After the COVID pandemic reached a duration of more than 1 year, the Weekly Retail Food Sales data series added a comparison to food sales during the same week 2 years earlier to provide a pre-pandemic baseline that accounts for seasonality.
By August 22, , the value of food retail sales was By August 16—22, , the pandemic had continued for more than 1 year and the overall value of retail food sales was higher compared with the same week in , with substantial variation among food categories. Although retail sales values of sugar and sweeteners, vegetables, and alcohol were lower than the same week in , retail sales values of all other categories were higher.
Compared with the same week in , the value of retail food sales during the week ending August 22, , was higher in every food category.
Food-price changes during the coronavirus pandemic reflect, in part, the impact of illnesses and safety measures on labor supply and productivity. For example, most fresh-market vegetable growers rely on seasonal labor to produce a crop and place the crop into supply channels. COVID illnesses reduced the supply of farm workers in producing regions. Also, procedural changes to comply with recommended social-distancing and sanitary protocols may have reduced productivity for some processing and packaging facilities.
Similarly, meat processors faced labor shortages due to illness and implemented health protocols that may have hindered their ability to process cattle and hogs, although processors have recouped much of the lost slaughter capacity see Spread of the Pandemic to Rural America and the August edition of Livestock, Dairy, and Poultry Outlook. Retail food prices were higher in September than September for all categories.
The highest price increases were for beef and veal Stay-at-home orders, closures of nonessential businesses, and other actions to reduce the spread of COVID contributed to a surge in U. The HPS is a weekly online survey that asks respondents about educational, employment, health, housing, and food-related outcomes. The HPS includes an indicator of food sufficiency for U.
See more about the difference between food insufficiency and food insecurity. The food-sufficiency item in the HPS asks about the food eaten in the household in the last 7 days to assess rapid changes in food sufficiency.
In the last 7 days , which of these statements best describes the food eaten in your household? The fact that higher-income groups have a higher probability of increasing their spending compared to lower-income groups should not come as a surprise. The Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition [ 28 ] reports that households with lower income faced greater financial constraints, limiting how much they can increase spending to cover inflated food prices.
Recent studies also show that many households suffered from food hardship and insecurity during the pandemic [ 25 , 29 , 42 ]. Although we are not able to provide direct evidence, our results show that these limitations may also apply to middle-class families. The interval regression results show that average fresh produce spending of the two higher household groups increased We further use the ordered Probit models to show that the two higher-income households are Indeed, in our follow-up questions on why expenditure on fresh produce decreased, some respondents from the base and middle-income groups indicated that they suffered from income losses and, thus, had to replace fresh produce with less expensive food.
All else equal, households with kids or elderly are significantly more likely to increase their expenditure on food groceries during the pandemic than other households.
This could be due to the higher nutrition and quality demand of kids and older adults. Frank and Schvaneveldt [ 43 ] reported that households with young children paid more attention to food quality after the Fukushima nuclear accident. In our case, we find that the presence of kids has positively impacted household spending on fresh produce, a highly nutritious type of food during Covid However, having an elderly at home does not significantly affect household fresh produce spending.
One possible explanation is that the elderly may take vitamin or fiber supplements to fulfill the needs of these key nutrition supplied by fresh produce, while parents may prefer to offer kids fresh produce over nutrition supplements. Although having an elderly in the family does not significantly affect fresh produce expenditures, we find that these households are 6.
This may be due to: 1 the stronger bond older population may have with the local business and food suppliers, preferring to buy from people they know and trusting how they handle food, and; 2 elderly and seniors may have had more difficulty shifting to online shopping [ 44 ], preferring to keep buying from local vendors. Although many farmers markets operated with reduced hours and more operating restrictions, the older population may still prefer purchasing local fresh produce.
The support of local businesses from households with elderlies during the pandemic is essential for the survival of these operations. Many local businesses, including the local fresh produce suppliers, have faced extremely severe adverse shocks and suffered long-term or permanent loss of business and customers. Characteristics of the primary household food shoppers such as age, gender, and employment status significantly affect food purchasing behavior during Covid We find that households whose primary grocery shopper is male are more likely to decrease and less likely to increase their food grocery expenses during the pandemic.
