The Food module measures the impact of a company's food purchases over the reporting year using a physical, life-cycle approach. Most emission factors come from Agribalyse. It is available as an End-to-End module.

The module calculates the impact of all food products purchased during the studied year (the financial year of the GHG report). The collected data is an inventory: the list of all products purchased (description and category) and the total volume in kg purchased per product.
Food is kept separate from the raw material module to give a clearer, more detailed view of food data, both in the platform graphs and in reports. Data processing is identical whether the referential is GHG Protocol or BEGES.

As an End-to-End module, the flow is: import the inventory, let the platform auto-categorize items and assign the most relevant emission factor, review and validate or override the suggestions, and finally check for double counting.

The module draws on three types of emission factors.
Agribalyse: the French reference database for the impact of food products (around 2, 500 references, usable for international companies). Most food EFs come from here. Each EF sits in a four-level category tree, from the most generic to the most precise level, based on the CIQUAL categorization. Agribalyse also provides labelled EFs (Bleu Blanc Coeur, Label Rouge) and organic-product EFs for a specific list of products.
Average EFs: one average value per category in the tree, used when the product description is not precise enough to identify a specific product (for example "Fruits" or "sweet biscuits"). The value is the average of all Agribalyse EFs in that category.
Chemical products: a list of chemical products commonly found in food inventories, sourced from Base Empreinte, Carbon Cloud and EcoInvent.

Each Agribalyse EF is broken down by life-cycle stage (agriculture, transformation, packaging, transport, distribution and consumption). Stages can be excluded in two situations: when another specific study would double count a stage (often packaging or transport), or when a stage is not relevant to the company's business. For example, a hotel that runs a restaurant already captures the consumption stage in its Scope 1 and 2, and has no distribution stage because the value chain ends at the restaurant. Common exclusions include totals without distribution, consumption, packaging or transport (and combinations of these), as well as "Agriculture & Transformation".

When should I use the Food module rather than the raw material module?

Use the Food module for companies in the food industry or with significant yearly food inventories, where a physical approach gives useful granularity and cleaner food-specific reporting.

To avoid double counting with another study covering that stage, or because a stage is not relevant to the company's business.

Yes. Although Agribalyse is the French reference database, it can be used for international companies.