Healthy or misleading? A study of food outlets categorised as "healthy" on an Australian delivery platform.

Authors

Rebecca Bennett, Christina Zorbas, Adyya Gupta, Laura Alston, Sachin Wasnik, Cindy Needham

Published in

Public health nutrition. Pages 1-14. Jul 06, 2026. Epub Jul 06, 2026.

Abstract

Online food delivery platforms increasingly shape food environments and dietary choices, yet it remains unclear whether platform-defined "healthy" outlet categories align with evidence-informed assessments. This study assessed the healthiness of food outlets labelled as "healthy" on a leading online food delivery platform in Victoria, Australia, using food environment classification tools.
Cross-sectional study using web-scraped outlet-level data. Outlets labelled "healthy" were assigned to one of 36 predefined outlet types and classified using the DIGIASSESS index, an expert-informed food environment scoring tool. A supplementary menu-based sensitivity analysis was conducted in a stratified random 10% subsample of outlets.
A leading online food delivery platform in Victoria, Australia.
We identified 12,938 unique food outlets, of which 1,408 (9.2%) were labelled "healthy" by the platform and included in the primary analysis. A stratified random subsample of 166 outlets underwent menu-level review.
"Healthy"-labelled outlets were most commonly Independent-Takeaway (11.8%), Independent-Cereal-Based Café Meals (9.7%), and Service Station Convenience Stores (7.4%). Using DIGIASSESS, most "healthy"-labelled outlets were reclassified as "less healthy" (n = 1,123; 79.7%) or "unhealthy" (n = 180; 12.8%), with 106 (7.5%) classified as "healthy." The supplementary menu-based analysis showed similar classifications to DIGIASSESS (>98% agreement).
On this leading Australian online food delivery platform, the "healthy" outlet category did not align with expert-informed assessments of outlet-type healthiness. Such misalignment risks misleading consumers and highlights the need for transparent, standardised criteria governing health-related outlet categories in digital food environments.

PMID:
42402445
Bibliographic data and abstract were imported from PubMed on 06 Jul 2026.

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