Food purchasing and consumption trends during the 2020 coronavirus pandemic
Creators: name: Jarvis, Rebekah
Publisher: name: No Publisher Supplied
Year: 2021

description: The COVID-19 pandemic has altered many aspects of life, particularly the way in which individuals obtain and use resources. With the increased demand for food coupled with the decreased supply of food, as well as the changes in the use of electricity/energy and water with more time spent in the home, the coronavirus has exacerbated the challenges around resource availability. The objective of this thesis is to examine the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on food purchasing and consumption habits in a sample of Americans during the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic.The data for this thesis were drawn from a large, multi-university project. Study participants were recruited for this study during the summer of 2019 through late February 2020, and were recruited online through email, Facebook groups, or in-person through talks, panels, and family and friends. Participants were given monthly, quantitative surveys that included open and closed-ended questions about socio-demographics, employment, and household consumption patterns of food, energy, and water resources. Participants were also asked questions about COVID-19’s impact on those consumption patterns, as well as the ability to feed one’s family during the coronavirus, and personal food consumption patterns. For this study, four surveys were administered in April, 2020 (Wave 1), May, 2020 (Wave 2), July, 2020 (Wave 3), and October, 2020 (Wave 4). Data from three of the four surveys are used as part of this study. Survey Wave 1 explored the constructs of food purchasing habits and feeding one’s family during the coronavirus pandemic. Survey Wave 2 explored the construct of food purchasing habits, and Wave 4 explored the construct of food consumption patterns. Participants were also asked to document their food purchasing information in the website application HomeTracker.Participants (N=181) were, on average, 45 years old, non-Hispanic white (82.9%), females (73.3%), with a bachelor’s degree (87.3%) education level. Participants’ annual gross incomes ranged from $20,000 to greater than $200,000, with the majority of participants having an income between $115,000 - 144,999.The participants reported being concerned about contracting COVID-19 while shopping, and this may be reflected in the multiple changes in how participants purchased food during the early phases of the pandemic. Most of the participants reported shopping at less busy stores to avoid crowds, using grocery delivery to their home, picking up prepared foods from a restaurant, using curbside pickup from a grocery store, and shopping for others outside of their household due to the pandemic. In terms of the food purchased, most of the participants reported buying more groceries per trip and or shopping order, and buying more snacks, frozen foods, and eggs. In terms of consumption trends, some participants reported eating more snacks because of the pandemic.The coronavirus pandemic had an impact on the way people are purchasing food, the foods they purchased, and the foods they consumed. Other studies have demonstrated a link between consumption of calorie-dense, high saturated fat and added sugar foods and an increased diet-related risk for the virus. Further research is warranted to further explore this connection.