The coronavirus outbreak has upended shopping patterns at grocery stores in unexpected ways, with sales rising over the Easter holiday compared to the same holiday in 2019. In fact, sales rose consistently since March 8 but in ways not seen before and with a high component of online spending. A study by 210 Analytics, IRI and PMA brought together data that revealed that items such as fresh produce rose 3.3 percent for the week of April 19 compared to the same week in 2019. However, the rise was less than it was in previous weeks, with vegetables outpacing sales of fruit. The growth in fresh produce was therefor somewhat subdued, unlike that of frozen and canned produce where the increase in sales was north of 20 percent.
The most important trend appears to be the replacement of eating at home as opposed to eating out. “I have no doubt about it, in-home consumption is here to stay for the foreseeable future,” said Jonna Parker, Team Lead, Fresh for IRI. “Fresh produce sales numbers this week had multiple headwinds to overcome in terms of going up against Easter 2019, deflation, SKU rationalization, purchase limits, some consumer concern over the safety of bulk fresh items, but also the rise of online ordering. We typically see an initial hesitation to order fresh items online, particularly meat and produce, though shoppers often move past this if they continue to order online. This could also be one of the reasons why we’re seeing frozen and shelf-stable produce sales continue to do so well.”
