Food Manufacturing & Economies of Scale: a Modelling Approach

Since the industrial revolution, the economies of scale have been widely exploited in the food production. A centralised production reduces the manufacturing cost, however the transport costs and the CO₂ emissions of process and distribution systems can increase. In this paper, we explore several scenarios that could affect the optimum food supply chain configuration. For this purpose, we propose a novel framework, we call the Honeycomb model, that integrates the techno-economic analysis and environmental impact for the design of an optimum configuration (processing plant capacities, location
of the facilities, suppliers, etc.). We use the production of tomato paste as an illustrative case study. The results highlight the importance of the carbon footprint of the raw materials on the predicted configuration for agro-based products. In some cases, the CO₂ emissions associated with the agricultural activities far exceed the CO₂ from the transportation, turning the food miles an unreliable metric of sustainability.