Energy Use in the EU Food Sector: State of Play and Opportunities for Improvement

The food sector is a major consumer of energy: the amount of energy necessary to cultivate, process, pack and bring the food to European citizens’ tables accounts for 17 % of the EU’s gross energy consumption in 2013, equivalent to about 26 % of the EU’s final energy consumption in the same year. Agriculture, including crop cultivation and animal rearing, is the most energy intense phase of the food system—accounting for nearly one third of the total energy consumed in the food production chain. The second most important phase of the food life cycle is industrial processing, which accounts for 28% of total energy use. Together with logistics and packaging, these three phases of the food life cycle "beyond the farm gate" are responsible for nearly half of the total energy use in the food system. While the "end of life" phase including final disposal of food waste represents only slightly more than 5% of total energy use in the EU food system, food waste actually occurs at every step of the food chain. Given the large amounts of energy involved in food production, reducing food waste is an important vector for improving the overall energy efficiency of the food system. Different food products need very different amounts of energy per unit of mass depending on their nature, their origin and the kind of processing they have been subjected to. Refined products and products of animal origin generally need an amount of energy several times larger than vegetables, fruits and cereal products. While the EU has made important progress in incorporating renewable energy across the economy, the share of renewables in the food system remains relatively small. Renewables accounted for just 7% of the energy used in food production and consumption in 2013 compared to 15% in the overall energy mix. Renewables more limited penetration is largely a reflection of the high reliance of the food sector of fossil fuels. Overall, fossil fuels account for almost 79% of the energy consumed by the food sector compared to 72% of overall energy consumption. The relatively low share of renewables in the food sector is also linked to the fact that about one fifth of food consumed in the EU is imported from regions outside the EU where the renewable share is generally lower than 15%. Building on these results, the report discusses the way ahead and highlights the main challenges to be faced in decreasing the energy use and in increasing the renewable energy share in the food sector. Sectoral literature reviews present solutions offered by science and technology and industrial case studies and EU-funded research projects show their practical application. Although energy efficiency in agriculture production is steadily improving with direct energy consumption per hectare declining by about 1% every year in the last two decades, addressing the challenge of decoupling agriculture productivity from energy consumption and GHG emissions will require an array of responses across the food system. Energy, especially in the form of indirect energy used for fertilisers and pesticides or irrigation, remains a crucial input for cultivation success but huge improvements are possible. More efficient fertiliser production technology and avoiding unnecessary fertiliser applications through properly designed cultivation practices are expected to complement each other and play a major role in decreasing indirect energy inputs to agriculture. In this sense, considerable experience and data exist for organic farming, no-tillage and integrated farming especially designed to minimise energy and material inputs. European farmers are already leading the way in this transition, for example, through efforts to increase the use of renewable energy in agricultural production. Thanks to investments in farm-based renewable technologies like biogas, farmers have the potential to not only become energy self-sufficient, but also to make a major contribution to EU energy production while reducing GHG emissions. The EU food industry is also making important contributions to make their activities more sustainable, through both increased investment in renewable energy and energy efficiency improvements. The food industry's energy consumption from 2005-13 has declined, both in absolute terms as well as in terms of energy intensity, producing more while using less energy. Several food processing industries are also exploring the possibility of recovering the energy contained in food residues on site, through biogas production or in dedicated combined heat and power plants. Energy efficiency in food transport is pursued through two possible pathways: improving the energy performance of the transportation systems and decreasing or optimising the amount of transportation itself. Trade-offs are also to be considered: while it is generally true that food travelling long distances embeds more energy than locally originated food, several studies reveal that the issue needs to be carefully assessed on a case-by-case approach, for example in case of vegetables. Consumers also have an important role to play as everyday decisions about food consumption can effect of the amount of energy required by food by as much as a factor of four. Potential actions consumers can take to reduce their energy "food print" include: reducing meat consumption, buying locally and seasonally, as well as reducing food waste and substituting organic food when possible. Policy design reflects the complexity of the challenge: in the EU, a large portfolio of policies and political initiatives have already been deployed and other are going to be adopted, resulting in an important combined effect for the overall energy profile of food production.