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From soybean field to factory gate: quantifying the full footprint of Vippy's defatted soya flakes
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Challenge
Sustainability is no longer a differentiator in global food trade, it is a baseline requirement. European buyers, multinational food companies and institutional customers increasingly ask for verifiable environmental data before committing to long-term supply relationships. For food-ingredient manufacturers in emerging markets the implication is direct: quantify the product's environmental impact, or risk losing access to high-value markets.
Vippy Industries, a five-decade-old export-oriented non-GMO soy processor supplying more than 50 countries, recognised this early. It needed a credible, internationally accepted Life Cycle Assessment for its flagship protein ingredient, Defatted Soya Flakes (Toasted), that could stand up in supplier assessments, greenhouse gas disclosures, Environmental Product Declarations and sustainability-linked procurement conversations.
Buyers want numbers, not promises. That meant a rigorous study rather than a sustainability statement.
Approach
TRST01 conducted a fully compliant cradle-to-gate Life Cycle Assessment, covering every significant environmental input and output from the first seeds planted in the field to the moment the packaged product leaves the factory gate.
- Declared unit of 1 metric tonne of packaged Defatted Soya Flakes (Toasted), assessed to ISO 14044:2006.
- ReCiPe Midpoint (H) method across 18 environmental impact categories.
- Primary plant data combined with Ecoinvent v3.11 and Agri-footprint v6.0 background data sets, modelled in SimaPro 10.3.0.1, for the period April 2024 to March 2025.
- Six life-cycle stages assessed: soybean cultivation, seed packaging, transport to the plant, crushing and processing, flake production, and finished-product packaging.
- Impacts allocated across co-products including soybean oil, lecithin and soya meal, using a multi-criteria method based on mass, energy content and economic value.
Solution
TRST01 delivered a complete, auditable assessment and the material Vippy needed to use it commercially.
- A full ISO 14044:2006-compliant LCA report covering all 18 ReCiPe Midpoint (H) impact categories and resource-use indicators.
- Hotspot analysis identifying environmental hotspots stage by stage across the value chain.
- A market-ready data package formatted for customer sustainability assessments, Environmental Product Declarations, greenhouse gas disclosures and EU regulatory frameworks.
- A public version of the case study with proprietary details protected, suitable for sharing with buyers and auditors.
- A strategic improvement roadmap covering sustainable sourcing, renewable energy expansion, transport optimisation and packaging innovation.
Results
The assessment found that soybean cultivation, not processing, dominates the footprint, and quantified how efficient the manufacturing stage already is.
What’s next
With hotspots quantified, the path to meaningful improvement runs through agricultural sourcing rather than the factory. The data now supports supplier assessments, disclosure, and readiness for frameworks including EU carbon border measures, EUDR and customers' Scope 3 reporting, and gives Vippy a documented low-impact manufacturing story to take into supplier negotiations.
