Survey says: Canadians asking for better food systems and food sparked by COVID-19 access
Inter-provincial survey gauges how Canadians have accessed food during the pandemic and their perceptions of food systems
Shopping anxiety, higher food prices and individual income limitations are some of the factors making access to food challenging for Canadians during the COVID-19 pandemic, a new study suggests.
Researchers conducted an online inter-provincial survey with residents of B.C., Alberta, Ontario, Quebec and the Atlantic provinces during the first wave of COVID-19. The survey assessed how the pandemic affected food access and behaviour in each region and how perceptions regarding the food systems may have been altered.
"In Quebec, which had experienced the highest COVID-19 case number in the country at the time of this investigation, we observed a tripling of the proportion of respondents who reported using online grocery methods during the pandemic period at 27 per cent, compared to 9 per cent in 2019,” says Prof. Daiva Nielsen, an assistant professor in the School of Human Nutrition at McGill University.