Online Food Delivery System in India: Profile of Restaurants and Nutritional Value of Food Items

Abstract

Online food delivery services (OFDs) have been growing steadily in India since the early 2000s, posing concerns about unhealthy eating behaviours and contributing to the rise of non-communicable diseases. Menu designing based on the principles of the ‘menu theory’ rarely emphasize the need to provide nutritional information or promote healthy eating behaviours. In this article, we characterized the restaurants and food items listed in a major Indian OFD service and describe the nutritional quality and price of different categories of food items. We conducted a cross-sectional study of all restaurants listed on the website of one of India’s largest OFD service during December 2020. A stratified random sample of 8,504 restaurants was obtained and the nutritional quality of all listed food items was extracted. We found that fast-food restaurants sold foods with the lowest price (Indian national rupee [INR]) [100 (IQR: 66, 150)] but with the highest calories (kilocalorie [kcal]) [194 (IQR: 130, 309)] and fat (g) [9 (IQR: 5, 16)]. Chinese cuisine restaurants sold more ‘soups and salads’ and served items with the second lowest calories per item served (kcal) [154 (IQR: 121, 230)], next only to Indian cuisine restaurants (kcal) [151 (IQR: 118, 210)]. Restaurants with high average cost (>400 INR for two) served items with lower calories (kcal) [155 (IQR: 113, 226)] and had a higher proportion of healthier items on their menu but restaurants with higher median calories per item and a higher median price per item had higher average customer ratings. In conclusion, it can be said that restaurants that served items with the highest calories and fat were also the cheapest. There is a need to increase the number of affordable and healthier options on the menu of OFD restaurants to improve dietary consumption of Indians.