Application of Life Cycle Assessment on Processing of Beef Rendang Products Using Steam Cauldron Technology

The beef rendang production process at the Payakumbuh Rendang small and medium industry can cause environmental impacts due to the use of energy that produces various emissions, such as using boilers. This research aims to analyze the life cycle of the rendang production process in the form of inventory data, including raw materials, energy, and emissions produced in the production process, and analyze the environmental impact of 250 g packaged rendang, which includes the transportation, storage, washing, cutting, milling, grating, pressing processes, cooking and packaging using the life cycle assessment (LCA) method, and providing recommendations for improvements at stages of the production process. This research uses a gate-to-gate approach on SimaPro 9.4 software with the CML-IA Baseline method and refers to the 2016 ISO 14040 standard. The results of this research show the impact of 250 g of packaged rendang for the global warming potential (GWP100a) category of 1.41E-13 kg CO₂ eq, ozone layer depletion 1.45E-16 kg CFC-11 eq, human toxicity 1.06E-14 kg 1.4-DB eq, photochemical oxidation 1.12E-14 kg C2H4 eq, acidification 1.07E-13 kg·SO2·eq, and eutrophication 4.98E-14 kg PO4 eq. Using electrical energy during storage, packaging, and cooking impacts the environment. Recommendations for improvements given to reduce environmental impacts are that the use of Beef freezers for storing spices can reduce electricity usage in the storage process by 17.9%, optimizing the retort usage time from 1.5 hours to 10 minutes reduces electricity usage in the packaging process by 24%, and the addition of hybrid solar panels for boilers can reduce electricity usage from Coal-Fired Power Plant (PLTU) by 63%. The improvement scenario shows a reduction in electricity use during the production process by 79.1% and a 9–68.4% reduction for all impact categories.