Grocery Shopping Research Articles

Food Insecurity in the Rural United States: An Examination of Struggles and Coping Mechanisms to Feed a Family among Households with a Low-Income.

Households with a low-income in rural places experience disproportionate levels of food insecurity. Further research is needed about the nuances in strategies that households with a low-income in rural areas apply to support food security nationally. This study aimed to understand the barriers and strategies that households with a low-income in rural areas experience to obtain a meal and support food security in the United States. We conducted a qualitative study with semi-structured interviews among 153 primary grocery shoppers with a low-income residing in rural counties. A majority of family's ideal meals included animal-based protein, grains, and vegetables. Main themes included struggles to secure food and coping mechanisms. Ten categories included affordability, adequacy, accommodation, appetite, time, food source coordinating, food resource management, reduced quality, rationing for food, and exceptional desperation. These results can inform public health professionals' efforts when partnering to alleviate food insecurity in rural areas.

Online Grocery Shopping Behaviors and Attitudes Among Asian Americans.

How online grocery shopping behaviors differ among Asian American (AA) ethnic subgroups and acculturation level is unknown. From June 9-15, 2020, we administered an online survey to a nationally-derived nonprobability sample of 2,895 AA adults, including 1,737 East, 570 South, and 587 Southeast Asian adults, assessing online grocery shopping (yes/no, frequency, reasons). We used logistic regression to compare responses by subgroup and acculturation score, controlling for sociodemographics. Thirty-percent of participants reported shopping online for groceries in a typical month, with a higher percentage among South (45%) versus East Asian adults (23%). Participants with low (vs. high) acculturation scores were more likely to report a lack of special foods (OR = 0.7; 95% CI: 0.5-0.98) and poor food quality (OR = 0.6; 95% CI: 0.4-0.7) as preventing them from shopping online. Online grocery shopping has the capacity to address inequities in health, potentially via culturally-tailored programs designed for less-acculturated AA adults.

Grocery shopping in California and COVID-19: Transportation, environmental justice, and policy implications

• We surveyed California members of KnowledgePanel®, a probability-based panel. • We estimated ordered and generalized structural equation models. • We analyzed the association between environmental justice and grocery shopping. • Higher levels of environmental injustice are associated with less in-store shopping. • There is no association between environmental justice, e-grocery, & click-and-pick. To understand how COVID-19 changed grocery shopping and explore implications for transportation and environmental justice, we surveyed in May 2021 California members of KnowledgePanel®, the largest and oldest U.S. probability-based panel. We asked how frequently Californians grocery shopped before and during the pandemic, and how they may grocery shop afterward in-store, online with home delivery (“e-grocery”), or online with store/curbside pick-up (“click-and-pick”). We found that most Californians continued to grocery shop in-person during the pandemic, although less frequently than before. Many relied more on e-grocery (+8.9 %) and click-and-pick (+13.3 %), although older generations remained attached to in-store shopping. African American households grocery shopped in-store less than Whites pre-pandemic; post-pandemic, they may compensate with more e-grocery and click-and-pick. While higher levels of environmental injustice (based on CalEnviroScreen) were associated with less in-store shopping, we found no association with e-grocery or click-and-pick. Our results have implications for travel, food logistics, and parking management.

Perceptions of People Living With Moderate to Severe Traumatic Brain Injury About Grocery Shopping Performance

