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Abstract The confectionary and frozen desserts sectors are important parts of the food industry but have received relatively little attention from a life cycle cost perspective. Thus, the purpose of the current study is to evaluate the life cycle costs (LCC) and value added (VA) in these sectors in the UK, focusing on four major product categories: biscuits, cakes (ambient and frozen), chocolates and ice cream. In total, 18 products are considered along their life cycles, including the raw materials, manufacturing, packaging, distribution, retail, consumption and waste management stages. The results suggest that cakes have the highest LCC (£1.52–2.64/kg) and the biscuits the lowest (£0.72–0.91/kg). The LCC of chocolates and ice cream fall within a similar range (£1.16–1.46/kg and £1.03–1.30/kg, respectively). Divergent trends are noted between LCC and VA: for instance, 'premium' ice creams have only 18% higher costs than their 'regular' counterparts, but a four-fold higher VA. For all the products, raw materials contribute most to the costs (43%–95%), followed by packaging (1%–29%) and manufacturing (1%–14%). The annual LCC at the sectoral level are estimated at £3.455 billion, to which biscuits contribute 42%. The share of chocolates and cakes is 24% and 19%, respectively, with ice cream contributing the remaining 15%. By contrast, chocolates contribute more than 50% of the total sectoral VA, which is five-fold higher than that of ice cream. The study also demonstrates how LCC can be used to evaluate the eco-efficiency of products and sectors. With respect to global warming potential, whole cakes are the most eco-efficient and vanilla regular ice cream the least efficient products. Overall, the confectionary sector is nearly 60% more eco-efficient than the frozen desserts sector. These results can be used for benchmarking and to drive innovation towards more economically-sustainable and eco-efficient confectionary and frozen desserts supply chains. Graphical abstract Unlabelled Image Highlights • Life cycle costs and value added estimated for biscuits, cakes, chocolates and ice cream. • Cakes have the highest (£1.52–2.64/kg) and biscuits the lowest costs (£0.72–0.91/kg). • Raw materials are the main hotspot, contributing 43%–95% to the life cycle costs. • Annual sectoral costs in the UK are £3.455 billion, to which biscuits contribute 43%. • Chocolates provide more than 50% of the total annual value added at the sectoral level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Ice cream is consumed daily worldwide and yet its environmental impacts are scarcely known. This paper presents a first comprehensive life cycle assessment of market-leading vanilla and chocolate ice creams, considering both regular and premium products. The results suggest that their impacts are broadly similar across the 18 impact categories considered. For the majority of the impacts, chocolate regular ice cream is a slightly better option than the other varieties. Overall, the regular versions of the product have lower environmental impacts than the premium. Raw materials contribute most to the majority of impacts (>70%). The exception is ozone depletion, which is mainly due to refrigerated storage at the retailer (95%). The impacts are highly sensitive to the duration of storage and the type of refrigerant. Furthermore, the global warming potential of chocolate ice cream is very sensitive to land use change associated with cocoa beans cultivation, increasing the impact by 60%. Considering annual consumption of ice cream in the UK, the total primary energy demand contributes to 3.8% of energy consumption in the whole food sector while greenhouse emissions contribute 1.8%. Future improvements in the supply chain should focus on milk and cocoa production, reduced storage time and types of refrigerant used. Product reformulation to reduce the amount of milk (fat) and sugar should also be considered, in line with the emerging health-driven market trends. In addition to industry and policy makers, the findings of this study will be of interest to consumers, enabling them to make better choices with respect to environmental impacts of most popular ice creams. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study evaluates life cycle environmental impacts associated with chocolate products made and consumed in the UK. The paper focuses on three representative chocolate products occupying 90% of the market: ‘moulded chocolate’, ‘chocolate countlines’ and ‘chocolates in bag’. The impacts were estimated using life cycle assessment (LCA) as a tool and following the ReCiPe impact assessment method. The water footprint was also considered. For example, the global warming potential ranges between 2.91 and 4.15 kg CO 2 eq., primary energy demand from 30 to 41 MJ and the water footprint, including water stress, from 31 to 63 l per kilogram of chocolate. The raw materials are the major hotspot across all impact categories for all three product types, followed by the chocolate production process and packaging. The raw material impacts are mainly due to milk powder, cocoa derivatives, sugar and palm oil. The sensitivity analysis shows that the results for global warming potential are sensitive to land-use change (LUC) associated with cocoa production, increasing the impact of the chocolate products by three to four times if LUC is involved. The improvement opportunities targeting the key contributing stages suggest that GWP of chocolates could be reduced by 14%–19%. Chocolate countlines have the highest contribution to the total impacts at the UK level (37%–43%), followed by chocolates in bag (28%–33%). Moulded chocolates and other chocolate confectionary make up the rest of the impacts, with a roughly equal share each. Chocolate consumption in the UK contributes 4.7% to the primary energy consumption and 2.4% to the GHG emissions from the whole food and drink sector. The results of this work will be of interest to policy makers, chocolate producers and consumers, helping them to make more informed decisions towards sustainable production and consumption of chocolate products. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]