Considering current trends, the impact that obtaining a food product has on the environment could become a key factor in consumers’ decision to purchase one product over another in the near future. The carbon footprint of food products, based on independent assessments, could even become one of the pieces of information that producers will be required to provide on labels, alongside mandatory elements such as the ingredient list, net quantity, nutritional and energy values, etc.
In this context, we might also ask ourselves: what is the environmental cost of obtaining a ton of flour? The answer is not easy to provide because flour does not appear out of metaphysical nothingness but is the result of a chain of processes that include obtaining raw materials, ingredients, and packaging, as well as all associated logistical processes. For a proper evaluation, we should incorporate the separate effects of all the products and processes associated with obtaining flour, situated downstream from the moment it is received by the customer.
This complex analysis was conducted by Energy Experts International B.V at the request of European Flour Millers. The results show that obtaining a ton of flour consumes approximately 19,000 MJ/t (5,278 kWh) along the entire supply chain. This amount of energy is equivalent to approximately 1,800 kg of carbon dioxide. Considering that flour provides approximately 1,400 kJ/100 g, the energy equivalent of a ton of flour (14,000 MJ or 3,889 kWh) is significantly lower than the overall amount of energy consumed.
Out of the 5,278 kWh spent in obtaining a ton of flour, the operations that take place in the mill or are related to it represent about 10-12% of the total quantity. The actual milling process accounts for 2-7% of the total energy expenditures in the supply chain. Literature data suggest that within the wheat-flour-bread supply chain, the majority of energy consumption is concentrated at the extremes (in terms of crop production techniques and logistics related to storage and transportation to the mill, as well as in bread manufacturing technologies and associated logistics up to the consumer).
Despite this fact, the mill is not a small energy consumer: at the level of the entire European Union, the energy consumption associated with wheat milling ranges between 103 and 337 million euros (2.9-9.3 tons/flour, respectively, 0.7-2.2% of the industry’s turnover). Globally, the total energy consumption of wheat mills is estimated at 37.5 billion kWh, representing 0.2% of the world’s total electricity consumption. At the level of mills in Romania, the current average consumption is estimated at 80-100 kWh per ton of milled wheat, which means that for a quantity of 3.5 million tons milled annually, approximately 300 million kWh of electrical energy is consumed (Nazaru Ana Maria, 2011).
*The specific consumption in mills can vary widely depending on the complexity of the technological systems used (significant factors influencing the process include compressed air consumption, the size of the pneumatic transport network, the degree of process automation, etc.).
