Life Cycle Assessment of the Production of a Large Variety of Meat Analogs by Three Diverse Factories

Meat analogs have been proposed as a viable ‘lower carbon’ alternative to meats. However, data on the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from those products are limited. We performed partial (farm to factory gate) life cycle assessment (LCA) with Simapro 8.1 to calculate the GHG emissions from a wide range of meat analog products from three factories. The mean GHG footprint was 2.19 kg CO2e/kg, and the range was from 1.33 kg CO2e/kg to 2.79 kg CO2e/kg. Most of the GHG emissions (45%) resulted from manufacturing processes, followed by agricultural production and transport of food ingredients. Meat analogs generated relatively low GHG emissions, across all categories, factory sizes and countries of production.