Online community group food purchasing during the COVID-19 pandemic: Food security, problems, and sustainability

Abstract

The outbreak of the COVID-10 variant Omicron epidemic in Shanghai in 2022 had a huge impact on residents' food security. This study examines the roles, challenges, and sustainability of online community group food purchasing by analyzing survey data collected from 1168 households in Shanghai between March and May 2022, in the aftermath of COVID-19. This study demonstrates that online community group food purchasing played a crucial role in ensuring residents' food access and food security during the pandemic. However, this study also reveals that residents expressed concerns about the risk of epidemic transmission, food safety, increased prices, and difficulty in safeguarding rights. Only 21.5 % of residents are willing to continue using online community group purchasing. Based on the above conclusions, this study offers some suggestions.