Does the COVID-19 Pandemic Change Consumers’ Food Consumption and Willingness-to-Pay? The Case of China

Abstract

Since COVID-19 was first detected in China in 2019, governments around the world have imposed strict measures to curb the spread of the coronavirus, which substantially impacted peo-ple’s life. Consumers’ food consumption behavior has also changed accordingly with reduced gro-cery shopping frequency, replaced in-person grocery shopping with online shopping, and increased valuation on food. In this paper, we aim to investigate the change in Chinese consumers’ food con-sumption and their willingness to pay (WTP) for vegetables and meat, using a dataset with 1206 online samples collected between February and March 2020. Consumers’ WTP for vegetables and meat is estimated using a double-bounded dichotomous contingent valuation design, and factors affecting their WTPs are also investigated. Results show that consumers have a higher WTP for these food products during the pandemic, and their WTP is positively affected by their anticipated duration of the COVID-19, their online shopping shares, their direct exposure to infected patients, their gender, and their income. These results imply that the food industry shall try to develop online market channels as consumers are willing to share the costs, while lower-income consumers may not be able to meet their food needs with prices increased beyond their WTP and thus may call for the government’s support.

Boon or Bane? Urban Food Security and Online Food Purchasing during the COVID-19 Epidemic in Nanjing, China

“…Table 2 (final column) provides the food sources of all surveyed households and shows that 80% of households had purchased food online in the previous month and only 20% had not. While over 90% of the households had purchased food at a physical outlet (such as a supermarket or wet market), the frequency with which they were able to leave their residences and shop in person declined [39]. Over two-thirds of households (62%) had also obtained food via grassroots organizations in their neighborhood.…”

“…The onset of COVID-19 precipitated a major shift in food purchasing behavior across China [34]. There was a rapid increase in online food purchasing involving the expansion of e-commerce food ordering platforms and food delivery services, massive growth in the number of consumers involved and in the volume and range of products purchased, and participation in online buying by a much more representative demographic [35][36][37][38][39]. Even with COVID-19 under control, online food purchasing appears to have remained higher than at pre-pandemic levels.…”

Food consumption and the Covid-19 pandemic: The role of sustainability in purchasing choices

“…As is well known [ 3 , 4 ], behaviours and choices have been affected differently in different historical phases: “emergence and acquisition of awareness of the epidemiological problem"; “period of restriction of free movement and widespread lockdown"; 'post-pandemic peak period, with management, control and coexistence of the infection'. …”

Pathways to food insecurity: Migration, hukou and COVID‐19 in Nanjing, China

“…The paper also augments the literature on the migration and food security nexus during COVID‐19 in three main ways. First, the paper builds on the growing body of evidence on the impact of COVID‐19 on food system disruption and resilience with their associated challenges which, in China, included food price increases (Ruan et al, 2021; Yu et al, 2020), changes in household food purchasing behaviour (J. Li et al, 2020, S. Li et al, 2022; Yue et al, 2021), and the dramatic growth of online food purchasing (Dai & Qi, 2020; Gao et al, 2020; Liang et al, 2022; Lu et al, 2021). Second, the paper adds to a small number of case studies of the impact of COVID‐19 on household food consumption and food security in Chinese cities to expand our knowledge of the food security experience of the large Chinese urban migrant population during the pandemic (Cui et al, 2021; S. Li et al, 2022; Zhang et al, 2020; Zhao et al, 2020).…”