<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">

Yogurt is a fermented milk product, resulted through milk acidification by lactic acid bacteria, highly appreciated worldwide. In this study, life cycle assessment (LCA) methodology was applied for modelling of environmental impacts associated with yogurt production. The system boundaries include the following activities: milk processing, transport, solid waste and wastewater treatments. Functional unit set for this study is 1 kg of produced yogurt. The input and output data were collected from various sources like reports, databases, legislation. All these data were used further in the impact assessment stage performed with GaBi software which includes LCA methods like CML2001 - Jan. 2016, ReCiPe 1.08, UBP 2013, EDIP 2003 and others. Results showed that the global warming potential (GWP) determined for yogurt was 2.92 kg CO2 eq. per kg of yogurt, while acidification potential (AP) was approximately 0.014 kg SO2 eq. per kg of yogurt. It was observed that the main contributor to all impact categories is consumption of electricity during the yogurt production, mainly in the pasteurization, evaporation and cooling stages. 61.4% of the emissions resulted from transportation of raw materials contributes to GWP, while 38.3% to photochemical ozone creation potential (POCP). Emissions from wastewater treatment are contributing especially to the eutrophication potential (EP), while emission from solid waste landfilling are contributing mainly to POCP.
</abstract>

Yogurt is a fermented milk product, resulted through milk acidification by lactic acid bacteria, highly appreciated worldwide. In this study, life cycle assessment (LCA) methodology was applied for modelling of environmental impacts associated with yogurt production. The system boundaries include the following activities: milk processing, transport, solid waste and wastewater treatments. Functional unit set for this study is 1 kg of produced yogurt. The input and output data were collected from various sources like reports, databases, legislation. All these data were used further in the impact assessment stage performed with GaBi software which includes LCA methods like CML2001 - Jan. 2016, ReCiPe 1.08, UBP 2013, EDIP 2003 and others. Results showed that the global warming potential (GWP) determined for yogurt was 2.92 kg CO2 eq. per kg of yogurt, while acidification potential (AP) was approximately 0.014 kg SO2 eq. per kg of yogurt. It was observed that the main contributor to all impact categories is consumption of electricity during the yogurt production, mainly in the pasteurization, evaporation and cooling stages. 61.4% of the emissions resulted from transportation of raw materials contributes to GWP, while 38.3% to photochemical ozone creation potential (POCP). Emissions from wastewater treatment are contributing especially to the eutrophication potential (EP), while emission from solid waste landfilling are contributing mainly to POCP.

Life cycle assessment of fermented milk: yogurt production

Ovidius University Annals of Chemistry

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

{"article-title":"Life cycle assessment of fermented milk: yogurt production"}

Yogurt is a fermented milk product, resulted through milk acidification by lactic acid bacteria, highly appreciated worldwide. In this study, life cycle...

Life cycle assessment of fermented milk: yogurt production

Published Online: Sep 18, 2020

Page range: 49 - 54

Received: Apr 28, 2020

Accepted: Jun 06, 2020

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/auoc-2020-0010

Keywords
environmental impacts, food products, milk, life cycle

© 2020 Cristina Ghinea et al., published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

Life cycle assessment of fermented milk: yogurt production

Published Online: Sep 18, 2020

Page range: 49 - 54

Received: Apr 28, 2020

Accepted: Jun 06, 2020

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/auoc-2020-0010

Keywordsenvironmental impacts, food products, milk, life cycle

© 2020 Cristina Ghinea et al., published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

Keywords
environmental impacts, food products, milk, life cycle