<h3>Research Objectives</h3> To investigate the impact of brain injury (TBI) on grocery shopping performance from the viewpoint of those who have suffered a moderate or severe TBI. <h3>Design</h3> Exploratory and descriptive qualitative approach. <h3>Setting</h3> Specialised acquired brain injury rehabilitation service (inpatient and community rehabilitation services). <h3>Participants</h3> Maximum variation purposive sampling was used to recruit 14 adults with moderate to severe TBI. A total of 8 people were recruited from the inpatient rehabilitation ward, while 6 were community dwelling. All participants had participated in rehabilitation which addressed grocery shopping. <h3>Interventions</h3> Not applicable. <h3>Main Outcome Measures</h3> Semi-structured interviews ranging from 20-60 minutes were conducted. Data were analysed using a thematic approach, with deductive coding to the American Occupational Therapy Practice Framework. Demographic data (age, time post injury, living situation, severity of injury) were gathered from the medical record and the Functional Independence Measure (FIM™) was completed on all participants. Double coding of >10% of interviews was completed to increase rigor. <h3>Results</h3> Five key themes emerged from the data; getting to the shops, generation and use of a list, searching and locating items, selecting items, budgeting and paying for items. Brain injury related impairments (cognitive and visual) and external factors (social environment, physical environment, and restrictions on driving and financial management) were identified as being the most common factors which impacted on grocery shopping from the perspectives of those living with TBI. The physical layout and familiarity with the grocery store environment was seen to directly impact on the associated cognitive demands and grocery shopping performance. <h3>Conclusions</h3> People with TBI perceive grocery shopping as a highly contextualised multi-step activity which is impacted by cognitive and visual impairments. Clinical rehabilitation should include consideration of the multiple demands and environmental context of grocery shopping to inform targeted rehabilitation interventions for this population. <h3>Author(s) Disclosures</h3> None

Intelligent personalized shopping recommendation using clustering and supervised machine learning algorithms.

Next basket recommendation is a critical task in market basket data analysis. It is particularly important in grocery shopping, where grocery lists are an essential part of shopping habits of many customers. In this work, we first present a new grocery Recommender System available on the MyGroceryTour platform. Our online system uses different traditional machine learning (ML) and deep learning (DL) algorithms, and provides recommendations to users in a real-time manner. It aims to help Canadian customers create their personalized intelligent weekly grocery lists based on their individual purchase histories, weekly specials offered in local stores, and product cost and availability information. We perform clustering analysis to partition given customer profiles into four non-overlapping clusters according to their grocery shopping habits. Then, we conduct computational experiments to compare several traditional ML algorithms and our new DL algorithm based on the use of a gated recurrent unit (GRU)-based recurrent neural network (RNN) architecture. Our DL algorithm can be viewed as an extension of DREAM (Dynamic REcurrent bAsket Model) adapted to multi-class (i.e. multi-store) classification, since a given user can purchase recommended products in different grocery stores in which these products are available. Among traditional ML algorithms, the highest average F-score of 0.516 for the considered data set of 831 customers was obtained using Random Forest, whereas our proposed DL algorithm yielded the average F-score of 0.559 for this data set. The main advantage of the presented Recommender System is that our intelligent recommendation is personalized, since a separate traditional ML or DL model is built for each customer considered. Such a personalized approach allows us to outperform the prediction results provided by general state-of-the-art DL models.

Dietary changes among pregnant individuals compared to pre-pandemic: A cross-sectional analysis of the Pregnancy during the COVID-19 Pandemic (PdP) study.

