To that end, Freshfel Europe and its members launched in 2022 the Environmental Footprint Initiative to develop together a fresh fruit and vegetable environmental footprint methodology (FreshProducePEFCR), database, and digital tools that are broadly accepted by the industry, stakeholders, and consumers.
The Technical Secretariat (TS) of the FreshProducePEFCR has worked in the past years on a harmonised solution for the sector that is aligned with the Product Environmental Footprint (PEF) methodology as recommended by the EU, to enhance the sector’s sustainability and maintain its competitiveness. The FreshProducePEFCR follows a holistic approach, which covers 16 indicators to measure the environmental impact of a product, ranging from water to land use.
Technical work on the FreshProducePEFCR methodology, which was conducted by Wageningen Social & Economic Research (WUR), concluded at the end of 2025 with two workshops on the choice of energy allocation for Combined Heat Power (CHP) systems, to ensure that the most accurate and suitable models could be used in the calculations.
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During the workshops, a consensus was reached between LCA-experts, growers, and other stakeholders that exergy allocation for CHP systems was the best option to reflect the CHPs environmental impact and provide the right incentives for growers. The FreshProducePEFCR is now published and available on WUR’s library as well as Freshfel’s website.
As the development phase of the methodology comes to an end, the project now moves to the next step for the FreshProducePEFCR: its adoption and implementation by the wide variety of actors in the fresh produce business. An online webinar with interested digital tool providers is being planned for Q1 of 2026, to be followed by a meeting with the retailers.
