Eating at home: China’s COVID-19 online purchasing patterns revealed huge shift towards home cooking

China’s online purchasing patterns throughout the country’s COVID-19 lockdown revealed a shift towards food products for home-cooking​, a pattern that was expected to continue even beyond current restrictions.

China was the world’s first epicentre of the COVID-19 epidemic, and the first to essentially be moving into ‘recovery’ mode as it emerges from a nationwide quarantine, so consumer response here could very well also be a first example of how purchasing patterns may change post-pandemic.

According to consumer insights analysts, one of the main changes expected to emerge was a shift towards higher purchases of foods for at-home cooking via e-commerce (e.g. fresh vegetable, meat, uncooked noodles), as opposed to convenience​ and speed which were largely dominant before this.

This was likely because most restaurants and other food service chains had to close during the quarantine, cutting them off from food delivery services and driving them towards preparing meals at home instead.