IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/envirb/v50y2023i3p723-739.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Geographies of grocery shopping in major Canadian cities: Evidence from large-scale mobile app data

Author

Listed:
  • Lindsey G Smith
  • Maggie Yifei Ma
  • Michael J Widener
  • Steven Farber

Abstract

Socioeconomic and place-based factors contribute to grocery shopping patterns which may be important for diet and health. Big data provide the opportunity to explore behaviours at the population level. We used data collected from Flipp, a free all-in-one savings and deals content app, to identify visitation to grocery stores and estimate home-to-store distances, monthly frequencies and number of unique stores visited in eight Canadian cities during 2020. Grocery shopping outcomes and associations with income, population density and percentage of car commuters were explored using data aggregated at the Aggregate Dissemination Area level in which app users lived. Changes in patterns of grocery shopping following restrictions implemented in response to the COVID-19 pandemic were also investigated. The median of average home-to-store distances ranged from 4 to 5Â km across all cities throughout 2020. Shorter distances for grocery shopping were shown consistently for shoppers living in lower income, densely populated and low car-commuting ADAs. A maximum of three unique supermarkets were visited on average each month. Decreases in the frequency and variability of grocery store visits were shown across all cities in April 2020 following the implementation of restrictions in response to COVID-19, and pre-pandemic levels of shopping were rarely achieved by the end of the year. Ultimately, these results provide much needed information regarding the characteristics of grocery shopping trips in a high-income country, as well as how food shopping was impacted by the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. This information will be useful for a range of future studies seeking to characterise access to food retail.

