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Interventions and public health nutrition

A cross-sectional comparison of meal delivery options in three international cities

European Journal of Clinical Nutrition volume 74, pages 1465–1473 (2020)Cite this article

Subjects

Abstract

Background/Objectives

The recent upsurge in online food delivery options has reshaped the food market. The aim of this study was to examine between-city differences and within-city socioeconomic differences in the number of online meal delivery options, meal types, and meal prices.

Subjects/Methods

A cross-sectional study was conducted in three international cities within high-income countries. Across 10 sampled addresses in Chicago (USA), Amsterdam (The Netherlands), and Melbourne (Australia), meal delivery options provided by a major international meal delivery company were sampled. Bonferroni adjusted Chi2-tests were conducted to assess between-city differences as well as within-city socioeconomic differences in price levels.

Results

Across the 10 sampled addresses in each city, there were n = 1668 delivery options in Chicago, n = 1496 in Amsterdam and n = 1159 in Melbourne. In total, 10,220 keywords (representing 148 different meal types) were recorded across all 4323 delivery options. In all three cities, burgers, pizza and Italian were in the top 10 of most advertised meals. Compared with Amsterdam, healthy and meat-free meals were less commonly advertised in Chicago and Melbourne. In Chicago, the number of delivery options for addresses in the most disadvantaged and least disadvantaged neighborhoods were similar. In Amsterdam and Melbourne, a greater number of options was available for the addresses in the least disadvantaged neighborhoods.

Conclusions

This study highlights the vast number of meal delivery options individuals can source when at home via a meal delivery service, noting the number differs across and within cities. In each city, most food types available for delivery were not considered healthy.

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Fig. 1: Number of restaurants that deliver to each neighborhood via a major meal delivery company on Thursday night, 6:30 pm in three international cities, stratified by neighborhood socioeconomic disadvantage.
Fig. 2: Percentage of restaurants that deliver via a major meal delivery company within each price category by city and neighborhood socioeconomic disadvantage.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Manuela Rigo for collecting the data used in this study. We also thank Jenny Phan for assisting with the neighborhood sampling in Chicago.

Funding

The contribution of the first author (MP) is supported by the Innovational Research Incentives Scheme (#451-16-029), financed by The Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO). Internal University funding (LT) was used to fund the data collection component of this work.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Chair Group Consumption and Healthy Lifestyles, Wageningen University & Research, Wageningen, The Netherlands

    Maartje P. Poelman

  2. Institute for Physical Activity and Nutrition (IPAN), School of Exercise and Nutrition Sciences, Deakin University, Geelong, Australia

    Lukar Thornton

  3. Department of Health Systems Science, University of Illinois at Chicago College of Nursing, Chicago, IL, USA

    Shannon N. Zenk

Authors
  1. Maartje P. Poelman
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  2. Lukar Thornton
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  3. Shannon N. Zenk
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Contributions

MP and LT designed the research and analyzed the data, interpret the results, and drafted the paper. SZ contributed to the design of the study and interpretation of the results and critically revised the paper. All authors approved the final version and are accountable for all aspects of the work.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Maartje P. Poelman.

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Poelman, M.P., Thornton, L. & Zenk, S.N. A cross-sectional comparison of meal delivery options in three international cities. Eur J Clin Nutr 74, 1465–1473 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41430-020-0630-7

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