Impact of COVID-19 on Food Consumption and Marketing: A Behavioral Model Perspective

Introduction

Consumption of food is a basic human need, and as a part of the social system is greatly influenced by many factors including sociocultural, economic, marketing, amongst others. Steenkamp (1993) had stated that given the complexity and diversity of the factors influencing individual food choice and consumption is a call for researchers to draw insights on food behavior from the wide range of science and social science disciplines that include food science, nutrition, medicine, psychology, physiology, psychophysics, sociology, economics, marketing, and anthropology. In line to this, researchers have found there are various factors influencing food consumption. For instance, Mak et al. (2012) identified cultural/religious influences, socio-demographics, food-related personality traits, exposure effect/past experience, and motivational factors that affect tourist food consumption. Deshpande et al. (2009) found that perception of current dietary, quality, perceived importance of eating a healthy diet, self-efficacy or individual perception of being able to perform the advocated behavior and other environmental variables are likely to influence healthy food consumption. Meanwhile, during times of crisis (like-economic recession) factors such as product features and natural contents, economic issues, identity and sensory appeal, mood, weight control and health, and convenience influence consumers’ food purchasing behavior, noted Theodoridou et al. (2017). Recent researchers (Liu et al., 2020) found feelings of disgust, knowledge, phobia, and social demographic factors such as age, household size, household income and region are the main factors that influence specific food (e.g., insect) purchases and consumption. Thus, as the above studies indicate there are various factors (sociocultural, personal, psychological, and so on) which influence the purchase and consumption of food.

Meanwhile, during specific situational crisis like the unprecedented Covid-19 pandemic, people were compelled to fundamentally change not only their way of living but also their consumption behavior of goods and services. In fact, studies suggest that many people across the globe have started looking at products and product-brands through a new lens. Indeed, Covid-19 has greatly affected the consumption behavior of people, more so post the lockdowns that were imposed and, alongside the need to practice the guidelines suggested by the World Health Organization (WHO) of social distancing, wearing masks and maintaining hygiene, which have become the ‘new normal’ (Sheth, 2020), disrupting many of the existing customers’ purchase and shopping behavior. For example, when the lockdowns were imposed across nations consumers were forced to rework their shopping habits, they became more cost conscious, developed a preference towards local products, started to engage in healthy eating habits, and, so on. More interestingly was visible the dramatic shift towards e-commerce and online shopping (Asti et al., 2021; Badenhop & Frasquet, 2021; UNCAD, 2020). Furthermore, with the Covid-19 pandemic spread; the way consumers shop for their groceries has also changed. In that, to limit contact, people have modified their buying pattern (and behavior), preferring to opt for online purchase of groceries through orders placed via the internet, smart phones, delivery apps, etc. Consequently, this also required them to make less number of shopping trips to a grocery store. Thus, unlike pre Covid-19 times, now people have started living differently, purchasing differently, and in many ways, even thinking differently. Of course, partly this can also be attributed to their line of thinking and reasoning which drastically changed when lockdowns were imposed across nations. Needless to mention that the changed circumstances have compelled people to realize the importance of consuming healthy and nutritious food, and alongside, the need to purchase sustainable brands which offer them ‘valued choices’. In fact, a visible change in consumer behavior was that instead of engaging in ‘impulsive’ and/or ‘on the go shopping and eating’, people started doing ‘more’ cooking at home, and carefully plan their weekly shopping trips with the focus being on ‘the core values’ rather than on the ‘weekly special offers’ (FoodMatters, 2020).