Community kitchens as metropolitan infrastructure: Mapping the fight against food insecurity in Santiago de Chile during COVID-19

Local solidarity initiatives helped communities to confront food insecurity during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the quantitative scope of these grassroots infrastructures is difficult to measure. This research provides the first comprehensive quantitative account of community kitchens (CKs) in an entire metropolitan area, using Santiago de Chile as a case study. The aims are, first, to identify links between territorial presence of CKs and variables that have been observed in qualitative studies and smaller sample surveys; second, to determine data validity and collection bias between different sources of data on CKs; third, to estimate the number of beneficiaries of CKs at a metropolitan scale during the 2020 lockdowns. Data was collected from 52 municipalities and independent volunteer networks, accounting for 1517 CKs. Regression models are used both to analyse correlations with territorial variables and to impute values when data is not available. In one day, CKs in Santiago were able to benefit more than 230,000 people. Presence of CKs was significantly correlated with lower socioeconomic indicators and higher percentage of female heads of households, confirming expected links from the qualitative literature. The article generates evidence of the infrastructural scale of community kitchens during a crisis like the COVID-19 pandemic.