Dietary changes are common in pregnancy and may affect pregnancy outcomes, yet these changes and the associated contributory factors during the COVID-19 pandemic have been understudied. We aimed to investigate the association between dietary change and socioeconomic variables, pre-pregnancy BMI, and mental health symptoms; the change in intake of seven food categories and their reasons; and the association between intake of these food categories and mental health symptoms. In this cross-sectional analysis, we used data from the Pregnancy during the COVID-19 Pandemic (PdP) cohort study that collected data from pregnant Canadian individuals (n = 9,870, gestational age ≤ 35 weeks) on socioeconomic factors, pandemic-related hardships, pre-pregnancy body mass index (BMI), dietary changes compared to pre-pandemic and the reasons for these changes. We assessed depressive and anxiety symptoms using the Edinburgh Postpartum Depression Scale (EPDS) and Patient-Reported Outcomes Measurement Information System (PROMIS)-Anxiety, respectively. 54.3% of the participants reported a change in their diet. Non-white ethnicity (OR = 1.33), job loss (OR = 1.29), clinically elevated depressive and anxiety symptoms (OR = 1.26 and 1.14, respectively), self-isolation (OR = 1.20), pre-pregnancy BMI (OR = 1.19), fear of COVID-19 (OR = 1.15), and pandemic phase at enrolment (OR = 0.90) significantly predicted dietary change. Most participants ate about the same amounts of dairy, meats and canned foods/dried goods as pre-pandemic (61.5, 61.7, and 60.2%, respectively), increased their intake of fresh vegetables/fruits and sweets/snacks (43.2 and 54.5%, respectively), and decreased fast-food and take-out/home delivery (53.2 and 43.1%, respectively). Changes in consumption of the food categories had a curvilinear association with mental health symptoms (except resilience) indicating greater symptoms with either decreased or increased intakes. Changes in craving, having more time for cooking/preparing foods, and being unable to go grocery shopping frequently (but not reduced affordability) were the main reasons driving these dietary changes. Some factors increase the odds of dietary change among pregnant individuals during the pandemic, with some changes toward a healthy and others toward an unhealthy diet. Given the importance of a healthy diet during gestation, identifying the risk and protective factors might be the first essential step in reducing the detrimental effects of unfavorable dietary changes during the pandemic on this vulnerable population.

DigiBasket: The Grocery Store Web App

Abstract: Online Grocery Store is an eCommerce based web application for our Web Programming project. We had developed a sample in which user can search and find necessary information about any grocery item, can proceed to checkout to buy products. User can create an account, update personal information, can check its past activities, orders and transaction. A grocery store (AE), grocery shop (BE) or simply grocery is a store that primarily retails a general range of food products, which may be fresh or packaged. In everyday U.S. usage, however, "grocery store" is a synonym for supermarket, and is not used to refer to other types of stores that sell groceries. In the UK, shops that sell food are distinguished as grocers or grocery shops (though in everyday use, people usually use either the term "supermarket" or a "corner shop" or "convenience shop"). Larger types of stores that sell groceries, such as supermarkets and hypermarkets, usually stock significant amounts of non-food products, such as clothing and household items. Small grocery stores that sell mainly fruit and vegetables are known as greengrocers (Britain) or produce markets (U.S.), and small grocery stores that predominantly sell prepared food, such as candy and snacks, are known as convenience shops or delicatessens.

Antibiotic use, knowledge, and practices of milk vendors in India's informal dairy value chain

BackgroundMilk vendors play an important role in India's dairy value chain; however, their food safety practices are poorly understood. From a milk safety perspective, vendor behavior is significant because it has the potential to affect both consumer and producer behavior. This study describes the types of milk vendors in two Indian states, in an attempt to investigate vendors' hygienic knowledge and practices toward safety and antimicrobial resistance (AMR).MethodsA cross-sectional study was conducted in the states of Assam and Haryana, India. In selected villages, all the milk vendors identified at the time of visit were interviewed. A questionnaire was used to assess the knowledge and practices on antibiotics, milk safety and hygiene. The milk samples were tested for presence of antibiotic resistant bacteria using antibiotic susceptibility testing.ResultsIn total, 244 milk vendors were interviewed during the survey. Out of these, 146 (59.8%) of the vendors traded raw milk, while 40.2% traded pasteurized milk. Vendors were categorized depending on whom they supplied milk to. Five categories were identified: (a) those who sold at grocery shops; (b) those who sold on roadside (roadside vendors); (c) those who sold from door to door; (d) those who sold to sweet makers/tea stalls, and (e) those who sold from own home/other entity. The level of training among vendors on milk hygiene was non-existent and the knowledge related to antibiotics was low. Most of them [210/244 (86.07%)] agreed that boiled milk is always safer than raw milk but almost half [119 (48.77%)] of them admitted that sometimes they drink milk without boiling it. Most vendors believed that they could identify whether milk is safe or not for consumption just by its appearance and smell. Out of 124 milk samples collected from surveyed milk vendors and tested for the presence of antibiotic-resistant bacteria, 80 (64.52%) were tested positive.ConclusionThis study highlights the low levels of knowledge regarding food safety among milk vendors. It shows the predominance of informal milk vendors in the surveyed states and prevalence of AMR bacteria in milk traded by them. Training may be a beneficial strategy for addressing the issue.

