Carbon Footprint of Fresh Produce

Here is a table of footprints and costs to offset a range of fresh produce items found in a typical large grocery store. Again, with few exceptions (e.g. rice, cucumbers, tomatoes, cheese, margarine, cooking oils, sugar), the premium on the product price to offset carbon emissions is well less than 1%. Note that in this table, I've standardized the unit to one pound of produce.

Item	CO2e Footprint (lbs/lb)	Cost to Offset	Relative to Price
Potatoes (Russet – big bag)	0.17	0.12¢	0.30%
Mashed potato powder (box)	1.12	0.78¢	0.27%
Frozen french fries (bag)	0.57	0.40¢	0.27%
Rice (enriched, big bag)	1.68	1.18¢	1.75%
Flour (big bag)	0.99	0.69¢	1.14%
Oatmeal breakfast (big can)	1.00	0.70¢	0.46%
Cereal breakfast (box)	1.00	0.70¢	0.35%
Plain bread (large sliced loaf)	0.76	0.53%	0.63%
Wheat thins	2.64	1.85¢	0.55%
Buns and rolls (large bag)	0.91	0.64¢	0.30%
Pasta (dry, box)	0.81	0.57¢	0.45%
Onions (yellow, bulk)	0.50	0.35¢	0.35%
Cabbages (various, bulk)	0.50	0.35¢	0.35%
Tomatoes (various, bulk)	3.29	2.30¢	1.23%
Green salad (spring mix, bag)	3.30	2.31¢	0.42%
Cucumber (bulk)	3.30	2.31¢	3.05%
Canned vegetables (small can)	0.30	0.21¢	0.25%
Apples (various, bulk)	0.24	0.17¢	0.17%
Bananas (bulk)	0.45	0.32¢	0.40%
Oranges (bulk)	0.25	0.18¢	0.20%
Frozen blueberries (bag)	0.79	0.55¢	0.32%
Jelly (grape, bottle)	0.81	0.57¢	0.45%
Cheese (various, brick)	8.00	5.6¢	2.24%
Butter (various, sticks)	0.98	0.69¢	0.20%
Margarine (various, bucket)	2.12	1.48¢	1.17%
Cooking oils (vegetable, bottle)	3.53	2.47¢	1.54%
Sugar (fine granulated, box)	4.18	2.93¢	7.32%

Notes – GHG intensity is from a project in Sweden in 2004 (unfortunately it is not available for free on the web). It used secondary sources to compile a complete list of food items in the Swedish diet. The carbon footprints are the complete production and distribution life-cycle and don't include consumer trip to the store or meal preparation. I think Sweden is a good rough proxy for U.S. food emissions. Sweden has roughly the same overall per-capita food footprint as in the U.S. Sweden does though import more of its food. The extra emissions from importation may be somewhat balanced by the higher percentage of electricity that is generated from clean sources (nuclear and hydro). It is likely that food emissions are higher in Sweden and therefore this table is a conservation estimate for U.S. food items. As is the case with the table posted yesterday, the price used for comparison to the carbon offset cost is the lowest available price (again to ensure the results are conservative).