From post-harvest or slaughter to consumption by the consumer, researchers found that a frozen meal for a family of four produced 5% less carbon dioxide than its identical chilled counterpart.
The research was carried out by Refrigeration Developments and Testing. Its report, "Carbon Emissions from Chilled and Frozen Cold Chains," calculated the carbon dioxide equivalent for a typical UK Sunday roast meal for four people.
The study found emissions for chilled meal for four was equivalent to 6.546 kg, compared with a frozen meal for four at 6.329 kg. Across all of food types tested, all but one of the frozen products had lower CO2 emissions than their chilled counterparts.
"This report goes some way to debunking the commonly held assumption that producing, storing and consuming frozen food is more energy intensive than chilled products," said Judith Evans, fellow of the Institute of Refrigeration and the study's lead researcher.
The analysis covered emissions from chicken, peas, carrots, and roast potato from primary food processing through transport and storage, retail storage, storage in the home, refrigerant loss throughout the cold chain, consumer transport (from supermarket to home), consumer meal preparation and cooking, and processing and consumer food waste.
"Most people's perception before we commissioned the report would have been that frozen was more energy intensive than fresh," commented BFFF Director General Brian Young. "People believe refrigeration and freezing was a big element in terms of CO2 emissions. What this has shown is that refrigerant emissions are a very tiny part of the whole cycle. In fact much more important is the domestic cooking, the domestic storage and a big factor is the amount of waste."
