A new study from the Agri-Food Analytics Lab at Dalhousie University has revealed that more Canadians are ordering their meals to go right from home. “This is absolutely a lot of people’s new kitchen right there,” said Sylvain Charlebois, visiting scholar in food distribution and policy at McGill University. Charlebois recently led a research study surveying more than 3,000 people about their use of dining apps like Uber Eats and DoorDash. The study compared data collection in 2020 to new data gathered this summer. Charlebois said it shows more people are opting for online meal deliveries. “Back in 2020, just a few weeks before COVID, one in five Canadians were actually using food delivery apps on a regular basis; now it’s one in four,” Charlebois said. According to the survey, Manitoba ranks fourth in the country at 25.6 per cent. Charlebois said more people are looking for convenience at the cost of skills learned while cooking. “They’re looking to buy time, essentially,” Charlebois said. “The other issue, of course, is food literacy. A lot of people just either can’t cook or don’t want to cook at all.” Hearing fewer people are cooking is a big concern for nutritionist Andrea Katz. “When we just order things blindly and we’re not looking at the ingredients list and we’re not looking at the nutritional elements of that food, we’re sort of leaving it up to chance with how that’s going to make us feel,” said Katz, founder of Best You Nutrition. Winnipeg resident Marcus Marquez said on average, he uses meal app delivery services twice a month, but sometimes more often. “Honestly, it depends on what’s open, especially late at night,” Marquez said. “I usually order around midnight or really late, like 1:00 a.m., something like that.” Despite using food apps regularly, Marquez said he still makes time to get food the old-fashioned way. “I cook a lot,” Marquez said. “A couple of days. I just made breakfast today. I do it a lot.”
