Nutrition and sustainability in the agro-industrial supply chain. A comparative approach for conventional, organic and functional pasta production

The concept of nutritional sustainability was established in recent years and it aims to interconnect human health and safety of the planet, protecting and promoting biodiversity, food safety, low environmental impact and functionality of food. Functional food represents one of the key factors of this approach and a successful factor as well for a global market that is expected to reach 259.7 billion dollars by 2027, with a growth of 8.5% yearly. The aim of this paper is the development of a framework which allows the comparison of the environmental and nutritional sustainability of food, particularly, pasta. It can also be redesigned as a vehicle for bioactive compounds or nutrients that are not sufficiently consumed in the daily diet, but generate positive effects on the metabolism and also mitigate the inflammatory states. Focusing on the agricultural phase, which generates the greatest impact from an environmental point of view, the authors of this paper decided to compare conventional durum wheat pasta, organic pasta and functional pasta with legumes, based on the methodology of the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA). A qualitative-quantitative evaluation of the various types of pasta will be carried out to determine the most sustainable option from economic, nutritional and environmental point of view.