Comparative Life Cycle Assessment of hot filling and aseptic packaging systems used for beverages Michele Manfredi ⇑ , Giuseppe Vignali Department of Industrial Engineering, University of Parma, Viale delle Scienze 181/A, 43124 Parma, Italy article info Article history: Received 10 June 2014 Received in revised form 28 August 2014 Accepted 10 September 2014 Available online 21 September 2014 Keywords: Aseptic packaging Hot filling LCA Beverages abstract This paper aims to assess the sustainability and the environmental performance of hot filling systems and aseptic packaging systems used for beverages. These technologies are the systems mostly adopted now- adays to package high acid beverages with extended shelf life. The potential environmental impacts are calculated using the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) methodology. The analysis only includes materials and processes that differ between the two technologies, i.e. heat treatment, filling operations, and packaging materials. PET bottles are considered in this study. Beverage production and transport of raw food materials are not taken into consideration as there are no differ- ences between the two systems in these phases. Impact assessment is performed using ReCiPe method. The results from the analysis indicate that aseptic packaging systems on the whole have lower impacts in all the impact categories assessed. This is mainly due to the greater weight of PET bottles used in hot filling systems, necessary to withstand the higher filling temperatures. This aspect enhances the impacts of hot filling compared to aseptic packaging systems, while the environmental profile of the processing phase is similar between the two technologies in most of the impact categories considered. Ó 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction Unless more ambitious policies are adopted, Global Green House Gases (GHG) emissions are expected to grow by 50% from 2010 to 2050, with the serious risk of a 2-degree increase in the global average temperature (OECD, 2012). The population, in fact, continues to grow, with a forecast for 2050 of about 9.1 billion peo- ple in the world; this would require an increase in food production by about 70% (FAO, 2009). The food industry is one of the world’s largest industrial sectors and the main energy consumer. Food production, preservation and distribution indeed consume a considerable amount of energy, which causes resource depletion and pollutant emissions (Roy et al., 2009). In the EU, the food and drink sector is the largest man- ufacturing sector, with a turnover of 1017 billion euro and 4.25 million direct employees (FoodDrinkEurope, 2012). Within the sector, the drink market accounts for 15% in turnover and 18% in added value. In order to reduce the environmental issues caused by the food and drink sector, the only solution is to create more environmen- tally friendly systems. For this purpose, the first step is to assess the environmental profiles of the existing production systems through scientific methods so as to determine the environmental profile of food products and the food production chain. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is a quantitative methodology regulated by ISO standard (ISO 14040, 2006; ISO 14044, 2006) for evaluating the environmental aspects and potential environmental impacts of a product, process, or activity. This method has been widely used to evaluate the environmental sustainability of food products and LCA studies on food systems have been conducted for over 15 years in order to support environmental decision-making (Roy et al., 2009; Notarnicola et al., 2012). LCA methodology is used in this study to quantify the impacts of materials, energy inputs and associated environmental emis- sions of two different sterilization and filling systems for beverage products: (i) hot filling systems and (ii) aseptic packaging systems are analysed by considering a fruit juice packaged in PET bottles. As for the environmental impacts generated by pumpable prod- ucts, the processes of food production, thermal stabilization and packaging have great impacts. However, the impacts of the packag- ing materials life cycle are very often among the most relevant environmental burdens. For example, in the production of tomato puree it was estimated that the tomato processing phase has an impact that is on average 80% less than that of the packaging mate- rials in the various categories and 60% less for the Global Warming http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jfoodeng.2014.09.018 0260-8774/Ó 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. ⇑ Corresponding author. Tel.: +39 0521 905850. E-mail addresses: michele.manfredi@unipr.it (M. Manfredi), giuseppe.vignali@u- nipr.it (G. Vignali). Journal of Food Engineering 147 (2015) 39–48 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Journal of Food Engineering journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jfoodeng