E-Delivery

declara on is an important milestone for Alberta field peas as we see consumers increasingly making food choices that align with their desire for transparency and environmental sustainability in the food supply." McLennan added that food companies and ingredient manufacturers around the world recognize this desire and are looking for ways to improve their environmental footprint with the foods they currently produce as well as with new product development. The Alberta Pea EPD provides the trusted transparent environmental performance benchmark that will indicate to consumers that peas are an environmentally friendly food/ ingredient. The EPD also serves as a value-added a ribute that can be used to market peas to food companies and value chain purchasers who are looking for product differen a on and brand promo on of environmentally friendly products for their customers. The Alberta Pea EPD indicates interna onal acceptance of the scien fic evidence to support the environmental benefits of the crop produc on of peas. There has been a rapid growth in the number of food and agriculture companies publishing EPDs in Europe and around the world. The Interna onal EPD System recently announced that there are now 1,000 registered EPDs from over 37 countries. As of February 2018, there were 139 agri-food EPDs published ranging from pasta, olive oil, bread and cheese to kiwi fruit and apples. Barilla, an interna onal food company famous for its pasta and sauces, is one of the major agri-food companies that have been leading the industry in both LCA and EPD cer fica on. By earning cer fica on for Alberta peas, APG is following in the footsteps of leading food suppliers like Barilla, which started to conduct life cycle assessments in 2000. Ini ally, Barilla's aim was to understand the poten al of the methodology and to improve the know-how of the whole supply chain, said Luca Ruini, Director of Health, Safety, Environment and Energy for the Group Supply Chain at Barilla. In 2008 LCA came to form a part of Barilla's business strategy, which increased the need for measuring and communica ng environmental performance. Now, it is fully integrated in the company's Good for You, Good for the Planet sustainability strategy. "We think that this approach must be as robust and transparent as possible," Ruini said. "The EPD could be a way of guaranteeing transparency and verifying robustness, due to the Product Category Rules prepara on." The star ng point was to register an EPD for Barilla durum wheat semolina pasta in 2009. By 2017, more than 60 products covering all Barilla brands had been cer fied. The company developed its own way of working towards declaring the environmental impact of its products, the Barilla EPD Process, which Ruini said was the first EPD process that has been developed in a food company. Barilla assumes that the environmental issue will be considered important long term. Its Good for You, Good for the Planet strategy states that the aim of the company's EPD process is to decrease the environmental impact of Barilla products. When Barilla prepared the EPD for its pasta products, it was discovered that the cul va on of durum wheat is the most important phase in terms of environmental impact. "As a result, Barilla launched a specific project called Barilla Sustainable Farming (BSF) to understand how to reduce the use of fer lizers," Ruini added. "This project proved very successful, partly due to the many experts from different fields that came together. By 2017, more than 180,000 tonnes of durum wheat have been cul vated according to BSF in Italy and the project is ongoing in Greece." Funding for the Alberta Field Pea EPD project was provided in part through Growing Forward 2, a federal- provincial-territorial ini a ve. Green split pea and cauliflower soup. P U L S E C R O P N E W S S U M M E R 2 0 1 8 | 1 5

• Cover