Best Environmental Management Practice for the Food and Beverage Manufacturing Sector

This report describes best environmental management practices for food and beverage manufacturers. Best environmental management practices are those techniques, measures and actions that can be implemented by food and beverage manufacturers to minimise their impact on the environment all along the value chain of their products. They were identified together with sectoral experts on the basis of practices actually implemented by environmental frontrunners. The report outlines best environmental management practices that are broadly applicable to all food and beverage manufacturers, such as the carrying out of an environmental assessment, sustainable supply chain management, cleaning operations, improvement of energy efficiency, use of renewable energy, optimisation of transport and distribution, refrigeration and freezing operations and food waste prevention. Additionally, specific best practices for nine individual subsectors are presented, namely the processing of coffee, manufacture of olive oil, manufacture of soft drinks, manufacture of beer, production of meat and poultry meat products, manufacture of fruit juice, cheese making operations, manufacture of bread, biscuits and cakes and manufacture of wine. Alongside best environmental management practices, the report also identifies suitable sector specific environmental performance indicators related to the topic of each best practices, and, when possible, benchmarks of excellence, corresponding to the level of performance achieved by frontrunners.This report can be used by food and beverage manufacturers as a source of information to identify relevant actions they can implement to improve their environmental performance. On its basis, the EMAS (EU Eco-Management and Audit Scheme) Sectoral Reference Document on Best Environmental Management Practice for the food and beverage manufacturing sector was developed (according to Article 46 of Regulation (EC) No 1221/2009).