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For a given weight and volume of food requiring refrigeration, how much worse would US manufacturing need to be than Western European manufacturing to environmentally justify purchasing imported food? Does it depend on where in the US I live?

Sample cases:

  • I live in NYC and am considering purchasing a sausage imported from Pisticci, Italy, or one produced in Kansas City, Kansas.
  • I live in Eureka, CA and am considering purchasing cheese from the Loleta Cheese Factory in Loleta, CA or that produced by the Amsterdam Cheese Company in Westbeemster, Holland.
  • I live in Omaha, Nebraska and am considering purchasing a pack of cheap tortellini, either from Sansepolcro, Italy or from Seattle, Washington.
Please stop being evil
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    This cannot be answered for just any foods. Can you edit you question and ask for one specific kind of food? It is still very broad then (almost requiring a full life cycle analysis including agricultural production, processing, transportation, energy sources), but maybe it is answerable then. It also helps if you exclude certain components from the comparison (e.g. energy source). –  Mar 26 '17 at 19:10
  • @JanDoggen No, that would distract answerers, I think. I don't understand how you can think that a full life cycle analysis would be useful to an answer in this or that case, so I'm reluctant to include an example food like that. What would be different between different kinds of refrigerated foods of the same weight and volume in terms of shipping? – Please stop being evil Mar 26 '17 at 19:13
  • @JanDoggen I've actually already excluded agricultural production, processing, and energy sources, and limited the transportation to a single group (well, maybe more than one if I am misunderstanding transatlantic shipping). – Please stop being evil Mar 26 '17 at 19:30
  • You're comparing food quality (with the associated downstream effects) with environmental harm. I don't think you can get a clear answer to how one can outweigh the other. A single extra person getting cancer from low quality food would consider a high environmental cost justifiable to avoid that. I suggest you remove that comparison as part of the question. – Highly Irregular Mar 26 '17 at 19:43
  • @HighlyIrregular No, I'm comparing environmental harm with environmental harm. Consider that industries operating under a carbon tax, for example, are preferable to industries operating in ways that would not be financially viable were such a tax implemented. However, the benefit of the company making the product not wantonly dumping toxins into wetlands and pumping CO2 into the sky while lying about it must be weighed against the cost of shipping the less-damaging-in-production goods over the ocean. – Please stop being evil Mar 26 '17 at 20:06
  • Obviously, the damage done in production by a good will vary. The question is not if a certain, or indeed any, good is worth shipping or worth not shipping, the question is how differentially bad things would need to be for the correct decision to be one way or the other. Like, in the equation "Harm_America >? Harm_Europe +Harm_Shipping" what value of Harm_America-Harm_Europe leads Harm_America-Harm_Europe>?Harm_Shipping to be true. This question is solely dependent on Harm_Shipping. – Please stop being evil Mar 26 '17 at 20:11
  • I think you could base the question on your second paragraph to make it clearer - what is the carbon footprint of shipping refrigerated food across the ocean? Then, separately, you could compare the carbon footprint of food production. The comment about different levels of food quality distracts from your main inquiry. – LShaver Mar 26 '17 at 20:40
  • @LShaver like so? – Please stop being evil Mar 26 '17 at 20:47
  • You can split this broad question to several more partial and specific questions to get more specific and well covered answers. Don't stop asking - ask more. Consider some criteria to split this topic (or ask about them). – Peter Ivan Mar 31 '17 at 06:50
  • @PeterIvan what would you suggest I divide it by? I could give specific towns if that would help, I suppose. Should I give a couple test cases in the question? – Please stop being evil Mar 31 '17 at 20:29
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    The samples would definitely help to quantify at least some answers. There are too many variables in your question and it makes it too broad. Do you speak of "personal" import rates or do you import food as a business? How do you import goods (air, ship, inland transports etc.)? Do we idealise some cases (transportation discontinuities) or do you focus on getting very realistic figures? There are too many combinations here - just elaborate on your question more and ask more specific question(s). – Peter Ivan Apr 01 '17 at 20:58
  • Energy costs depend on the used type of transport, the type of food and the locations between which the food is transported. IMO this all makes this question too broad. – THelper Apr 03 '17 at 10:27
  • @THelper it sounds like I'm misunderstanding how transportation works. I've asked http://sustainability.stackexchange.com/questions/5939/how-does-transportation-cost-depend-on-food to understand better. – Please stop being evil Apr 03 '17 at 16:25
  • @THelper I disagree with the close, just think a bit more refinement is necessary. Sounds like OP wants to know something like, "What is the environmental impact of transportation by X for refrigerated foods?" The actual distance doesn't matter - we could safely assume that impact scales with distance. Environmental impact of refrigeration and transportation are well studied - OP wants to know how these combine and scale for a specific quantity of food. – LShaver Apr 03 '17 at 16:47
  • @LShaver The question is most likely salvageable, but I do feel that the OP has to focus on a particular type of food and/or method of refrigeration to prevent this question from becoming too broad (see also my comment to the OPs follow-up question). – THelper Apr 03 '17 at 19:39
  • @LShaver If more refinement is necessary, closure is appropriate. I'm glad you think it will be easy to fix and reopen, though :) – Please stop being evil Apr 03 '17 at 20:41

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