How do I calculate the carbon footprint of poultry feed per tonne?
Feed is mostly crop ingredients: multiply maize, soybean meal and other ingredients per tonne by supplier figures. Add grinding, mixing, steam conditioning and pelleting energy, then divide the mill's energy by tonnes of feed dispatched.
Ingredients
- Maize, soybean meal, rice bran and DDGS by weight.
- Oil, minerals, vitamins and premixes.
- Bags.
Process
- Grinding and batching.
- Steam conditioning from the boiler.
- Pelleting, crumbling, cooling and bagging.
Per tonne
Report per tonne by feed type, since starter, grower and layer feeds use different ingredient shares.
Worked example: poultry feed unit per tonne (one month)
- Electricity: 40,000 kWh x 0.710 = 28,400 kg CO2
- Coal: 25,000 kg x 2.42 = 60,500 kg CO2
- Feed dispatched (tonnes): 2,000
- Plant total: 88,900 / 2,000 = 44.5 kg CO2 per tonne
- Add maize, soybean meal and premix for the full figure
Inputs are illustrative; use your own bills and production records.
What Senseible does here
Senseible reads the plant's electricity bills (CEA grid factor 0.710 kg CO2 per kWh, CO2 Baseline Database version 21.0) and fuel invoices (IPCC 2006 defaults) into a fingerprinted Scope 1 and 2 record, the plant-level input to a per-unit figure. Bought-in materials go to the supplier evidence trail; product reports are self-declared drafts.
- Product carbon footprint calculator
- Cattle feed footprint
- Soybean meal footprint
- Egg footprint
- Food processing industry
Sources: GHG Protocol Product Standard, ISO 14067:2018, Carbon footprint of products (iso.org), IPCC 2006 Guidelines, Volume 2 Energy (fuel defaults), CEA CO2 Baseline Database, version 21.0
Last reviewed 2026-10-20.