This is perhaps due to their higher likelihood of ordering take-out meals. The significant positive marginal effects of age on the probability of increasing food grocery and fresh produce expenditures may suggest that primary food shoppers care more about the nutrition content and quality of food as they get older.
Older primary food shoppers may also have more exquisite and expensive tastes. This result is consistent with the finding in Hori and Iwamoto [ 8 ] that the age of the primary grocery shopper positively affected grocery expenditures among Japanese households after the Tohoku Earthquake.
Households whose primary grocery shopper is employed are more likely to increase the overall food grocery expense than those whose primary grocery shopper was unemployed. Employed food shoppers may have fewer financial constraints, allowing them to maintain their food quantity and quality standard at a higher price during the pandemic. Another possible explanation is that consumers with a higher household safe handling index may be more risk-averse. In seeking to minimize exposure to Covid, respondents with a higher household safe handling index may have used grocery shopping services e.
These food shoppers also tend to have a higher probability of increasing the share of local fresh produce purchased during the pandemic. They may consider local produce a safer option, presenting lower Covid contamination or food safety risks than the conventional products sourced from other regions. Even if the Covid transmission risk through food is negligible, longer supply chains that involve more people are still subject to more potential sources of Covid infection [ 45 ].
Households may also have had more information about the origin and handling of local food and, thus have been willing to purchase more locally grown produce during the pandemic. They may, for instance, personally know the owner of the store and understand their cleaning standards. Lastly, we find that households are more likely to increase overall food grocery expenditure, spending on fresh produce, and local fresh produce share during the pandemic in counties with more severe Covid conditions.
Consumers may also focus more on the nutritional content of food by consuming healthier products, to improve their immune system and lower the risk of contracting Covid Moreover, consumers may believe that the shorter supply chain of local fresh produce reduces Covid contamination risks. Although produce safety may decrease in areas with more severe Covid conditions, the local fresh produce supply chain is still shorter and subject to less contact and transitions than conventional retail fresh produce.
The preference for local produce may be further highlighted by the higher probability of an increase in food grocery spending when more farmers markets are present in the area, holding everything else constant.
This increase in grocery spending could be due to higher spending in either farmers markets or conventional retail stores, or both. Although many of the farmers markets were forced to close temporarily or operate under more restrictions shortly after Covid was declared as a pandemic [ 6 ], they soon re-opened with features that minimized Covid related risks.
For instance, some farmers markets asked vendors to place an extra table between the cashier and shoppers to ensure 6-feet distancing. Many farmers markets also limited the number of customers to reduce crowding in response to the pandemic. Our findings provide indirect evidence that the food hardships in the early pandemic stage identified in previous studies [ 25 , 42 ] may have continued.
In addition to the families with no or low income, many middle-class households were also experiencing potential food hardships for the first time [ 46 ]. Furthermore, our findings suggest that households with children or elderly members, who tend to require higher food quality and nutrition intakes, have a higher probability of increasing their spending.
This may pose a further strain if these households belong in the middle to lower-income categories. Added to this strain is the fact that benefits packages had already expired in mid-August.
The potential food insecurity problem among the base and middle-income households may be further exacerbated by the permanent increase in fresh fruit and vegetable prices compared to the pre-pandemic period due to higher production costs, labor shortages, and structural changes in the food industry [ 5 , 7 ].
Given the significant impact of Covid on food access, policymakers may wish to expedite passing new rounds of stimulus plans to provide additional financial support to households with vulnerable members and facing financial hardship. On the retail side, the preference for online shopping may create severe financial difficulties for local farmers and businesses who do not have experience setting up online stores or even access to the Internet, adversely affecting the local economy.