Study and Evaluation of Sales and Marketing Strategies of Grocery Shops in Jabalpur City

Recent interest in “marketing techniques” has intensified the emphasis on temporary changes in retail types such as malls, hyper/supermarkets, grocery stores, department stores, discount stores, and convenience stores. This research found that four marketing elements, namely product, price, location, and promotion, have a major impact on modern marketing and customer satisfaction. Following a brief analysis, this paper aims to evaluate retailers’ effective marketing strategies and apply them across new retail formats to improve their sales. The marketing strategy and the actions of the Retailers differ from one location to another. There is a common belief that persons with varying levels of income live in different regions. This research was undertaken to determine the variations in the marketing strategies of grocery store owners because of variations in locations, or rural areas cantered on this presumption. For the thesis, grocery store owners of numerous Jabalpur city locations are considered. The areas were chosen based on the living area of a specific income group of people. Expected Outcome: The retailer can leverage the study for effective marketing. The study will help to do smart marketing for the retail industry.

Impact of E- Payment on Retail Grocery Shops (With Reference to Nagpur City)

The paradigm shift in the mode of carrying out business from the physical to digital has brought about a change in the payment system. The Retail grocery sector has been completely transformed by digital technologies, and consumers' payment expectations now are very different from what they were simply a few years ago. Stores now run the risk of slipping behind the competition if they don't change to satisfy these changing expectations. When e-payments were introduced in the country Indian population was mostly unaware of these systems so they hesitated to accept them. After the demonetization move of the Indian government, people gained faith in the payments methods, and acquired new skills as most of them were being promoted by the government. The government started promoting the digital payment through its Digital India mission. In this research the researcher included retail grocery shops. The study was done in Nagpur city; the sample size is 100 who use e- payments methods. The main objective of the study is to find out the advantages and problems faced b the retail grocery shops in the e-payments system. The result shows that there is no association between the usage of e-payments and the age of the customers. The study even found that there is no association between problems of e- payments and the age of the customers

Exploring the choice between in-store versus online grocery shopping through an application of Semi-Compensatory Independent Availability Logit (SCIAL) model with latent variables

This paper examines individuals' choice of in-store and online grocery shopping channels using stated preference (SP) choice experiments. The study uses 1,391 records from a stated preference choice experiment in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA), Canada. It applies a Semi-Compensatory Independent Availability Logit (SCIAL) Model with latent variables. The methodology accounts for semi-compensatory choice behaviour through probabilistic choice set formation considering effects from socioeconomic and psychological variables. This study demonstrates the advantage of considering probabilistic choice set formation and semi-compensatory behaviour in modelling the adoption of innovative products. Empirical results reveal that shoppers demonstrated similar myopic behaviours once they firmly considered in-store grocery and subscribed free delivery services in their choice sets. They are equally likely to choose both channels without careful comparison to alternative channels once they firmly consider both channels in the choice set. However, considering the latter in choice sets is much costlier than in-store shopping. Therefore, in-store grocery shopping will still dominate the grocery shopping channel unless all home delivery services become free. Moreover, grocery shoppers value same-day delivery service. For typical delivery services charged between $4 and $20 in the GTA, Canada, grocery shoppers are willing to pay between $3.91 and $8.44 for same-day delivery. The latent variable describing shoppers’ perceived pandemic fear significantly contributes to the choice set inclusion probability of in-store grocery pick-up services, but the effect is not significant for other home delivery channels. This highlights heterogeneity in grocery shoppers' choice behaviour within the online channel.

