According to Statistics Netherlands, sales of non-perishable foods, such as canned foods, frozen vegetables, rice and pasta, increased strongly during the national lockdown that was in place in the Netherlands in March and April 2020. Footnote 1 Dutch consumers spent less on most consumer goods in the first 9 months of the pandemic, but, just like in many other countries, spent more on daily groceries than before. Second, food consumption patterns have shifted sharply (Cavallo, 2020). That percentage rose to 81 percent in 2019 (Eurostat, 2020), and is likely to further increase after the pandemic (United Nations Conference on Trade & Development, 2020). In the Netherlands, which has a high proportion of residents with internet access, 79 percent shopped online in 2017. In the European Union, almost six in ten consumers aged 16–75 bought goods or services online in 2017, compared to only three in ten in 2007 (Statistics Netherlands, 2018). This trend, which already existed before the pandemic, has since accelerated.

The COVID-19 pandemic initially had a significant negative effect on household consumption worldwide (Baker et al., 2020 Hacioglu et al., 2020 Kim et al., 2020 Piyapromdee & Spittal, 2020), but there were exceptions to this decline in consumption.įirst, people started to buy more online (Chen, et al.

Download grocery store