The pandemic upended how and where we eat
Even as restaurants open up and people get tired of being at home, a lot of folks aren’t quite ready to give their newfound kitchen skills a break just yet.
“You still kind of have that hybrid mix of people who say, ‘OK, well, maybe I’m not so comfortable going out,’ or maybe ‘I never had to cook until we were all locked inside, and I actually really like it, so I’ll incorporate that as part of a new routine,’” said Jannah Jablonowski, a spokeswoman for the Giant Eagle grocery chain.
COVID-19’s disruptions to how Americans eat and where they eat haven’t entirely disappeared. And that means it’ll take a while to see exactly where folks end up devoting their food budgets. For now, things still look different than they would have before the pandemic.
For instance, restaurant transactions are down about 10% compared to two years ago, said Darren Seifer, a food analyst with
NPD Group, a market research company based in Port Washington, N.Y.
Prices are rising for many products, as well. But there also are generational factors at play.
“There are a lot of a generations that are moving into life stages that are more prone to having more meals in home,” Mr. Seifer said. “The millennial generation is going to be moving into their late 30s and 40s and typically tend to move into the home more often.”
And, as illustrated by countless banana bread recipes circulating the internet during lockdown, baking at home, Mr. Seifer said, became a way to connect families and create a sense of comfort.
“We saw those trends really follow suit throughout the stores, especially as product availability leveled out mid-pandemic,” Ms. Jablonowski said. “You kind of see that, across the board, people were trying new recipes and getting a little bit more adventurous in the kitchen and exploring different ingredients and flavor profiles. So, really an interesting time for a culinary revolution or renaissance.”
During the beginning of the pandemic, Aldi customers were looking for household staples, said J.R. Perry, Aldi Saxonburg Division vice president.
“Right now, shoppers’ buying patterns have largely returned to normal, with an added focus on fresh fruits, vegetables and meat,” Mr. Perry said.
Still, as COVID-19 restrictions ease, some customers are buying items in an effort to re-create a dining-out experience in their own homes, he noted.
Tom Charley, owner of Charley Family Shop ‘n Save stores in Greensburg and Murrysville. said he is slowly seeing buying patterns go back to normal — but not everything is as it was pre-pandemic quite yet.
“There is still an increase in dollars per transaction, so that means they’re coming to the store less often though,” he said. “The pattern has changed slightly, but that’s actually ... closer to where it was pre-pandemic.”
Stay in or dine out
Of course, there are broader economic factors at play.
On one hand, consumers are shelling out more at the supermarket these days.
The consumer price index, or average amount consumers will pay, for grocery purchases has increased 0.7% since May of last year. Overall, all food prices were up 2.2% from May 2020, according to the USDA Economic Research Service.
Contending with the grocery budget, restaurant pricing is starting to increase faster than retail prices, impacting consumers’ decisions on whether to eat out or stay in, Mr. Seifer pointed out. Restaurant purchases were 4% higher than they were in May 2020, according to the USDA.
“Historically speaking, food expenditures have represented around 10% of disposable income, and consumers have really tried to keep it steady,” he said. “The reason for that is this is something that consumers have to continuously buy.”
Because of this, he said, there’s also a lot of pressure on retailers to keep their prices steady and low.
For some shoppers, being able to indulge was a priority during the turbulent pandemic time.
Ms. Jablonowski noted that more customers have been picking up more premium products at the O’Hara-based supermarket chain.
“A lot of people like to stop at coffee shops — whether they be national chains or local coffee shops — on their morning commute to the office, or they run out and grab a coffee midday,” Ms. Jablonowski said.
“So they’re used to having that variety at their fingertips, whether it’s drip coffee, a cappuccino, a latte. And then when all of that was suddenly less convenient or potentially unavailable entirely, people wanted to replicate that experience as they worked from home.”
And though some customers may be making the switch to premium products, Mr. Seifer said, this isn’t the case for everyone.
“You saw a lot of people who lost their jobs at the beginning of pandemic so right away, they needed to make some really tough choices,” he said. “At the same time, you had people who maintained their jobs, but their spending in other areas completely plummeted. ... So they had the luxury of spending more on premium products.”
Contactless service
Ms. Jablonowski said Giant Eagle is continuing to invest in its grocery delivery program, of which it received four times the amount of orders during the pandemic than preCOVID-19.
“We saw this hesitancy
to give the services a try and have somebody else shop for you,” Ms. Jablonowski said. “And we long saw that once people kind of broke that barrier to trial, they were hooked. They realized how convenient it was, how much time it saves them and that they were still getting extremely high quality product.”
And it looks like delivery and drive-up services are here to stay.
Retailers such as Target, whose drive-up service sales have grown by more than $1 billion in the past two years, are also investing in contactless services.
“We’ve earmarked capital investments to make drive-up even more convenient for our guests and efficient for our team, given that we anticipate continued rapid growth of this service,” CEO Brian Cornell said during the company’s first-quarter earnings call.
Likewise, Mr. Charley said Shop ‘n Save signed up for Instacart, a San Francisco-based grocery delivery service, in September 2019 — “right at the right time,” he said. March, April and May had a huge influx of orders.
“It’s maintained itself pretty well for the last six to eight months,” he said. “It hasn’t fallen off anymore. It’s still very much something that our customers are looking for.”