Join The Move To -15° is a project to help the food industry cut carbon emissions, save energy, and lower costs. The Move To -15° is an initiative to bring global logistics leaders together to change the temperature of frozen food from -18°C to -15°C, saving the equivalent emissions of 3.8 million cars without affecting the food.
Research by the Center for Sustainable Cooling for DP World shows that this small change can make a big impact but can only change what’s possible together. To make this a reality, companies should revisit global frozen food set temperatures to accelerate decarbonization and build resilience for the world’s future food needs without compromising food quality.
Food freezing, as a form of preservation, extends product shelf life without detriment to food safety for months while also offering built-in opportunities to optimize utilization through scheduled consumption. Research has demonstrated that frozen foods produce 47% less household food waste than fresh food categories.
However, with frozen foods comes a significant energy and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions challenge to the success of a transition to sustainable cold chains: it is energy-intensive to freeze foods and hold them at a sub-zero temperature.
At the core of this challenge is the sub-zero temperature at which stationary and mobile refrigeration systems must be set (the ‘set-point’) for handling frozen products. The industry standard set-point is -18 °C or lower, a temperature established in the mid-20th century that provides a good margin of safety. However, only just below -12°C is okay for many foods. Every degree lower requires 2 to 3% more energy.
Is -18°C relevant in today’s food products, and does reducing refrigeration temperatures to below those required to maintain product safety and quality lead to unnecessary energy consumption with associated avoidable GHG emissions?
Since food supply chains are global, reaching from source to consumer and involving many stakeholders, this work must be undertaken as a collaborative activity. Leading temperature-controlled logistics solutions provider Lineage is partnering with global logistics firm DP World in a coalition to make supply chains more sustainable.
Source: DP World