ABSTRACT
For this study, the authors measured attitudes toward shopping for food and cooking, before and during the first lockdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic, among a sample of 526 Danish consumers, using an online survey. To analyse changes due to the lockdown, they applied a latent class Markov model, which revealed four states: middle of the road, love cooking (and like shopping), like shopping and cooking, and do not like shopping or cooking. In estimating transition probabilities, the findings reveal that most respondents remained in the same state before and during the lockdown, but those that changed were more likely to exhibit relatively higher liking of shopping and cooking. These states also reflect variations in people's food literacy and self-reported food consumption. Finally, respondents with stronger negative emotional reactions to the lockdown were more likely to change their states.
ABSTRACT
This paper provides a European-level analysis using a large-scale survey of 13 countries to examine the power of relevant economic and socio-demographic characteristics to account for changes in food consumption and purchasing behavior during COVID-19. This was done by focusing on a two-level analysis of subject-related predictors highlighted in many existing country-level studies to test the generality of their significance. The Level 1 predictors relate to the individual households participating in the survey consisting of household composition, education, and location, as well as three types of perceived COVID-19 risks of infection, severity, and anxiety. Level 2 relates to the national level, and especially to the financial situation measured by the mean national Actual Individual Consumption (AIC) per capita in PPP, of the countries, in which the households reside. In terms of changes in food consumption, results show that household composition, education, and the household’s perceived risk of both being infected by COVID-19 and being severely infected are significant predictors, although there are some differences between the two levels. Some possible explanations are as follows: putting food into one’s body in the context of the pandemic is related to a household’s financial situation, its composition, especially the presence or absence of children and older people, and its educational attainment, and through all these aforementioned to the perception of COVID-19 infection and its severity risks. Changes in food purchasing react significantly to the same predictors, but additionally, to all other predictors at both household and AIC levels. The household’s location and perceived COVID-19 anxiety risks are thus also significant. Food purchasing depends much more on factors operating both at the individual household level and the AIC level together;for example, households’ access to food is affected by both national and local lockdown restrictions that vary according to the location of the household.
ABSTRACT
For this study, the authors measured attitudes toward shopping for food and cooking, before and during the first lockdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic, among a sample of 526 Danish consumers, using an online survey. To analyse changes due to the lockdown, they applied a latent class Markov model, which revealed four states: middle of the road, love cooking (and like shopping), like shopping and cooking, and do not like shopping or cooking. In estimating transition probabilities, the findings reveal that most respondents remained in the same state before and during the lockdown, but those that changed were more likely to exhibit relatively higher liking of shopping and cooking. These states also reflect variations in people's food literacy and self-reported food consumption. Finally, respondents with stronger negative emotional reactions to the lockdown were more likely to change their states.
ABSTRACT
This paper focuses on changes in food consumption that occurred during the COVID-19 pandemic. Its objective is to map changes at individual consumer level and identify the influence of different factors related to the COVID-19 pandemic on changes in individual food consumption. We conducted a cross-sectional online survey among 2,680 residents of Denmark (DK), Germany (DE), and Slovenia (SI) using quota sampling for gender, age and regional distribution. Data on consumption frequencies before and during the pandemic were collected with a food frequency questionnaire in the spring of 2020 (during the first lockdown period) for important types of fresh food and non-perishable food. Our results showed that, depending on the type of food, 15-42% of study participants changed their consumption frequency during the pandemic, compared to before. In all the study countries, the food categories with the highest rates of change were frozen food, canned food, and cake and biscuits; among the food categories with lower rates of change were bread, alcoholic drinks, and dairy products. People across all three countries shopped less frequently during lockdown and there was an overall reduction in the consumption of fresh foods, but an increase in the consumption of food with a longer shelf life in Denmark and Germany. Interestingly though, we observed diverging trends in all food categories analyzed, with some people decreasing and others increasing their consumption frequencies, demonstrating that the pandemic had different impacts on people's lifestyles and food consumption patterns. Using the method of multinomial regression analysis, we identified factors significantly (p < 0.01, p < 0.05, p < 0.1) related to increases and decrease in individuals' consumption frequencies in different food categories. The factors include restrictions put in place in response to the pandemic (i.e., closure of physical workplaces, canteens, cafés and restaurants, schools, and childcare institutions), changes in households' grocery shopping frequency, individuals' perceived risk of COVID-19, income losses due to the pandemic, and socio-demographic factors. Interesting differences between the countries were detected, allowing insights into the different food cultures. Conclusions include implications for policy-makers and actors in the food supply chain on the issues of healthy diets, food system resilience, and behavior change.