Canada’s Culinascape & the Meal Kit Delivery Program: Methods and Preliminary Findings on (Goodfood) “Canada’s #1-Selling Meal Kit!”

Keywords: meal kit delivery programs, Goodfood, culinascapes, Canada, food negotiation
Abstract Type: Virtual Paper Abstract

Abstract

During and now “post”-COVID-19, culinascapes in Canada have been undergoing profound changes. Not exempt from these changes are the shift to ready-to-cook meals as people stayed home, gained interest in home-based cooking, raised concerns about environmental impacts of the food system, or lost time as ‘return-to-work’ shifted to hybrid or in-person formats. Whatever the reason, meal kit delivery programs soared 122%, opening an area of under-explored research vis-à-vis culinary practices and negotiations of consumers opting for privatized solutions to a food system ‘problem’. Given the recency in meal kit delivery program popularity, I present a methodological approach inspired by Cooking as Inquiry and Kitchen Table Ethnographies in an effort to explore the ways in which culinary research must be embodied and practiced. Additionally, I present preliminary findings from my dissertation research on Goodfood, Canada’s “#1-selling meal kit”. In particular, I question the aspects about gender, time, and environment that have emerged thus far.