Fears of supply shortages and rising food prices – this is what the corona situation in the spring led to among many consumers in germany.
This is the result of two independent analyses from lower saxony, from the german institute of food technology (DIL) in quakenbruck and from the university of gottingen. Both conducted representative surveys in germany in april. According to the study, people went shopping less often during this period, but probably bought more goods overall.
For the quakenbruck analysis, from 22. Until the 27. April 1056 consumers were surveyed, in the gottingen survey of 9. Up to 20. April 947 people.
According to the quakenbruck study, around one-third of respondents said they spend more time on their meals and on preparing shopping lists, and thus plan their purchases more effectively. 33 percent of respondents also said they had spent more money on food, said study director adriano profeta.
On the one hand, this reflects the hoarding of goods. "30 percent said they now stock more food in the household than before," profeta said. On the other hand, better planning of purchases had also led to less food being thrown away for a quarter of those surveyed. 38 percent want to keep it that way in the future.
According to the DIL survey, people’s worries about not being able to buy enough food rose sharply in april: before the corona pandemic, only 3.3 percent of respondents had this fear, but in april it had risen to 18 percent.
The gottingen agricultural economists’ survey suggests that worries about rising prices were greater than worries about food shortages. The respondents were particularly concerned about this in the case of staple foods, but also in the case of vegetables and exotic fruit.
The tightened supply chains and closed borders had apparently also triggered a reflection on supply security among the population, explained agricultural economist achim spiller. "People obviously understand that a strong german agriculture is important for the security of supply."He sees the data as an indication of a majority of the population being skeptical of globalization.