SMALL AGRIFOOD PRODUCERS REACHING THE CONSUMERS: CHALLENGES AND SOLUTIONS FROM A MARKETING PERSPECTIVE

Agrifood products are sold both in modern retail stores, such as supermarkets, hypermarkets, and discount stores, and in traditional retail, such as agrifood markets and small grocery shops. Unequal competition is felt between modern and traditional retailers, between Romanian and imported products, and between processed and unprocessed foods, especially since over 80% of Romanians purchase their groceries in modern retail stores. To help small farmers, and even small traditional retailers, this research identifies several customer segments and their characteristics, followed by some marketing solutions adapted to their specific profiles. Also, we have observed two particular trends: an increased importance given to the proximity of the stores, and an increase in online grocery shopping.

The emergence of new critical infrastructures. Is the COVID-19 pandemic shifting our perspective on what critical infrastructures are?

Our modern world is highly dependent on the functioning of a complex system of interdependent infrastructures. Failure of one infrastructure can have severe and far-reaching impacts on other infrastructures and jeopardize the functioning of the whole system. While certain infrastructures have been considered highly critical and their dependencies and protection has been addressed extensively and for decades, others have been considered less or not at all critical and have been barely debated. The COVID-19 pandemic has caused an unprecedented strain on infrastructure systems and has revealed that different infrastructures become highly critical throughout an ongoing and long-lasting crisis than during a sudden but short-term crisis. This paper investigates the representation of critical infrastructure dependency descriptions in the literature before and since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. In this qualitative study, the quantity of descriptions per critical infrastructure dependency is analyzed and visualized and used to discuss the perception of how critical those infrastructures are. The study revealed that new infrastructures have been identified as critical in recent literature and that the focus was shifted to specific infrastructures that were in more pressing need during the pandemic. This shift of focus was observed to happen from the sectors of energy, water, transport & traffic, and ICT before the start of the COVID-19 pandemic to the sectors public health, constitutional institutions, transport & traffic, and food since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Further, analysis of the literature revealed infrastructures which had previously not been classified as critical, being discussed as new critical infrastructures. Urban green spaces, for example, have proven to be essential for the health and well-being of citizens during lockdown times. Further, social services like childcare, care of the elderly, delivery services, and online grocery shopping have been highlighted as essential services for maintaining workforces and the functioning of society during a pandemic. Overall, the analysis of descriptions of critical infrastructure dependencies before and since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic has revealed changes in the focus on critical infrastructures and in the perception of what makes critical infrastructures critical.

Emotional Effects in Object Recognition by the Visually Impaired People in Grocery Shopping.

To date, neuroscientific literature on consumption patterns of specific categories of consumers, such as people with disability, is still scarce. This study explored the implicit emotional consumer experience of visually impaired (VI) consumers in-store. A group of VI and a control group explored three different product shelves and manipulated target products during a real supermarket shopping experience. Autonomic (SCL, skin conductance level; SCR, skin conductance response; HR, heart rate; PVA, pulse volume amplitude; BVP, blood volume pulse), behavioural and self-report data were collected in relation to three phases of the in-store shopping experience: (i) identification of a product (recognition accuracy, ACC, and reaction times, RTs); (ii) style of product purchase (predominant sense used for shelf exploration, store spatial representation, and ability to orientate themselves); (iii) consumers experience itself, underlying their emotional experience. In the VI group, higher levels of disorientation, difficulty in finding products, and repeating the route independently were discovered. ACC and RTs also varied by product type. VI also showed significantly higher PVA values compared to the control. For some specific categories (pasta category), PVA correlates negatively with time to recognition and positively with simplicity in finding products in the entire sample. In conclusion, VI emotional and cognitive experience of grocery shopping as stressful and frustrating and has a greater cognitive investment, which is mirrored by the activation of a larger autonomic response compared to the control group. Nevertheless, VI ability to search and recognise a specific product is not so different from people without visual impairment.

