Dataset of nutrient content and regionalized climate change impacts of food items per consumer country and life cycle stage based on supply location

This dataset quantifies the climate change impacts of approximately 500 food items depending on country of consumption and month consumed, with impacts changing based on the country of cultivation, transportation required, processing necessary, and energy used for storage and home cooking. Country specific crop cultivation impacts were used, where available, from existing databases. These cultivation impacts were combined with product dependent transportation impacts (depending on transport temperature and speed requirements) to the country of consumption. In the case that the original raw product was processed, the energy impacts for the country of origin were used. Various processing methods were incorporated (i.e. freezing, dehydrating, canning). If, after processing and transport to the country of consumption, a food item required refrigeration or freezing during storage before being purchased by the consumer, consumption country specific electricity impacts were included in the food item's total impact. Once purchased, if the food item would require cooking, the impacts of home cooking were included. This allowed for a novel dataset that provides impacts and nutritional information for each food item depending on where it is cultivated, how it is processed, and where the final consumer is located, while considering seasonal availability of fresh products each month. It allows for the impacts of individual food items to be directly compared, taking into account their full life cycle. Using this dataset, one can compare the impacts of importing out-of-season fruits and vegetables versus the additional impacts incurred due to processing and long-term storage of the same, locally grown product. As an example - in Switzerland fresh, Swiss grown apricots are only available during limited months, with a certain cultivation impact, and if consumed in Switzerland, a limited transportation impact. Fresh apricots can be imported from other countries, with their own country specific cultivation impacts, outside of these months, with additional transport impacts. Similarly, Swiss produced apricots can be deep frozen (using the Swiss electricity mix) and stored for year-long availability. This dataset offers a way to directly compare the impacts across food items and supply chains, including trade-offs between fresh out-of-season imports and locally produced items, as well as processed alternatives. In addition to the final life cycle impact values, this dataset shows the percentage of contribution of each life cycle stage of a food item to identify hotspots. It offers high reuse potential for researchers, policymakers, and supply chain analysts seeking to assess the temporal and spatial sustainability of food consumption, with the potential to include nutrition as a component. To our understanding, no dataset highlighting the contribution of each life cycle stage for food products, as well as how these contributions change depending on season, trade, and production and consumption countries exist.