However, not every farm has the resource and knowledge to operate and prompt their own agritourism business. It is essential for the policymakers to develop programs to increase broadband access and to train local farmers on developing alternative sales channels and innovative approaches such as 1 providing farm-to-home delivery; 2 offering online purchasing options, 3 diversifying retail outlets, 4 following social distancing measures at farmers markets.
This study has several limitations. Since such information was not included in the survey, we are not able to identify how debt and net wealth may have affected our estimation results. Such information would help better interpret the results found in the paper. Future studies may wish to collect such information. Finally, percentage-wise, our survey sample consists less employed respondents Reasons for this lower percentage may include: 1 respondents in between jobs considered themselves as unemployed; 2 about two-thirds of the respondents are females who traditionally have a lower workforce participation rate than men, and working women have been found to hit hard by the Covid pandemic [ 48 ]; 3 people with jobs may be less likely to participate in online surveys due to higher opportunity cost of time.
Nevertheless, we are confident in our results, since they are, as shown, in line with findings from other studies. Covid impacted households of all income levels and with young and senior family members. The changes in household purchasing expenditures may have had serious implications for financially vulnerable households that require further attention from policymakers.
Browse Subject Areas? Click through the PLOS taxonomy to find articles in your field. Abstract Using a nationwide survey of primary grocery shoppers conducted in August , we examine household food spending when the economy had partially reopened and consumers had different spending opportunities in comparison to when the Covid lockdown began.
Introduction The Covid pandemic has caused enormous disruptions to the global economy. Survey questionnaire An online survey on household grocery purchasing behavior was conducted through Qualtrics from August 12 to August 18, Of the fresh fruits and vegetables you purchased, approximately what percentage was locally grown?
Data The detailed demographic information of the surveyed primary food shoppers and variable descriptions are reported in Table 1.
Download: PPT. Table 1. Demographic information of the survey respondents and descriptions of the variables. Fig 1. Grocery shopping and fresh produce expenses, and the share of locally grown fresh produce purchased by income level: Before vs.
Table 2. Summary of dependent variable: Changes in spending pattern. Empirical framework and results To determine what factors drive household food expenditure change during the Covid restrictions, we model the survey data using the ordered Probit model, a method frequently employed in previous studies to analyze ordered categorical data [e. Table 3. Marginal effects of variables on overall food grocery spending, fresh produce expenditure, and share of locally grown fresh produce purchased.
Supporting information. S1 Data. S1 Appendix. Quota used in the survey. S2 Appendix. Survey questionnaries. S3 Appendix. Ordered probit estimation results. S4 Appendix. Seeminly uncorrelated regression estimation results. References 1. View Article Google Scholar 2. Melo G. View Article Google Scholar 3. View Article Google Scholar 4.
Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy. View Article Google Scholar 5. Richards TJ, Rickard B. COVID impact on fruit and vegetable markets. Canadian Journal of Agricultural Economics. View Article Google Scholar 6. The share of disposable personal income spent on total food has trended downward since , which has been driven by a shrinking share of income spent on food at home.
However, the COVID pandemic resulted in the sharpest annual decline in the share of disposable income spent on total food since USDA began tracking these expenditures. In , the share of disposable income spent on total food decreased by In part, this decline was the result of the largest annual increase in disposable personal income since and the sharpest decrease in food-away-from-home spending. High-income countries such as the United States and the United Kingdom have higher food spending in absolute terms, but the share of household consumption expenditures devoted to at-home food is low—less than 10 percent.
Per capita calorie availability follows the reverse pattern. According to the most recent available data, U. Skip to navigation Skip to main content. Home Data Products Ag and Food Statistics: Charting the Essentials Food Prices and Spending Food Prices and Spending Retail food prices partially reflect farm-level commodity prices, but packaging, processing, transportation, and other marketing costs, along with competitive factors, have a greater role in determining prices on supermarket shelves and restaurant menus.
Grocery store food prices up 3. Food price inflation over — equal to economy-wide inflation. Over a third of the U. Retail food prices are less volatile than farm prices.
Food prices less volatile than fuel prices. Budget share for total food dropped by 10 percent in , a new historical low.
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