What Does Food Retail Research Tell Us About the Implications of Coronavirus (COVID-19) for Grocery Purchasing Habits?

Abstract

The global pandemic of COVID-19 (a disease caused by a novel coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2) has caused drastic changes in the structure of people's daily routines in many countries around the world, including the way we purchase food. Many regions and countries have “locked down” to prevent the spread of the virus, including first Wuhan in China, and countries such as the USA, UK, Germany, India, Poland, and New Zealand. During these lockdown periods, people are only allowed to leave their homes if strictly necessary—e.g., for essential work, exercise, medical care, or to purchase groceries or supplies. Although these lockdowns were initially declared to last for a matter of weeks, Ferguson et al. (2020) suggest that lockdowns may need to be implemented regularly for over a year, in order to manage the burden of COVID-19 on health services.This opinion paper evaluates the emerging and likely consequences of these lockdowns on consumer grocery purchasing habits and their implications for food retail as of early April of 2020, with a particular focus on New Zealand as a case study. In doing so, we draw on classic (e.g., Nowlis, 1995; Suri and Monroe, 2003) and recent (e.g., Sproesser et al., 2018; Bialkova et al., 2020) research on consumer behavior, and identify key areas in need of further research.