Here’s how the COVID-19 pandemic has changed our grocery shopping habits, experts say

The coronavirus pandemic has changed much of how we live our lives, especially where grocery shopping is concerned.

Stores made major changes to how they run things: Socially distanced check-out lines are the new norm and there are more options for contactless checkout. Many stores have done away with free samples and self-serve stations while ramping up their curbside pick-up and delivery services.

Experts say these shifts along with COVID-19 concerns have influenced shoppers’ behaviors — in short, we’re shopping differently.

For one, shoppers are going to the store less frequently, but buying more when they do, John Owen, the associate director for food and retail with analysis group Mintel, told The New York Times.

“People now go to the store with purpose,” Owen told the Times. “The number of trips went way down, and the size of the basket went way up in April. We have eased back on that, but not by much.”

Gary Huddleston with the Texas Retailers Association attributes swelling order sizes to two factors.

“For one, (shoppers) want to cut down on the frequency that they come to the store but secondly because restaurants are closed, they were purchasing more product at home than before,” he told KXAS.

Prior to the pandemic, 19% of Americans shopped for groceries at least three times a week, the Times reported. By June, the figure fell to 10%.

Industry professionals say shoppers are supplementing in-person shopping trips with curbside and delivery options.

During the pandemic, online U.S. grocery sales spiked to account for between 10% to 15% of all grocery sales compared to about 4% before the outbreak, retail expert Steve Caine told CNBC. He expects the figure to stay between 5% and 10% when the pandemic subsides.

Kroger reported a 127% increase in its digital sales in the second quarter, with Target and Walmart seeing triple-digit increases as well, Yahoo reported.

“When things return to normal, there will be a lot of people who don’t go back to shopping in-person,” Whole Foods co-founder John Mackey told The Wall Street Journal.

Dariush Mozaffarian, a cardiologist and dean of Tufts University’s nutrition science school, said COVID-19 shopping is underscoring the economic divide between high- and low-income Americans.

“There are two different reactions to COVID — a small number who are getting health conscious and reacquainting themselves with real food, and a larger group that is going with comfort food that is cheap and shelf-stable,” he told The Washington Post.

Both groups are driving trends.

“A lot of people have also used this time to get nutritious. Produce sales for fruits and vegetables did extremely well and still are during the COVID-19 season,” Huddleston told KXAS, adding that ice cream, coffee and other comfort foods are also highly sought-after.

Budget shoppers are also favoring in-store brands over independent offerings and eschewing grab-and-go items such as granola bars, as working from home has become more common, the Post reported.

Kroger CEO Rodney McMullen told the Times that some people are also “moving on to more complex cooking.” He said sales rose drastically for pasta, baking supplies, beer and wine at the onset of the pandemic. “We don’t see that going away,” he said.

People are also shopping for a smaller range of grocery items, Mark Baum, senior vice president for food industry trade group FMI, told the Post. Following that change in shopping behavior, grocery stores are now focusing more on keeping their 1,000 most popular items in stock. These include items such as Oreo cookies and Barilla pasta.

Companies even trimmed their offerings. For instance, Frito-Lay sliced its “number of unique bar codes” in an effort to get products on shelves more quickly, the Post reported.

Huddleston said most manufacturers have caught up and are able to keep products in stock, except for one sector.

“Some of those manufacturers cut down on the variety of what they had in order to focus on what sold the best. Today, with the exception of cleaning products, I think everything has caught up,” Huddleston told KXAS. “We’ve gotten much better now that we’ve learned a lot and people have gotten somewhat accustomed to the shopping habits.”

This story was originally published September 15, 2020 at 10:37 AM with the headline "Here’s how the COVID-19 pandemic has changed our grocery shopping habits, experts say."