Flying is a very polluting form of transport: that applies to people, but just as much to green beans. Reason enough for Lidl to announce on Tuesday that it will no longer fly in fruit and vegetables. It turns out that this is not unique: supermarket chain Plus has announced that it has not been doing this for several years, with the exception of green asparagus, and Jumbo has asked if requested to bring three more exotic fruits to the Netherlands by plane and to stop doing so next year. Albert Heijn does not want to fly in fruit from next year. Good news for the climate?
For the global CO2emissions, fruit and vegetables in aircraft are not a major factor. Only a fraction of one percent of the global food transport is by air, such as berries, asparagus and beans. In total, transport, which mainly takes place by ship, accounts for a few percent of the greenhouse gases associated with food, among other things. from an estimate who entered last year Nature Food was published. Sustainable food production is for the environment usually much more important than the origin.
However, air transport can greatly increase the climate impact of specific products. Flying quickly emits fifty times more greenhouse gas than transport by ship, according to research institute Our World in Data. Compared to road transport, it is about five times more polluting.
In a calculation example in which asparagus is flown from South America to Europe, the institute even arrives at an effect that is greater than with chicken and pork, which in most cases are much worse for the climate than vegetables.
Not a simple calculation
It therefore makes sense for supermarkets to stop flying in fruit and vegetables, says Sanderine Nonhebel, associate professor of environmental science at the University of Groningen. What exactly is the difference in CO2emissions is not easy to say. ‘If you take some of the vegetables you fly in in the winter from the greenhouses in the Westland, for example, a large part of the climate gains will be lost again due to the extra energy that this costs.’
A Lidl spokesperson does not want to say much about the alternatives that the chain will be tapping into. The supermarket cannot share figures about the expected climate gains. According to the store chain, fresh legumes such as green beans and asparagus tips are currently flown in. This will gradually decrease until March 1, when the supermarket stops flying in altogether.
Lidl’s promise is that the customer will ‘not notice anything in terms of availability and price’. Agricultural economist Willy Balmatten of the University of Wageningen has yet to see that. Flying is expensive, much more expensive than sailing, he says, so it is only done with products that are so perishable that they otherwise arrive too late at the supermarket. ‘Just assume that if products are imported by air, alternatives are hard to find.’
Supermarket chain Plus, which claims to have stopped flying in almost all fruit and vegetables years ago, illustrates its point: the perishable green asparagus will still come by plane. , the chain writes in a press release. Plus Tuesday is unable to answer further questions about this.
Opt for seasonal products
‘If you really want to make a profit in the area of climate change, you have to accept that sometimes a product isn’t available,’ says Nonhebel. Fresh vegetables have to come from far away when they are not grown in the Netherlands, or they have to be grown in greenhouses. As a consumer, you can limit the environmental impact of your food yourself by eating only seasonal fruit and vegetables, according to the researcher.
At the same time, locally produced is not always more sustainable, says Willy Baltussen. In winter, for example, it can be better for the environment to get a tomato by truck from Spain than from the hot-fired and brightly lit Dutch greenhouses, he says. ‘But I think it will at least help the climate if you look for alternatives to flying.’
However, this could have consequences in very different areas than the climate, he says. The question is, for example, what consequences it will have for suppliers if supermarkets stop flying products. If they opt for suppliers closer to home, this could be at the expense of employment in Latin American and African countries, Baltussen warns. ‘Many legumes come from North and East Africa, for example. A loss of income and jobs will hit hard there.’