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Food plays a significant role in the environmental impacts of human activities. However, many agro-industrial processes are multi-product systems and their impacts need to be distributed between the different co-products in order to properly address two major issues: (1) prevention of food spoilage and food losses and (2) the eco-design of food systems, from processing up to recommendations for changes in Western diets. As a culturally and nutritionally central component of most human diets, milk is critical because processing is a preservation issue and most dairy products follow from separations, thereby generating co-products. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is a reference and standard method that allows quantification of the potential environmental impacts of a manufactured product throughout its life cycle. Application of the method requires foreground information on the system considered, as well as input and output flows that feed and exit the system. This data paper provides data related to the fractionation of milk into cream, casein, lactose and two whey protein ingredients at industrial scale, using up-to-date technologies used in French dairy factories in years 2000-2010s. Cleaning is included. Transcription of these input and output flows into a selection of processes in the Agribalyse 3.0.1 and Ecoinvent 3.8 databases is also provided. Application of the LCA method in its attributional approach leaves methodological choices up to the practitioner, such as subdivision of the system, allocation of the environmental burden where subdivision is not applied or not possible, and aggregation of the impacts. Therefore, this data paper also provides the allocation factors that are necessary to apply mass, dry matter, protein or economic allocation at every separation operation throughout the processing itinerary. Using the characterization method EF 3.0, this data paper provides the potential environmental impacts of the 5 co-products obtained with an initial input of 600 tons of raw milk, i.e., 63 tons of cream, 183 tons of wet casein, 90 tons of lactose, 1.7 ton of dried β-lactoglobulin and 0.3 ton of dried α-lactalbumin. The respective shares of the 5 co-products are calculated for each allocation rule. Finally, this data paper provides the potential environmental impacts for the manufacture of 1 kg of α-lactalbumin enriched ingredient, as the co-product with the longest process itinerary, with details of all intermediate input contributions as well as two possible aggregation rules: by step or by input type. The dataset participates in providing often confidential industrial-scale LCI data to the public. It will be helpful for the eco-design of future itineraries. In particular, it contributes to taking the fate of the co-products into account when using LCA for such eco-design., (© 2024 The Author(s).)

Considering and reducing the environmental impacts has become one of the main concerns of agri-food systems. More specifically, the agri-food sector is increasingly confronted to the necessity of quantifying environmental impacts, e.g., to eco-design their products or to inform the consumers. Literature shows a high variability in environmental impacts between existing systems, as for example between cheeses and the necessity of more case studies to validate statements. In this context, this data paper provides some data related to Feta production in Greece, based on 8 farms of a cooperative (7 sheep livestock and one goat livestock). Feta cheese is PDO (Protected Designation of Origin), composed solely of goat's milk and sheep's milk under specific percentages (at least 70% sheep). More specifically, the data paper displays all the data used to obtain environmental impacts (calculated by using life cycle assessment (LCA)) of the production of Feta, from cradle to consumer. It includes the - sheep and goat - milk productions, the transformation into cheese, the packaging and the transport to wholesalers, then stores and then consumers. The raw data have mostly been obtained through interviews and surveys with the cheese and milk producers and complemented by literature. Data were used to build a life cycle inventory (LCI). For the milk production, the LCI was modeled using MEANS InOut software. For the whole LCI, Agribalyse 3.0 and Ecoinvent 3.8 were used as background databases, with modifications to reflect Greek context. The dataset also compiles the life cycle impact assessment (LCIA). The characterization method used is method EF3.0. This dataset participates in filling two gaps: (1) providing data to represent the variability between Feta cheese production systems and (2) providing data linking impacts of farm, transformation, retail and transport in a value chain perspective. This is done by (1) enlarging the perimeter when most studies found in literature focus on one stage (e.g. the production of milk) and (2) applying LCA to data specific to a regional production (Stymfalia in Greece)., Competing Interests: The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (© 2023 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc.)

Environmental data on organic products are needed to assess their environmental performance. The purpose of the ACV Bio project reported here was to generate environmental data as life cycle assessment (LCA) data for a sample of French organic production systems including cropping systems (annual crops, intercrops, forages), grassland, wine grapes, cow milk, calves, beef cattle, sheep, pigs, broilers and eggs. LCA was used to estimate environmental impacts of products from these systems. Recommended uses are to characterize part of the diversity of French organic farming systems and some of their environmental impacts, identify areas for improvement, perform eco-design and sensitivity analysis, and/or make system choices in a given context. However, these data do not represent average French organic products and should not be used as such. The MEANS-InOut web application was used to generate life cycle inventories (LCI). Impact assessment was performed using SimaPro v9 software. The Environmental Footprint 2.0 characterisation method was used to generate LCA data. These data were supplemented with three LCA indicators: cumulative energy demand, land competition (CML-IA non-baseline) and biodiversity loss. Three non-LCA indicators were also calculated for certain systems: diversity of crop families (for cropping systems), agro-ecological infrastructure (for sheep) and pesticide treatment frequency index (for grapes). In total, 173 products were modelled. LCA and non-LCA data are available in the Microsoft® Excel file at Data INRAE (https://doi.org/10.15454/TTR25S). LCI data are available in the AGRIBALYSE database and can be accessed using SimaPro and openLCA software. Farmer-practice data are available on demand., Competing Interests: The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships which have or could be perceived to have influenced the work reported in this article., (© 2021 The Authors.)