A corporate water footprint case study: The production of Gazpacho, a chilled vegetable soup

Abstract

This paper analyses the water footprint (WF) for 1 L of gazpacho, a chilled vegetable soup produced by an agrifood company located in south-eastern Spain, one of the driest regions in Europe. An overview of the main environmental impacts of its WF was carried out by identifying hotspots (high risks areas) based on a Water Stress indicator. The total WF calculated for 1 L gazpacho is 580.5 L, which mostly stems from the supply chain (99.9%), olive oil being the major contributor to total WF despite the very low amount used (2%). Most of the WF comes from green water (69%), 23% from blue and 8% represents the grey water. Pollution due to micropollutants such as pesticides, which are not yet regulated, has been taken into account in the WF calculation, pointing out that new regulation of micropollutants is needed to avoid their exclusion in the operational grey WF.

Keywords

• Water footprint
• Agrifood industry
• Gazpacho
• Water impact assessment
• Micropollutants