Sustainability 2023, 15, 718. https://doi.org/10.3390/su15010718 www.mdpi.com/journal/sustainability Article Life Cycle Assessment Tool for Food Supply Chain Environmental Evaluation Tamíris Pacheco da Costa 1, *, James Gillespie 2 , Katarzyna Pelc 3 , Abi Adefisan 4 , Michael Adefisan 4 , Ramakrishnan Ramanathan 5 and Fionnuala Murphy 1 1 School of Biosystems & Food Engineering, University College Dublin, Agriculture Building, UCD Belfield, D04 V1W8 Dublin, Ireland 2 School of Computing, Engineering and Intelligent Systems, Magee Campus, Ulster University, Northland Road, Londonderry BT48 7JL, UK 3 Bedfordshire Business School, University of Bedfordshire, Putteridge Bury, R. 220, Hitchin Road, Luton LU2 8LE, UK 4 Yumchop Foods, Westward, Brackley Road, Towcester NN12 6HX, UK 5 Essex Business School, University of Essex, Southend Campus, Elmer Approach, Southend-on-Sea, Essex CO4 3SQ, UK * Correspondence: tamiris.dacosta@ucd.ie Abstract: Food is at the centre of efforts to combat climate change, reduce water stress, pollution, and conserve the world’s wildlife. Assessing the environmental performance of food companies is essential to provide a comprehensive view of the production processes and gain insight into im- provement options, but such a tool is currently non-existent in the literature. This study proposed a tool based on the life cycle assessment methodology focused on six stages of the food chain, raw materials acquisition, supplier, manufacturing, distribution, retail and wastes. The user can also evaluate the implementation of Internet of Things (IoT) technologies to reduce food waste applied in the real-world problems. The tool was validated through a case study of a food manufacturing company that prepares frozen meals via vending machines. The LCA results provided by the tool showed that food raw materials production is the main hotspot of nine impact categories. The IoT technologies’ contribution increased the company’s impact by around 0.4%. However, it is expected that employing these monitoring technologies would prevent food waste generation and the asso- ciated environmental impacts. Therefore, the results of this paper provide evidence that the pro- posed tool is suitable for determining environmental impacts and savings of food supply chain companies. Keywords: environmental analysis; food supply chain; IoT technologies; life cycle assessment; excel-based tool; stand-alone model 1. Introduction Around 10% of food made available to EU consumers (at retail, food services and households) may be wasted [1]. These losses occurred at different stages of the food sup- ply chain (FSC), i.e., in companies converting the raw agricultural materials into final products feasible for direct consumption [2]. Literature suggests that issues within FSC management leading to food waste are numerous, including inadequate processing and packaging, lack of transportation and distribution systems and inadequate storage facili- ties and techniques [3,4], and call for targeted action. In particular, in the EU, nearly 57 million tonnes of food waste (127 kg/inhabitant) are generated annually, with an associated market value estimated at 130 billion euros [1]. By preventing food waste, companies can sell more food and create more revenue. How- ever, the importance of reducing food waste has been recognised worldwide not only because food waste causes serious economic impacts but also due to environmental and Citation: da Costa, T.P.; Gillespie, J.; Pelc, K.; Adefisan, A.; Adefisan, M.; Ramanathan, R.; Murphy, F. Life Cycle Assessment Tool for Food Supply Chain Environmental Evaluation. Sustainability 2023, 15, 718. https://doi.org/10.3390/ su15010718 Academic Editor: Shaojian Qu Received: 12 November 2022 Revised: 27 December 2022 Accepted: 28 December 2022 Published: 31 December 2022 Copyright: © 2022 by the authors. Li- censee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and con- ditions of the Creative Commons At- tribution (CC BY) license (http://crea- tivecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).