Healthy Intentions, Fast-Food Orders: What Saudi Delivery App Users Really Choose

Online food delivery has made restaurant meals available within minutes, but the convenience of ordering through a phone may be shaping food choices in ways that do not always match people's intentions to eat well. A new study titled 'Food choice determinants and perceptions of healthy eating and food safety among online food delivery application users in Saudi Arabia: a cross-sectional study,' published in Frontiers in Nutrition, examined how Saudi consumers use food delivery apps, what influences their orders, how easily they can find healthier meals, and what they think about food safety.

Researchers Nawaf W. Alruwaili and Abdulhmed Alharbi surveyed 303 Saudi residents aged 20 years or older who had used an online food delivery application at least once during the previous month. The online survey was carried out from February to April 2025, giving researchers a snapshot of ordering behaviour during a period when nutritional and food-safety requirements for Saudi delivery platforms were still developing.

Food delivery has become part of everyday eating

Food delivery apps were far from an occasional convenience for many participants. Just over half, 51.7%, were classified as frequent users, while 34.4% ordered two to three times per week, 8.9% ordered four to six times weekly, and 8.3% used delivery services every day. The study population was largely young, with 70.5% aged 20–29, while 73.2% were female and 94.4% were Saudi nationals.

HungerStation emerged as the most widely used platform at 61.6%, followed by Jahez at 53.3%, To You at 37.4%, Keeta at 27.2%, Ninja at 21.5%, The Chefz at 18.2% and Marsool at 14.6%. Geography and income appeared to matter more than many other demographic characteristics: Eastern Province residents had the highest proportion of frequent users at 70.4%, compared with only 22.2% in the Northern Province, while people earning SAR 5,001–10,000 per month recorded the highest frequent-use rate at 65.8%.

Age, sex, nationality, marital status, education, employment and living arrangements showed no statistically significant relationship with how frequently people ordered, suggesting that access, income and the local delivery environment may play particularly important roles.

Price and appearance beat nutrition when people choose a meal

What makes someone tap 'order' matters because food apps place dozens of decisions into a highly visual environment filled with prices, photographs, promotions and delivery estimates. In this study, price dominated the decision-making process, influencing 82.8% of participants, followed by food appearance at 56.6% and delivery timing at 49.7%.

Restaurant hygiene mattered to 43%, while only 29.5% identified the availability of healthy options as a major factor. Nutrient or calorie information ranked even lower at 24.2%, showing how easily health information can be overshadowed by cost, convenience and visual appeal during an everyday ordering decision.

Income also affected responses to nutritional information: Higher-income participants were more likely to say that macronutrient labels influenced their choices, which the researchers suggest may reflect the greater freedom these consumers have to act on nutrition information without price becoming the overriding consideration.

The findings point toward a practical challenge for healthier digital food environments: giving consumers nutrition information may have limited impact when healthier choices remain harder to find or more expensive.

People say they want healthy food, but fast food still wins

The clearest finding was the divide between what consumers wanted to choose and what they actually ordered. 58.9% said they actively looked for healthy food options; still, fast food was selected by 78.5% of participants. Desserts followed at 41.1%, while salads were chosen by 31.1%, vegetarian food by just 7.6% and keto items by 4.3%.

Researchers describe this as a healthy-eating intention-behaviour gap. Wanting to eat well does not necessarily translate into a healthier order when app interfaces, pricing and menu availability make energy-dense foods easier or more attractive to choose.

Participants gave the highest healthy-food perception score to the statement that finding healthy choices on food apps was challenging, while the idea that delivery apps increased awareness of healthier alternatives received the lowest score. More than half also agreed that these services had changed their eating habits and increased their appetite or food intake.

People ordering regularly were more likely to report difficulty finding healthy choices, changes in eating habits and increased appetite or food consumption. The researchers argue that app design may contribute to this pattern because fast food and desserts can receive stronger visibility and promotion, making healthier choices require more deliberate searching.

Ordering more frequently did not translate into a measurable difference in body weight within this study. The average BMI was 23.56 kg/m², and researchers found no statistically significant difference between frequent and infrequent users. Among the 194 participants whose cuisine selections could be clearly classified as healthy or unhealthy, unhealthy choices were similarly dominant in both groups- 86.4% among frequent users and 85.8% among infrequent users.

That finding should not be interpreted as proof that frequent delivery-app use has no long-term effect on health. The research captured participants at a single point in time, relied on self-reported height and weight, and could not measure cumulative dietary exposure over several years.

Hygiene ratings could give consumers something they clearly want

Food safety received an overall perception score of 3.90 out of 5, showing moderately positive attitudes alongside some uncertainty about how meals are handled between restaurant preparation and delivery.

The strongest agreement anywhere in the survey concerned restaurant hygiene information. Participants gave the idea of displaying in-app hygiene ratings an average score of 4.56 out of 5, indicating exceptionally broad support for making official safety information visible before an order is placed. Packaging style and meal temperature were also considered important indicators of food quality and safety.

Female participants expressed stronger concern about several visible safety cues, including driver appearance, eco-friendly packaging and packaging style. Employment and income were associated with the perceived usefulness of hygiene ratings, while regional differences appeared in how consumers interpreted meal temperature as a safety indicator.

The researchers believe healthier digital food environments will require more than simply telling people to make better choices. Their recommendations include clearer nutritional labelling, stronger visibility for healthy meals within app algorithms, in-app restaurant hygiene ratings and pricing measures that reduce the cost disadvantage of healthier food. Possible approaches discussed in the paper include healthier default sorting, prominent healthy-food filters, reduced delivery fees for nutritious meals and subsidised healthy meal bundles.

Convenience and snowball sampling produced a group dominated by young, female, educated and Central Province residents, limiting how confidently the results can represent the entire Saudi population. Self-reported body measurements may contain errors, while people may also have overstated their interest in healthy eating. The cross-sectional design cannot establish that delivery apps themselves caused the reported changes in appetite or eating behaviour.

Many consumers already want healthier choices, but the digital environment in which they order food may make those intentions difficult to follow. Making nutritious meals easier to see, competitively priced and clearly identified, while giving users reliable hygiene information, could turn food delivery apps from passive marketplaces into digital spaces that make healthier decisions genuinely easier.