Weight means more energy to move the product which means more fuel in and more co2 out.

True, but it takes energy to produce and dispose of the plastic packaging, so it’s no so clear which produces the least co2 without doing the math.

I'm pretty sure the extra CO2 to transport would be worth the tradeoff for a decrease in physical pollution.

I'd argue that it's not even a problem if more food is wasted. If it's a small percentage, it's still going to be a net win for the environment if it dramatically reduces the amount of plastic used for food packaging. The problem is that there is no economical cost on the environmental impact to producers.

My local supermarket has switched to supplying avocados in a plastic tray wrapped in plastic film. I can't imagine that provides any meaningful advantage over shipping 10s of avocados loose in a large cardboard box.

Of course for the industry it's bad because any percentage increase in waste comes out of their profits, while plastic packaging is basically free.

That's not the argument in full. Carbon cost of production includes the cost of wastage. If the cost in carbon to produce what is wasted is > than the savings elsewhere, it is a loss.

It is not so much a complicated equation as it is an involved one, and we risk simplifying the equation and getting it very wrong.

Or foregoing the "lets get our groceries shrink-wrapped from Chile" and instead going local.

Locality of produce means it's fresher (doesn't ripen during transport) and local operations get a boost.

The fact that Sudexo supplies my local grades school rather than local operations cooking from local produce means schools are at the mercy of a large megacorp that likely does not locally source the food (not to mention it's not healthy).

The cost in carbon of a thing is complicated, and this sort of X (local) is good, and Y (non-local) is bad causes a lot of the issues.

There was a debate about Dutch flowers vs Kenyan. The debate was framed as "local vs grown in sunshine", e.g. the cost of growing in cold greenhouses vs sunshine. I think you know where this is going...

https://ecoligo.com/blog/2018/08/08/the-air-miles-debate-are... (https://only-roses.co.uk/U/files/Cut_roses_for_the_British_m... is the study). Even after accounting for distance and transport, the Kenyan flowers have lower carbon usage.

A book like https://www.amazon.com/Drawdown-Comprehensive-Proposed-Rever... provides the context needed to choose between options, and the solutions are often odd, like replacing old fridges which has a HUGE climate change benefit (because the refrigerants are 1,000s of times worse than CO2), but that's not a story that is told because, well I think complicated narratives lose to simpler ones.

Forget carbon cost, and focus simply on taste. Does fruit that ripens in storage appeal to you over local?

While I can understand your garden-path re: fridges, the kenyan flowers is a strawman.

The vast majority of local produce will cost less, taste better and keep better than ones shipped across the border or an ocean.