Ready meals drop, and ground coffee tops the list for the first time, along with basic ingredients. Under-40s discover the pleasure of cooking. Italians want to save money, but they demand local, healthy and safe foods. Conduits of environmental and social sustainability. The new food trends of Italians forced to live with the Covid-19 pandemic are described by the Coop 2020 Report, presented on 10.9.20. (1)
Living in the bubble
Eating styles are just one frame of the profound transformation experienced by Italians because of the new coronavirus. ‘Living in a bubble’ is a representation of the moment we are experiencing. Marked by losses – of lives, habits, projects – we are experiencing the most severe economic crisis since the postwar period. ‘A crisis that stole our future, changed it, and we still don’t know how to rebuild it‘, summarizes Albino Russo, director general of Ancc-Coop.
Strong among the emerging trends is the concept of the home as an elective comfort zone, the bubble par excellence. Instead of concerts, movies or other events outside, this is where we want to transfer the services we used to buy outside. Cooking, gardening, vegetable garden, DIY, crochet. Activities that people enjoy and save money.
Living at km0
The lockdown reduced travel to emergencies within 200 meters of the home. Smart working, consumption limited to a few categories of goods, and food shopping under the door or online have shown the benefits of a km0 life. Italians who would like to live in smaller towns are thus on the rise; 4.5 million aspire to move to small towns with services that can be reached within 15 minutes. More than double the number of those still attracted to metropolises (2 million).
Consumption then falls back toward home. Utility bills, electricity and heating primarily, have also increased due to smart working. And in the ‘home bubble’ a new space is dedicated to DIY, from small repairs to cooking and entertaining.
The new eating styles
The shortage of yeast for breads and cakes that exploded during the lockdown speaks volumes about the new eating styles that are becoming established. People go less to restaurants, for fear of contagion (and cost-saving needs, we add), and cook at home. Purchases of convenience foods fell (-2.2 percent) and purchases of basic ingredients grew (+28.5 percent). Those who do not have the time or inclination to cook rely instead on food delivery.
This trend may continue into 2021. Nearly one-third of Italians plan to spend more time preparing meals. Both to eat healthily (33 percent) and to avoid infection (16 percent). And that is how sales of food processors doubled (+111% sales in June).
Ecommerce, illegality and inefficiencies at a high price
Foodecommerce(egrocery) is growing a lot. In particular, the use of the mixed system-with remote order and point-of-sale pickup(click & collect) doubles, now 15.6 percent of online sales. However, some serious problems remain to be solved:
– serious inefficiencies experienced during the lockdown, coupled with the still poor geographic coverage of deliveries,
– inattention to the elderly and disabled, although they collectively make up nearly one-third of the Italian population,
– widespread illegality, due to lack of essential information such as the origin of fruits and vegetables, as we have repeatedly complained to the Antitrust Authority.
The high price, +25% on average compared to physical retail (March-June 2020), is the icing on the cake. Proof that the large foodecommerce players have based their strategy on an income-privileged ‘target’ consumers (and so is 53 percent of regular customers), in large urban centers. Speculation and discrimination.
Saving but not too much
Saving matters, for many it is a necessity, yet it does not dominate food choices. The shopping cart is no longer the item from which to save to extract extra vacation spending, as it was in previous economic crises. Perhaps also because holiday fantasies have been drastically curtailed precisely because of the new coronavirus.
Only 31 percent of Italian consumers surveyed say they want to save money on packaged food, compared with the average 37 percent in the EU (40 percent in Germany). This is significantly lower than the 50 percent recorded last year and the 57 percent recorded in 2013 (a year when Italy was in the midst of an economic crisis with GDP at -1.8 percent from the previous year). Once the health emergency is over, even, only 18 percent of respondents expect savings on spending. Incurable optimism.
Local and sustainable food
1 in 2 Italians look for food that is 100% made in Italy, possibly local and from small-scale producers. And calls for it to be carried out with respect for the environment and social rights. In two words, short supply chain. The desire for sustainable spending is so strong that it translates into a willingness to spend a little more – within reason, as also shown in the recent study conducted by Becchetti et al. (2020) right in Coop’s Tuscan supermarkets. Despite the ongoing economic crisis, which affects Italy more than other European countries.
The focus on sustainability is expressed in the following data:
– in was Covid-19, the number of Italian consumers buying sustainable/ecofriendly products increases by 27 percent (followed by French and Spanish consumers, +18 percent),
– 21 percent have increased their purchases in stores that promote sustainable products (so have 17 percent of Americans and 15 percent of Germans),
– 20 percent buy more from worker-friendly companies (with caporalato always lurking, even on the outskirts of Milan as revealed in the StraBerry scandal.
Packaging, on the other hand, unfortunately marked food purchases in the Covid era. This past summer, packaged food is growing at more than twice the rate of the entire food industry. +2.3% vs. +0.5 percent (June to mid-August 2020, comparing with the same period in 2019), reports the Coop Report.
The strange summer of the GDO
The upheaval in the lives of Italians is reflected in food distribution trends. From June to August, in phase 2 after the lockdown, the GDO experienced unexpected novelties. Sales channeling has seen a weakening of large areas, due to the short range of mobility allowed. Real and expected tightness, including from an economic perspective, has rewarded discounters. And home isolation has favored the digital channel but also farmers and traditional stores, which are closer to home and often ready to reinvent themselves with home deliveries. Savings are sought without yielding on quality and sustainability.
On the oxymoron of quality and sustainability at a low price, Coop is unparalleled. ‘Italians are more concerned about the future compared to other Europeans. All operators must reassure them and protect their purchasing power in tune with quality. Italy must catch up in efficiency and productivity to provide good, healthy and safe food at fair prices. As a Coop we must continue on safety environment and ethics‘, explains Maura Latini, managing director of Coop Italia.
‘We are betting on offering quality, green and sustainable products even at a low price. An affordable trolley even for those who do not have a good income. As resources come in and from a disguised neoliberalism comes the new green deal, I believe that policy and institutions should be asked to support this consumption with an ad hoc tax policy. It’s one of the things you can do in turning points, like the one we’re experiencing’ (Marco Pedroni, president of Coop Italia).
For insights into the impact of Covid-19 in the agri-food supply chain from farm to fork and the prospects on the horizon please refer to the second ebook, Society, of our trilogy ‘COVID-19, the ABC‘. At https://www.greatitalianfoodtrade.it/covid-19-abc-volume-ii-società
Marta Strinati and Dario Dongo
Notes
(1) The 2020 edition of the Coop Report, in addition to the sources usually used, made use of the two ‘Italy 2021, the Italians’ Next Normal‘ surveys conducted in August 2020. The first survey involved a sample of 2000 Italians representative of the population over 18. The second targeted the Italians.coop website community and involved 700 opinion leaders and market makers who were users of past editions of the Report. Among them, 280 individuals (entrepreneurs, CEOs and directors, and freelancers) were selected who could anticipate future trends in the country more than others. The Coop Report can be downloaded at this link
Professional journalist since January 1995, he has worked for newspapers (Il Messaggero, Paese Sera, La Stampa) and periodicals (NumeroUno, Il Salvagente). She is the author of journalistic surveys on food, she has published the book "Reading labels to know what we eat".
Dario Dongo, lawyer and journalist, PhD in international food law, founder of WIISE (FARE - GIFT - Food Times) and Égalité.
