Italy is the world leader in pasta production with a production of around 3,324,000 tonnes and a consumption of 1,428,000 tonnes (Ismea, 2016). Among the main Italian pasta producers, the Apulian company Granoro is committed, starting from 2012, in a 100% Apulian supply chain from the field to the finished product.
This is a chain certified ISO 22005: 08, which guarantees traceability along the entire supply chain, based on a supply chain agreement between Granoro, the farmers and the De Vita mill, through which it is possible to have more accurate information and detailed for each phase of the life cycle.
Given the growing interest of the agro-food sector to the application of the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) methodology to its supply chains and the dissemination of Environmental Product Declarations (DAP), in recent years numerous initiatives have been taken to overcome one of the key problems of sector such as the lack of reliable and up-to-date inventory data on food products and processes.
This work aims to overcome this limit through the application of the Life Cycle Assessment to the agro-industrial process of "Dedicated" pasta, basing the whole study on data collected in the field, as regards the agricultural phase, and on the data collected in the company, for regarding the industrial phase.
Specifically, for the agricultural phase, all the inputs were subdivided into sub-phases, ie the preparation of the land (plowing and harrowing), the pre-sowing fertilization, the sowing, the fertilization, the weeding, the harvesting and storage of grain and straw. In particular, we have taken into account a series of variables such as the variety, the production area, the cultivation technique, the processing and production technology that have always represented the methodological critical aspects of the "Food LCA".
With reference to the industrial phase the consumption of semolina, electric energy and thermal energy for the various process phases was subdivided, namely the mixing of the ingredients, the extrusion, the drying, the cooling, the storage, the packaging, storage and finally shipping.
The presence of region specific inventory data will contributes to the quality of the data base, which will be representative of the pasta supply chain of Puglia.
Keywords: pasta, sustainability, Apulian region, life cycle inventory, traceability
5e. Sustainable consumption and consumers
