Consumer behavior during the COVID-19 pandemic: An analysis of food purchasing and management behaviors in U.S. households through the lens of food system resilience
Persistent URL
Author(s)
Bender, Kathryn E.
Badiger, Aishwarya
Roe, Brian E.
Shu, Yiheng
Qi, Danyi
Date Issued
August 2022
Abstract
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.
Journal
Socio-Economic Planning Sciences
Department
Business and Economics
Citation
Bender, Kathryn E., Aishwarya Badiger, Brian E. Roe, Yiheng Shu, and Danyi Qi. "Consumer Behavior during the COVID-19 Pandemic: An Analysis of Food Purchasing and Management Behaviors in U.S. Households through the Lens of Food System Resilience." Socio-Economic Planning Sciences 82, (2022): 101107. doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.seps.2021.101107. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0038012121000999.
Publisher
Elsevier Ltd.
Version of Article
Published article
DOI
10.1016/j.seps.2021.101107
ISSN
0038-0121
1873-6041
Rights
This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-
nc-nd/4.0/).
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