Provisional results for a Defra-funded study which indicate that home-grown strawberries and imports from Spain have a similar impact on the environment were revealed last week.
A lifecycle analysis for one kilo of strawberries arriving at a UK regional distribution centre from the UK and from the Spanish region of Huelva, undertaken by the Natural Resources Management Centre at the University of Cranfield, shows that the two options match each other in terms of energy consumption, when packaging and transport are taken into consideration.
The UK sector, however, shows less global warming potential than its Spanish counterpart, due to the transport needed to take fruit to market.
Dr Adrian Williams from Cranfield University maintained that the concept of food miles was “utterly stupid and misleading”.
He said: “These are provisional results, but the broad brush is there. Consumers want to do what is for the best, but this is difficult to establish. The results show mixed outcomes for both sources, but the hotspots to watch out for are plastics and steal, packaging, fumigation and water.”
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