Food Economies–Engendered Ghost Kitchens in the Digital Age

The paper is an enquiry around ‘packaging’ and mobility of food, outlining the psychology that impacted the making of cloud/ virtual / ghost kitchens in the COVID-times and the slump in consumer FAFH habits. Although corporate houses create a mythical connection between the consumer and purveyor called “great chain of consumption”, beyond this linear relationship, it creates a sense of the ‘self’, ‘body’, ‘success’ and ‘health’. The production of food, its marketing and distribution is a significant aspect of culinary narratives within a culture. In this context, with the advent of the pandemic, the patterns of everyday living have altered drastically. The circuit of culture as detailed by Stuart Hall provides a framework to study emerging patterns in the dialogues surrounding how food is produced and consumed. By breaking down any cultural text/site into the five parameters of production, consumption, identity, regulation and signification, Stuart Hall proposed that the text/site can be effectually recognized as a part of the cultural paradigm. With nearly every aspect of life having migrated online, the kitchens have also found a place on virtual platforms. This paper attempts to study the trend of the rise of such delivery-only kitchens, otherwise known as ‘ghost kitchens’, which emerged amidst the pandemic. Phenomena namely FAFH and FAH in the city, ‘take-away’, ‘food for the road’, ‘on the road’ reconfigures consumption patterns. While the trend has been noticeably making its presence felt in nearly every nation, this paper will focus on the trend from the Indian perspective—with emphasis on the emerging patterns, social consequences and future possibilities of such a trend in the Indian cultural milieu employing perspectives from popular culture theoretical frameworks on food consumption practices that look at digital businesses and its socio-economic impact.