Consumer behavior during the COVID-19 pandemic: An analysis of food purchasing and management behaviors in US households through the lens of food system resilience

The COVID-19 pandemic has stimulated considerable interest in the resilience of the U.S. food system. Less attention has been paid to the resiliency characteristics of the final link in the food system - individual households. We use national survey data from July 2020 to understand the food acquisition, preparation, and management strategies that households implemented in response to the pandemic. We find a substantial increase in the amount of food prepared and consumed at home which scales with respondents' time availability, perceived risks of dining out, and pandemic-induced income disruption. We then identify several household responses to support this increase in home food consumption that are in line with practices suggested to enhance resiliency at other links in the food supply chain, including increased cold storage capacity and enhanced in-house capability via improved cooking and food management skills. We discuss how responses such as improved food skills can reduce the propagation of shocks through the supply chain by allowing greater flexibility and less waste, while actions such as increased home cold storage capacity could undermine system resilience by exacerbating bull-whip effects, i.e., amplifying consumer demand shocks that are propagated to upstream food supply chain actors.

Automated summary

The COVID-19 pandemic has drawn attention to the resilience of the U.S. food system, but the resilience characteristics of individual households have been overlooked. Based on survey data, people prepared and consumed more food at home during the pandemic, driven by factors such as available time, perceived risks of dining out, and income disruption. To enhance household food consumption, some households took measures such as increasing cold storage capacity and improving cooking and food management skills. These measures can improve supply chain resilience but may also exacerbate the propagation of consumer demand shocks.