Consumer behavior during the COVID-19 pandemic: An analysis of food purchasing and management behaviors in U.S. households through the lens of food system resilience

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has stimulated considerable interest in the resilience of the U.S. food system. Less attention has been paid to the resiliency characteristics of the final link in the food system - individual households. We use national survey data from July 2020 to understand the food acquisition, preparation, and management strategies that households implemented in response to the pandemic. We find a substantial increase in the amount of food prepared and consumed at home which scales with respondents' time availability, perceived risks of dining out, and pandemic-induced income disruption. We then identify several household responses to support this increase in home food consumption that are in line with practices suggested to enhance resiliency at other links in the food supply chain, including increased cold storage capacity and enhanced in-house capability via improved cooking and food management skills. We discuss how responses such as improved food skills can reduce the propagation of shocks through the supply chain by allowing greater flexibility and less waste, while actions such as increased home cold storage capacity could undermine system resilience by exacerbating bullwhip effects, i.e., amplifying consumer demand shocks that are propagated to upstream food supply chain actors.

Keywords: COVID-19 pandemic; Cold storage; Food management; Food waste; Household; Resilience.

Fig. 1

Perceived food shortages at grocery stores by food category (n = 139).

Fig. 2

Change in cooking skills and food management skills during the COVID-19 pandemic grouped by change in cooking frequency. Notes: Red diamonds represent mean change in skill scores, while the top (bottom) of the box represents the 75th (25th) percentile of the distribution. The solid horizontal line inside each box is the median while dots represent individual observations outside the inner fence of the distribution.

Fig. 3

Shifts in household cold storage inventory due to COVID-19 related change (n = 509).

Fig. 4

Relative importance of factors in food discard decisions (n = 396).