Out-of-home food environment and the COVID-19 pandemic: an interrupted time-series analysis in England 2019–2021

Huasheng Xiang, Louis Goffe, Viviana Albani, Nasima Akhter, Amelia Lake and Heather Brown
Additional contact information
Huasheng Xiang: Lancaster University
Louis Goffe: Newcastle University
Viviana Albani: Newcastle University
Nasima Akhter: Durham University
Amelia Lake: Teesside University School of Health and Life Sciences

SN Business & Economics, 2023, vol. 3, issue 9, 1-16

Abstract: Abstract In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the UK government introduced three waves of national lockdowns and other measures to limit the spread of the virus between 2020 and 2021. A key component of these national lockdowns required the out-of-home food sector, such as restaurants and pubs, to operate only as takeaways. The aim of this study was to investigate the impact of COVID-19 on the out-of-home food environment in England. Using monthly data collected at the local authority level between March 2019 to December 2021, we employed an interrupted time-series approach to analyze the trends of eight different types of food outlets: (1) fast food/sandwich shop; (2) pub/night club/bar; (3) restaurant/café/canteen; (4) supermarket; (5) mobile caterer; (6) other catering premise, (7) fast food chains, and (8) non-chained hot food outlets. Our findings suggest that the COVID-19 pandemic had heterogeneously impacted on different types of food outlets. After the easing of restrictions only restaurants, mobile caterers, pubs, and supermarkets grew, whereas fast food outlets and mobile caters did not. However, when looking at chained and non-chained fast food outlets, non-chained food outlets were more responsive to government policy during the pandemic such as the Eat Out To Help Out scheme, whereas after restrictions eased, chained outlets grew at a faster rate compared to their non-chained counterparts, but all fast food outlets had lower growth than before the pandemic. It is important to understand how the food environment is evolving and changing especially in relation to shocks such as the COVID-19 pandemic. The food environment has a direct and indirect impact on the economy and population health. Thus, it is of great value to understand how it is changing and when and where there is a role for government intervention.

Keywords: COVID-19; Food environment; UK; Health (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s43546-023-00536-y Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

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:spr:snbeco:v:3:y:2023:i:9:d:10.1007_s43546-023-00536-y

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.springer.com/journal/43546

DOI: 10.1007/s43546-023-00536-y

Access Statistics for this article

SN Business & Economics is currently edited by Gino D'Oca

More articles in SN Business & Economics from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().