PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — A few pandemic-induced grocery shopping trends may be here to stay.
Instacart, a grocery delivery and pick-up service app, recently surveyed thousands of customers across the country. Seventy-seven percent of respondents said they will continue to grocery shop online in the future, even after the pandemic.
“We looked at shopper chat logs with the individuals who picked their groceries. We also looked at search trends — what are customers searching for and buying? And so all of this data helped paint a picture about some major shifts in the grocery industry over the last year,” said Laurentia Romaniuk, an Instacart trends expert.
Of its many other findings, data from the “Beyond the Cart” survey found food shopping is no longer reliant on one member of the family.
“What we’ve seen a change in is that in three-fourths of households, Gen Z’s and millennials have been stepping in to help build grocery carts, now that things are online,” said Romaniuk. “We see people building carts together, so couples might both be contributing and having a dialogue about groceries, so that’s quite exciting.”
She said people have also been more mindful of healthy ingredients and cooking at home.
“I think some of the bigger changes are going to be drawing inspiration for what to cook from things like social media. TikTok really took off this year as a way of finding recipes,” she added.
A lot of people have been stocking their pantries, which Romaniuk said is partially a result of the anxiety-ridden toilet paper shortage early on in the pandemic.
“After going through the ‘what are we going to do if we run out of toilet paper?’ sort of anxiety, customers are continuing to keep their pantries stocked, their household goods stocked,” she said. “Customers are also thinking more about eating healthy … (and) the ingredients that they're putting into their bodies.”
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