How COVID-19 Pandemic Is Changing Food Shopping

By Mary Anne R. First Posted: Aug 25, 2020 03:38 AM EDT

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has changed a lot of things in the economy and society. From school lessons to working setups, it changed doing almost everything remotely.

How people go out has also changed. Social distancing and wearing a mask have become a requirement.

Some states in the United States have implemented mask mandates whenever going out in public and when social distancing is impossible. Aside from these changes, food shopping has also changed its game.

Certain challenges arise from the prospect of getting your food supplies. One of these is the current disruption in the food supply chains, but the biggest among them is getting your groceries to your home.

With stay-at-home orders enforced, many turned to food delivery services, such as Instacart and Amazon Fresh, to name a few. But even these food delivery services became overwhelmed with the ever-growing need of consumers to get their food supplies.

Aside from the consumers' food shopping behavior, items most in-demand among shoppers have also changed over the course of COVID-19 pandemic.

Colin Stewart, executive vice president of business intelligence at Acosta, noted that it was more cleaning products and toiler paper early in the crisis. The same goes for bottled water and hand sanitizers. Then it shifted to more pantry-loading items like soup, pasta, and rice.

Recently, Steward said they had seen a shift to more comfort foods and meal preparation foods. Stewart also noted that frozen foods had done extremely well over the last couple of weeks. This goes the same for meat and dairy products.

Food Shopping

Steward said that there is also a change in how consumers get their groceries. He said shoppers had shown new behaviors when it comes to food shopping.

"For example, right now shoppers are making fewer trips across all channels, while the grocery channel has actually gained market share over the past eight weeks and the mass merchandisers and drug stores have lost some market share," Steward said in a report.

Acosta, a leading full-service sales and marketing agency in the consumer packaged goods industry, said that 52 percent of consumers are making fewer shopping trips following recommendations from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Acosta's online survey showed that online grocery is growing, with 38 percent of shoppers placing an order in the past four weeks.

Stewart said the growing number of food shopping consumers using delivery services are trying these services for the first time.

"Historically, if you looked at e-commerce it skewed a bit younger, but with COVID-19 the Boomer generation is one of the fastest-growing segments of shoppers that is shopping online," he said.

Inaccessibility of Delivery Services to Some

Some still prefer going to physical stores as there might be challenges in these delivery services, such as technological and monetary challenges.

Going to physical stores, however, makes you more exposed to being infected with COVID-19. But you need not to worry about the virus being transmitted by food or packaging.

As of now, there is no evidence that it can be transmitted by food packaging. Your concern should be people who may be shedding the virus in droplets as they sneeze, cough, breathe, or talk nearby.

You also do not need to sanitize your food as chemicals and soaps are not labeled for food. Wearing gloves are not currently recommended for a visit to the grocery store. Although wearing face masks might be required.

Social distancing also reduces the risk of becoming infected. Before going out, may it be for food shopping or other personal errands, make sure you are not immunocompromised.