Grocery industry will never be the same after virus, expert says
Some changes being made during pandemic will last much longer than expected
Panic-buying toilet paper, sanitizing grocery carts and holing up at home might seem like temporary measures during the COVID-19 pandemic. But an expert in the food-supply chain says the coronavirus could change the grocery industry in Canada forever.
Sylvain Charlebois, a professor in food distribution and policy at Dalhousie University, said he thinks the feardriven buying we’ve seen over the past few weeks is because “people have lost the ability to plan in advance and just don’t know what two weeks of food looks like.”
He also thinks grocery stores are doing remarkably well, despite the fact many are struggling to keep their shelves filled.
“What’s happening now is nothing short of a miracle,” Charlebois said, noting that not only are people stocking up, they’re also not eating out, which also drives demand for groceries to make meals at home.
Dalhousie performed a surveyin partnership with Angus Reid asking Canadians about shopping tendencies during COVID-19.
They found that about three-quarters
of people don’t feel comfortable going to the grocery store, a higher share than Charlebois said he expected.
He said he thinks grocery store operations may change permanently — not necessarily to the same extent as current changes, but they certainly won’t go back to the way they were.
Charlebois cites recent shortterm changes such as the Plexiglas barriers at checkouts and higher wages for grocery-store employees as examples of changes that could become permanent.
“There’s gonna be a lot of things that will need to be revisited by grocers,” he said. “The typical grocery store will be likely as clean as an operating room once we’re done with this.”
Online grocery ordering is also seeing an uptick — for example, delivery service Instacart is hiring 30,000 more shoppers in Canada to deal with rising demand and mitigate delays.
Charlebois estimates that ecommerce is making up 1.7 per cent of grocery shopping, but that this will rise rapidly in the coming weeks and months. The survey also found that nine per cent of Canadians have started shopping for groceries online for the first time since the pandemic struck.
What makes him think these changes won’t be temporary? For one, this period of social distancing could last for months, he said: “Three months is long enough to create new habits, and we are creatures of habit.”
Meanwhile, the survey found that only a quarter of people don’t feel comfortable in restaurants, said Charlebois — but that, combined with the rise in e-commerce, leads him to predict more ghost kitchens — spots that only make food for takeout.
Charlebois also hopes that shoppers’ habits will change.
“I think it’s the wrong time to be picky,” he said, pointing out that some products are still in stock.
“That’s the message I’m trying to convey because … I think it’s unreasonable for Canadians to be very picky and selective right now.”