Ecological food products - new roles and responsibilities for retailers

More and more ecological food products are entering supermarkets, and the recent trend is to label as well the climate impact of food products. But, do ecological food products have better environmental performances than conventional ones? An Austrian, Swedish and Spanish cucumber was compared calculating the climate impact in a life cycle perspective using an actor analysis. Austrian conventional cucumbers and Spanish ecological cucumbers show similar values, while Swedish conventional cucumbers have the highest emissions. The actor analysis shows that retailers and the cooperative have most power. The introduction of Spanish ecological cucumbers shifts the environmental impact from heating of greenhouses to transport. The findings highlight the retailers’ role and importance of green purchasing strategy considering the whole life cycle