COVID-19 Working Paper: Consumer Food Spending Changes During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Abigail Okrent and Eliana Zeballos

No 333545, USDA Miscellaneous from United States Department of Agriculture

Abstract: The Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic affected the way U.S. consumers purchased food. The evidence is mixed on how these changes translated into dietary and nutritional outcomes. This report uses the Consumer Expenditure Diary Survey to examine food purchasing behaviors before (2016–19) and during the early onset of the COVID-19 pandemic (2020). As U.S. households shifted away from meals from full-service restaurants, they purchased more food and beverages at grocery stores and other food-at-home (FAH) establishments. Increased FAH spending was driven by higher spending on protein foods, fruits, vegetables, and other FAH (e.g., desserts, prepared meals and salads). However, these increases were uneven across food categories and subpopulations. The largest increases in the FAH share between 2016–19 and 2020 were among single households without children, non-Hispanic Asian households, and in the Northeast. The largest decreases in the food-away-from-home (FAFH) share were among non-Hispanic Asian households and in the Northeast.

Keywords: Consumer/Household Economics; Financial Economics; Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety; Institutional and Behavioral Economics; Public Economics (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 47
Date: 2022-12-21
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-agr
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/333545/files/ap-110.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ags:usdami:333545

DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.333545

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in USDA Miscellaneous from United States Department of Agriculture
Bibliographic data for series maintained by AgEcon Search ().