Food Industry Wastes - Chapter 2: Development of Green Production Strategies

Knowledge of the principles of industrial ecology is essential for development of life cycle thinking and green technologies. The focus of this chapter is on the development of Green Production strategies, applying principles of industrial ecology while using a holistic approach. The goal of Green Production is to fulfill our requirement for products in a sustainable way. This chapter provides Green Production principles and criteria, distinguishes key steps to sustainability, and describes the upgrading concept in food production. Anaerobic digestion strategy for treatment of biodegradable waste has shown both environmental and socioeconomic benefits with successful examples of application all over the globe. We use biogas production technology to illustrate energy conversion in the treatment of food wastes, including food and farm co-digestion. Energy efficiency in the food supply chain is estimated based on the energy embedded in the food production/consumption system in the USA, and household/retail energy locked in the UK’s food waste.