New way of grocery shopping expected to stay

Surge in online shopping likely to continue long after virus, expert says

“My sense is that a lot of people will continue to follow new practices for a while until they feel safe.”

SYLVAIN CHARLEBOIS PROFESSOR AT DALHOUSIE UNIVERSITY

Panic buying may have subsided across Canada, but the way Canadians shop for groceries may never be the same again, according to a new study out of Dalhousie University.

Sylvain Charlebois, a professor in food distribution and policy at Dalhousie, said most people aren’t panic buying or hoarding toilet paper anymore, according to a recent study conducted of 1,503 Canadians.

However, they are still going on larger grocery runs, but with much less frequency.

“I think people are starting to get more comfortable with their new reality,” he said, adding that Canadians are starting to trust the supply chain again, resulting in less panicked hoarding.

Charlebois said people are returning to the more old-fashioned cycle of planning their meals ahead instead of stopping by the store multiple times a week.

Grocery shopping just isn’t

“fun” anymore, he said.

“People are seeing grocery shopping as a duty.”

This is also due to the fact that grocery stores have had to compromise the experiences and brands they’ve worked hard to build, such as Longo’s, which has now made masks mandatory for shoppers.

“I think we’re beyond saving the grocery store experience,” he said.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, online grocery shopping has continued to rise throughout the pandemic. Before, less than two per cent of grocery sales were online, Charlebois said.

Now, five per cent of the survey’s respondents are only shopping online, while another eight per cent are shopping online and occasionally in stores.

“My sense is that a lot of people will continue to follow new practices for a while until they feel safe.”

While current safety practices might eventually fade, Charlebois thinks this is a change that’s here to stay. In fact, he thinks it will only grow from here.

One interesting finding from the study was that younger people were less likely to trust the shoppers around them — that is, they were less likely to believe that other shoppers were following safety protocols correctly.

Charlebois has no idea why. “Maybe younger consumers feel that older consumers are the problem … aren’t necessarily following the rules.”

He also found a paradox when it comes to Canadians’ plans after the pandemic: Seventeen per cent of them plan to go out to restaurants more than before, but 47 per cent plan to cook at home more.

Young people expressed both these intentions even more, he said.

As well, Canadians plan to use food-delivery services a lot more, even after the pandemic is over, as well as meal delivery kits.

Overall, Charlebois said the pandemic seems to have accelerated trends that Canada was already slowly picking up.

“We’re catching up to the rest of the world, but COVID is actually speeding things up.”