Adoption and frequency of early morning delivery of food in Korea: an empirical analysis

ABSTRACT Since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, consumers’ online grocery purchases have steadily increased in Korea. This study aimed to ascertain consumers’ characteristics that affect the frequency of using an innovative food delivery service, ‘early morning delivery (EMD)’. We make estimations based on the ordered probit model with sample selection that analyses the frequency of EMD use after selecting consumers with an online food purchase experience from all consumers. The empirical results show similarities and differences in the determinants of conventional online grocery shopping and EMD services. The social trend of increasing single-person households might have a negative influence on the spread of EMD services, even though consumers of the two services have common socio-demographic factors and lifestyles. Moreover, according to the marginal effects, the influences of the explanatory variables differ considerably depending on the category of EMD users.

Equity-Promoting Strategies in Online Grocery Shopping: Recommendations Provided by Households of Low Income

ObjectiveTo explore barriers and facilitators of online grocery shopping and identify community-driven strategies to promote equity in online food access. DesignThis qualitative study used a purposive recruitment strategy to conduct 11 focus groups and 5 in-depth interviews between November 2020 and March 2021. SettingData collection was conducted virtually with participants residing in diverse (majority urban) regions of Maryland. Paricipants44 primary household food purchasers with young children (aged < 8 years) eligible for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). Phenomenon of InterestBarriers and facilitators of online grocery shopping and strategies elicited by the community to leverage SNAP and online food retailer services to reduce inequities in healthy food access. AnalysisWe coded and analyzed transcripts on the basis of the Socioecological Model, Theory of Planned Behavior, and an Equity-Oriented Framework. ResultsOverall, we identified 10 themes across all socioecological levels, all of which reflected both barriers and facilitators to online shopping: (1) individual: trust of shoppers, technology, (2) interpersonal: spousal/children needs, (3) community: safety and security, (4) organizational: retail experience and food quality, and (5) policy: SNAP and structural inequities. Participant recommendations included improving food access and communication with hired shoppers, implementing more payment/cost-saving options, and offering educational programming for SNAP participants on using benefits online. Conclusions and ImplicationsHouseholds of low-income identified barriers and facilitators of online grocery shopping across the socioecological levels, emphasizing the need for a multilevel approach to equity promotion. We recommend future work to explore the suggested actionable pathways, which involve delivery providers, grocery stores, nutrition educators, and policymakers leveraging online grocery features (ie, meal planning support) and policies (ie, expansion of the SNAP Online Purchasing Pilot to more retailers) to reducing deterrents (ie, delivery fees waived) for an equity-promoting online grocery environment.

Evidence of Geospatial and Socioeconomic Disparities in Access to Online Grocery Shopping for Fresh and Frozen Produce in North Carolina

Online grocery shopping is a rapidly growing food procurement approach in the United States with the potential to improve food access. Limited research has focused on understanding differential access to online grocery shopping that provides healthier items such as fresh or frozen fruits and vegetables. The study aim was to understand geospatial, socioeconomic, and racial disparities in the availability of healthy online grocery shopping and online Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) acceptance in North Carolina. A cross-sectional study was conducted during spring2021. A listing of grocery stores with online shopping was generated using a systematic search strategy. Stores were geocoded and spatially joined to relevant contextual (rural/urban [based on US Department of Agriculture Rural Urban Continuum codes]), broadband Internet availability, socioeconomic variables (ie, percent poverty and Social Vulnerability Index), and demographic variables (ie, percent racial minority) in geographic information systems software. Prevalence rate ratios (PRRs) of healthy online grocery shopping (availability of curbside pickup or home delivery of fresh and frozen produce), and online SNAP acceptance (ie, availability of online SNAP), at the census tract level (n= 2,162). PRRs for availability of healthy online grocery shopping and SNAP online acceptance at the census tract level (n= 2,162) were modeled using Poisson regression with robust standard errors. This study found disparities in access to healthy online grocery shopping and SNAP online shopping availability in North Carolina. Healthy online shopping availability rates were higher in urban census tracts (PRR 1.68, 95% CI 1.47 to 1.92), areas with lower Social Vulnerability Index scores (PRR 0.99, 95% CI 0.98 to 0.99), higher Internet Availability Index scores (PRR 1.21, 95% CI 1.17 to 1.25), and lower percent poverty (PRR 0.94, 95% CI 0.90 to 0.98). SNAP online shopping availability rates were higher in urban census tracts (PRR 1.41, 95% CI 1.16 to 1.65), areas with higher Social Vulnerability Index scores (PRR 1.02, 95% CI 1.01 to 1.04), higher Internet Availability Index scores (PRR 1.15, 95% CI 1.10 to 1.20), and higher percent minority (PRR 1.02, 95% CI 1.0001 to 1.03). SNAP online shopping availability rates were lower in areas with higher percent poverty (PRR 0.90, 95% CI 0.85 to 0.95). This study found disparities in access to healthy online grocery shopping and SNAP online shopping for rural areas, and areas with higher poverty, and lower broadband Internet access in North Carolina. Further research is needed to identify effective strategies for addressing these disparities.

