system under assessment for the environmental, economic, and social pillars was bounded throughout the cradle-to-market life cycle. The analytic hierarchy process (AHP) survey determined the degree of importance of the criteria and key stakeholders in the sustainability assessment model. The multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) methods of TOPSIS (Technique for order by preference by similarity to ideal solution) and SAW (Simple additive weighting) were used to solve the trade-offs between risks and benefits in sustainability decisions of tomato products in the food science field. The results provided hotspots for the revision of the tomato products and the sustainability scores. In fact, the sustainability rankings were changed by the addition of the product-specific criteria (sensory quality, nutrient content and research outputs). Product enrichment and texturization were found to impact the overall sustainability scores as much as the selected drying method. The greatest environmental risks were at the raw material production stages for rubisco and olive powder production. Although the cost of a tray dryer is not economical compared to the MW vacuum dryer and conventional dryer, the economic prosperity generation and labor productivity impact categories were determined to be best for leather products with pea protein. Among the bar products, rubisco protein with a conventional dryer has the greatest economic sustainability score. The results reveal the regional impacts of purchasing stakeholders of raw materials. Purchasing pea protein was determined responsible for major social risks. This three dimensional sustainability framework with sustainability score can be a model for companies planning to measure and improve their food products. In addition, as a key component of the Mediterranean Diet, novel tomato products may contribute to the growing popularity of healthy diets.

Subject Keywords

Environmental sustainability, Economic sustainability, Social sustainability, Novel tomato products, Multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA), Life cycle assessment (LCA)

URI

https://hdl.handle.net/11511/109844

Collections

Graduate School of Natural and Applied Sciences, Thesis