Background: Digital food retail environments are increasing in popularity, providing customers with access to food through use of mobile phone applications and websites. We aimed to quantify the prevalence of digital food retail platform use, for online restaurants (including online food delivery platforms), online convenience stores, online supermarkets, online only food retail stores, and online meal kit retailers in Australia, Canada, Mexico, the United Kingdom and the United States. We additionally assessed the association between use of these digital food retail platforms and a range of sociodemographic and behavioural factors.
Methods: A cross-sectional online survey was conducted as part of the International Food Policy Survey. Participants were asked a range of sociodemographic and behavioural questions, and about how they purchased food online. Logistic regression models were fitted to assess associations between digital food retail platforms, and sociodemographic and behavioural factors.
Results: 19,877 participants were included in our analysis. Overall, the prevalence of online food retail platforms was highest for online restaurants (36%) and online supermarkets (28%), in the previous 30 days. The odds of using online restaurants was significantly higher for men (OR: 1.23, 95% CI: 1.14 -1.33) and those belonging to Generation Z (compared to the combined category “Silent Generation and Baby Boomers”)(OR: 6.10, 95% CI: 5.34 – 7.00). Generation Z also had a higher odds of using online convenience stores (OR: 7.51, 95% CI: 5.71 – 9.88). Those with primary school aged children had a higher odds of using online supermarkets compared to those without children (OR: 2.56, 95% CI: 2.22 – 2.94).
Conclusions: Digital food retail platforms are used by many to order food and beverages. It is important that these platforms promote healthy options over unhealthy ones to ensure consumers have access to convenient options that are not harmful to health.