Frozen Foods Good for Climate

"Frozen products are often thought to be damaging to the climate. However, the results of the study…

"Frozen products are often thought to be damaging to the climate. However, the results of the study we made show that the effect of frozen food on the climate balance is on the same level as that of comparable products."

So said Carl-Otto Gensch of Germany's Ecological Institute, which conducted the study jointly with the German Frozen Food Institute (dti). They took five frozen products -- chicken fricassee, salami pizza, baked goods, peas and potato dumplings -- and compared them to the same products unfrozen (chilled, in cans or in jars) and home prepared.

The study used the "carbon dioxide equivalent" (CO2e) that measures greenhouse gases. It found that 100 grams of the frozen pizza, for example, produced 556 to 610 CO2e, while 100 grams of chilled and home prepared pizza produced 554 to 590 and 569 to 580 CO2e respectively.

The most emissions by far were produced by only two steps in the manufacturing, distribution and preparation processes; the production of the raw materials (53%) and the preparation by the consumers (33%). It was immaterial in either case whether the pizza was frozen. The other steps in the process -- manufacturing, distribution and production of the packaging --  produced only 14% of the emissions combined.

There were similar results for the other four products.