Suggested Citation

  • Lindsey G Smith & Maggie Yifei Ma & Michael J Widener & Steven Farber, 2023. "Geographies of grocery shopping in major Canadian cities: Evidence from large-scale mobile app data," Environment and Planning B, , vol. 50(3), pages 723-739, March.
  • Handle: RePEc:sae:envirb:v:50:y:2023:i:3:p:723-739
    DOI: 10.1177/23998083221129272
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/23998083221129272
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/23998083221129272?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Niedzielski, Michał A., 2021. "Grocery store accessibility: Different metrics – Different modal disparity results and spatial patterns," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 96(C).
    2. Mengying Cui & David Levinson, 2020. "Primal and Dual Access," Working Papers 2022-01, University of Minnesota: Nexus Research Group.
    3. Lee, In, 2017. "Big data: Dimensions, evolution, impacts, and challenges," Business Horizons, Elsevier, vol. 60(3), pages 293-303.
    4. Guillermo Gallacher & Iqbal Hossain, 2020. "Remote Work and Employment Dynamics under COVID-19: Evidence from Canada," Canadian Public Policy, University of Toronto Press, vol. 46(S1), pages 44-54, July.
    5. Matthew Palm & Jeff Allen & Bochu Liu & Yixue Zhang & Michael Widener & Steven Farber, 2021. "Riders Who Avoided Public Transit During COVID-19," Journal of the American Planning Association, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 87(4), pages 455-469, October.
    6. Fei Men & Valerie Tarasuk, 2021. "Food Insecurity amid the COVID-19 Pandemic: Food Charity, Government Assistance, and Employment," Canadian Public Policy, University of Toronto Press, vol. 47(2), pages 202-230, June.
    7. Hokey Min, 2006. "Developing the profiles of supermarket customers through data mining," The Service Industries Journal, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 26(7), pages 747-763, October.
    8. Widener, Michael J. & Farber, Steven & Neutens, Tijs & Horner, Mark, 2015. "Spatiotemporal accessibility to supermarkets using public transit: an interaction potential approach in Cincinnati, Ohio," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 72-83.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Smith, Lindsey Gail & Yifei, Maggie Ma & Widener, Michael & Farber, Steven, 2022. "Geographies of grocery shopping in major Canadian cities: evidence from large-scale mobile app data," OSF Preprints kjsdz, Center for Open Science.
    2. Tianxing Dai & Brian D. Taylor, 2023. "Three’s a crowd? Examining evolving public transit crowding standards amidst the COVID-19 pandemic," Public Transport, Springer, vol. 15(2), pages 321-341, June.
    3. Paulo Ferreira & Éder J.A.L. Pereira & Hernane B.B. Pereira, 2020. "From Big Data to Econophysics and Its Use to Explain Complex Phenomena," JRFM, MDPI, vol. 13(7), pages 1-10, July.
    4. Maniyassouwe Amana & Pingfeng Liu & Mona Alariqi, 2022. "Value Creation and Capture with Big Data in Smart Phones Companies," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(23), pages 1-22, November.
    5. Pei Zhang & Peiran Chen & Fan Xiao & Yong Sun & Shuyan Ma & Ziwei Zhao, 2022. "The Impact of Information Infrastructure on Air Pollution: Empirical Evidence from China," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(21), pages 1-17, November.
    6. Arnold, René & Hildebrandt, Christian & Taş, Serpil, 2020. "Europäische Datenökonomie: Zwischen Wettbewerb und Regulierung. Endbericht," Study Series, WIK Wissenschaftliches Institut für Infrastruktur und Kommunikationsdienste GmbH, number 251537, June.
    7. Alejandra Bellatin & Gabriela Galassi, 2022. "What COVID-19 May Leave Behind: Technology-Related Job Postings in Canada," Staff Working Papers 22-17, Bank of Canada.
    8. Hui Jeong Ha & Jinhyung Lee & Junghwan Kim & Youngjoon Kim, 2022. "Uncovering Inequalities in Food Accessibility between Koreans and Japanese in 1930s Colonial Seoul Using GIS and Open-Source Transport Analytics Tools," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(19), pages 1-25, September.
    9. Tiago Carneiro & Winnie Ng Picoto & Inês Pinto, 2023. "Big Data Analytics and Firm Performance in the Hotel Sector," Tourism and Hospitality, MDPI, vol. 4(2), pages 1-13, April.
    10. Jinjoo Bok & Youngsang Kwon, 2016. "Comparable Measures of Accessibility to Public Transport Using the General Transit Feed Specification," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 8(3), pages 1-13, March.
    11. Martin Lábaj & Matej Vitáloš, 2024. "COVID-19 and automation: Evidence from European countries," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 44(1), pages 112-121.
    12. Chenghe Guan & Junjie Tan & Brian Hall & Chao Liu & Ying Li & Zhichang Cai, 2022. "The Effect of the Built Environment on the COVID-19 Pandemic at the Initial Stage: A County-Level Study of the USA," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(6), pages 1-17, March.
    13. Goliszek Sławomir, 2022. "The potential accessibility to workplaces and working-age population by means of public and private car transport in Szczecin," Miscellanea Geographica. Regional Studies on Development, Sciendo, vol. 26(1), pages 31-41, January.
    14. Pierre Brochu & Jonathan Créchet, 2021. "Survey Non-response in Covid-19 Times: The Case of the Labour Force Survey," Working Papers 2109E, University of Ottawa, Department of Economics.
    15. Bohnsack, René & Liesner, Meike Malena, 2019. "What the hack? A growth hacking taxonomy and practical applications for firms," Business Horizons, Elsevier, vol. 62(6), pages 799-818.
    16. Xu, Mengya & Xin, Jing & Su, Shiliang & Weng, Min & Cai, Zhongliang, 2017. "Social inequalities of park accessibility in Shenzhen, China: The role of park quality, transport modes, and hierarchical socioeconomic characteristics," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 62(C), pages 38-50.
    17. Karimpour, Abolfazl & Hosseinzadeh, Aryan & Kluger, Robert, 2023. "A data-driven approach to estimating dockless electric scooter service areas," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 109(C).
    18. Francesco Filippi, 2022. "A Paradigm Shift for a Transition to Sustainable Urban Transport," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(5), pages 1-27, March.
    19. Gregory S. Macfarlane & Emma Stucki & Alisha H. Redelfs & Lori Andersen Spruance, 2022. "Beyond Proximity: Utility-Based Access from Location-Based Services Data," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(19), pages 1-16, September.
    20. Saarikko, Ted & Westergren, Ulrika H. & Blomquist, Tomas, 2020. "Digital transformation: Five recommendations for the digitally conscious firm," Business Horizons, Elsevier, vol. 63(6), pages 825-839.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:envirb:v:50:y:2023:i:3:p:723-739. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.