Breaking Bread
Bread is one of the world's most popular staple foods and as such has a proportionately large global environmental footprint in aggregate.
According to Statista data, the current global market for bread is worth an estimated US$0.53tn, which equates to an annual volume of around 200 billion kilograms - an average of 25kg consumed per person.
That's a lot of bread. Although a simple form of product, supplying such a large market requires substantial planetary resources in the form of agricultural land and industrial infrastructure. The growing population means the demand and footprint will continue to grow.
In the context of a world at full capacity struggling to feed a growing population, the bread product lifecycle is ripe for a fresh stocktake.
This Footprint Focus series will look at the following key lifecycle stages:
- The Harvest - field to flour
- The Bakery - raising the bread
- The Basket - the end of loaf?
