COVID-19 Impact Analysis Series Article Five: Shift in Consumer Food Habits

Which type of food are people consuming the most?

Author: Bhavika Sharma [Analyst], Phylis Savari [Data Eng.](April 14, 2020)

THIS COVID-19 impact analysis series designed by Punchh’s data team aims at sharing the real-time insight we have discovered when we study our consumer behavior data set. In this fifth article, we analyzed how different food categories are being consumed, and provided a holistic view of the shift in consumer food habits. In addition, we show how different cuisine types are faring post the outbreak.

Over the past few weeks, there has been a significant shift in the way consumers are procuring (delivery orders, drive-thru, to-go orders) and consuming food. In one of our previous articles, when the COVID-19 outbreak became apparent in Washington and California states at the beginning of March, we showed how consumers’ preference towards a specific item -Salads- changed pre- and post-outbreak periods. With the outbreak spreading to the rest of the country, we discovered that few food categories did better than others.

Meat is the least impacted food category, while dessert is one of the most affected

One major observation that came out from the study was that meat (incl. pork, beef, and chicken) seems to be the least impacted amongst all the food categories in terms of a number of orders made. Once the overall orders for restaurants started declining after President Trump declared National Emergency (13th March), meat orders did not slump as much (-23%) as the total orders (-27%) and other food categories. The below graph highlights this trend.

Graphs comparing items ordered for a specific category and all food items. Data is scaled for privacy reasons

Among meat-based orders, pork items, interestingly, saw the least decline (-18%).

On the other hand, desserts and alcoholic beverages as food item categories suffered the biggest declines (-32% and -45% respectively). The below graph highlights this trend.

Data is scaled for privacy reasons

The percentage declines for the above four categories are summarised in the below table:

Time period considered is Feb-01 to Feb-29 vs. Mar-01 to Mar-29

Mexican and Burgers are the least impacted cuisines, while Asian cuisine is the most affected

In terms of cuisine types, Mexican, Burger, and Italian are doing better (-20%, -21% and -22%) while Asian cuisine type is the most affected (-42%). Below chart depicts these trends

The time period considered is Feb01 to Feb29 vs. Mar01 to Mar29

While desserts as a food category declined more than total orders, ice cream as a cuisine type did better than the total orders.

KEY TAKEAWAYS:

• The trends prove that meat is a key ingredient in the American diet. In specific, pork is being heavily relied upon. On the other hand, the venue for the purchase of alcoholic beverages has moved away from restaurants, possibly because of a decline in dine-in orders. Hence restaurants need to plan the availability of their inventory accordingly
• Given that Mexican and Italian cuisines are being consumed comparatively more, brands with mixed menu might benefit from highlighting these options for consumers

ABOUT THE DATA

The underlying data for this analysis is from 10K+ restaurant stores across the country covering 60 brands for the period of 2020-Feb 01–2020-Apr 10.