Delivering food, working with hunger: a qualitative study on food delivery workers from Brazil during COVID-19

The COVID-19 pandemic has led numerous unemployed and informal workers in Brazil and other countries to seek employment with digital food delivery services, a trend driven by uberization and platformization. Much research has pointed out that inadequate working conditions lead to negative physical and mental health outcomes among delivery workers. However, there are still insufficient studies on eating conditions, how they are generated, and their consequences. This descriptive exploratory study examines how work processes influence delivery workers' food security, food access, and eating habits in Curitiba - Brazil. Using a qualitative research approach grounded in a hermeneutic-dialectic perspective, a questionnaire with 50 questions was constructed with participants and social representations and applied with 94 participants in 10 points, following the principle of data saturation. The qualitative data analysis, using Nvivo software, generated four themes and six core meanings, and the quantitative analysis generated descriptive and bivariate statistical associations. The findings indicate that food delivery app workers, particularly black individuals using bicycles, often experience hunger while on the job, which leads to varying levels of food insecurity at home. The data shows a vicious circle: social determinants and systemic inequalities arising from their work-such as low pay and minimal support from gig platforms-push delivery workers into food insecurity (FI) at home and inadequate food intake at work. Further research is needed to investigate the relationship between delivery drivers' work process, food intake, and food security. This research also leads to reflection on the responsibility of public and private delivery sectors in the food insecurity and hunger situation of its workers.