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This paper aims to investigate grocery list use in the lives of participant families in a study on decision making about food choices and eating practices.

A total of 46 families from three ethno‐cultural groups living in two regions in Canada participated in the study: in British Columbia, 12 Punjabi Canadian and 11 European Canadian families; in Nova Scotia, 13 African Canadian and ten European Canadian families. In each family, at least three individuals over the age of 13 years, one of whom was a woman between the ages of 25 and 55 years, were interviewed. Researchers participated in a meal and accompanied each family on a grocery trip.

Most family members contributed to a grocery list. The shopper(s) in the family may take the written list with them, have the list in memory, use a combination of both memory and written list, or shop without a list. Finds the articulation of taken‐for‐granted, intersecting knowledge about family, household and grocery store, necessary to the compilation of a list, were largely unseen, unrecognised, and undervalued.

Studies on grocery lists have focused on who uses lists, how they are used, and what their use says about consumers. In the literature, non‐list use is conflated with the absence of a tangible grocery list. Shows that lack of a tangible list does not mean absence of a list in all cases. Further, extends and contextualises existing literature, showing that grocery list compilation relies upon interrelated knowledge of family, household and store.