Why do Consumers Shop Online? An Analytical Study on Food and Grocery Segment in West Bengal

Due to the Internet's proliferation and the globalisation of trade, retail has become a highly competitive and fast-paced industry. The expansion of the Internet has made it possible for a new kind of store to open, and it has also compelled traditional stores to think about adopting an online-only strategy. Due to the radical nature of the shift from brick-and-mortar to online retail, stores should think twice before committing to a new e-commerce strategy. The business model of online retail is not limited by traditional store hours or geographic location, and it may serve markets across an entire country for a relatively low outlay of resources. For these and other reasons, online shopping has quickly become an alternative to traditional brick-and-mortar stores. The present paper seeks to demystify the factors, influencing consumer online shopping behaviour in the food and grocery segment, in the state of West Bengal. Availability and Affordability, Convenience and Trust, Quality of Service, Motivation to Buy, Flexibility and Responsiveness, Perceived Risk, Product Attributes, have been identified as the key factors, influencing adoption of online food and grocery shopping.

Spatial distribution of startup (Gojek and Grab) users in Palembang city, Indonesia.

The emergence of startups in Indonesia contributes to increasing the number of those working as startup users. Startup users define those who make use of startup services and enterprises to perform their business. This research was designed to explain the spatial distribution of startup (Gojek and Grab) users in Palembang City, Indonesia. It employed spatial analysis with inverse distance weighting and kernel density. The results indicated that startup (Gojek and Grab) users who established their business before 2020 were in densely-populated parts of the city. However, based on the interpolation of their business locations, they were variably distributed in lowly to densely-populated areas whose economic activities were dominated by trade and services. Furthermore, the nearest neighbor analysis revealed that startup (Gojek and Grab) users were close to permanent markets (including semi-permanent ones, supermarkets, restaurants, and grocery shops) and had better access to online transportation and communication with good cell phone receptions.

Development and validation of the Jordanian food purchasing habits survey

PurposeThe authors developed and validated a questionnaire called “The Jordanian Food Purchasing Habits Survey” (JFPHS). The purpose of this questionnaire was to explore Jordanians’ food purchasing habits and the factors which may affect these habits among a convenient sample of people. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, no such questionnaires have been developed to measure these factors for the Jordanian population. This paper aims to describe the reasoning behind and the process of developing the (JFPHS).Design/methodology/approachThe JFPHS investigated meal preparation and grocery shopping behaviors, nutrition label use and factors affecting purchasing of 13 (n = 13) food groups. A two-step process, a pilot test and validity study, were used to validate the questionnaire. Internal consistency (split-half reliability) tests were run on the factors in each individual food group producing Spearman–Brown correlation coefficients.FindingsA convenient sample of 483 individuals (118 males, 365 females) participated in the study. Spearman–Brown correlation coefficients were < 0.7 for bread and between 0.7–0.8 and 0.8–0.9 for other food groups. The ingredients list grid and the expiry date grid had Spearman–Brown coefficient values > 0.9.Social implicationsThis questionnaire is a valid tool to assess food purchasing behavior. Results from our questionnaire, when published, may be used to monitor trends in food consumption.Originality/valueTo the best of the authors’ knowledge, no such questionnaires been developed to measure these factors for the Jordanian population.