Online food delivery has become an essential component of urban food systems in China, reshaping how prepared meals, fresh food, and other daily food items circulate among food providers, platforms, and consumers. Although food delivery riders are central to this system, existing studies have mainly examined riders’ engagement with algorithmic management and platform control, underscoring their income instability and labour precarity. Less is known about how platform work affects riders’ own food access and dietary diversity. Based on a survey of 281 migrant food delivery riders in Nanjing, this study examines how platform labour, migrant status, and time poverty shape riders’ food security and workday eating practices. The findings show that migrant riders play a vital role in sustaining urban consumers’ access to food, but their dietary diversity and eating routines are constrained by long working hours, uncertain income, mealtime delivery peaks, limited social protection, and insufficient time and space for regular meals. Although most respondents do not report severe household food insecurity, many experience constrained food choices and difficulty maintaining regular, diverse diets. These findings suggest that time poverty is a key mechanism linking platform labour to riders’ food security. The paper argues that the resilience of platform-based urban food delivery cannot be separated from riders’ own food security and calls for policy approaches that integrate labour regulation, social protection, and urban food governance to reduce time poverty and support access to adequate and diverse diets.
September 8, 2026
