Coffee, spinach, butter

The European forum for the flexible packaging industry has published a life cycle analysis of three packaged food products - coffee, spinach, butter.

For coffee, clearly the thing to drink is black sugarless expressos. Instant coffee is marginally better than real, and the water boiling makes up a signfiicant proportion of the overall global warming impact. White coffee has a higher footprint than black, because of the milk.

For spinach, fresh works out better than frozen, especially if you don't waste it. For fresh, agricultural production followed by distribution and retailing are the major hotspots. For frozen, the freezer stage plays a major part, especially if you have an inefficient freezer.

For butter, the impacts are overwhelmingly at the agricultural stage, as is the case with all dairy products.

In all cases, the impact of the packaging itself is minor.