Risk perception and resource scarcity in food procurement during the early outbreak of COVID-19

OBJECTIVES: The retail food industry, a major essential business, is among the very few thriving sectors during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, such prosperity on the store side does not guarantee a sufficient food supply for all populations. This study aims to understand if people's risk perception and food security status shaped their food procurement behaviors during the early outbreak of the pandemic. STUDY DESIGN: Extended from the theory of risk perception, food consumers may behave differently during a disastrous event in terms of store patronization. The study evaluates how food procurement behaviors are affected by perceived risk aversion, resource scarcity, and consumers’ food security status. METHODS: The study examines how people with different food security statuses made grocery shopping decisions at the risk of epidemic exposure based on a nationwide survey of 2590 participants in the U.S. during the early break of the pandemic in April 2020. The study uses a moderated mediation analysis on in-store shopping frequency and food expenditure. RESULTS: People having a food-secure status before the pandemic spent significantly more as a result of the reduced shopping frequency (i.e., the secure-insecure subgroup β = −0.18, P < .01; the secure-secure subgroup β = −0.35, P < .01). The increase in food expenditure was insignificant for people who were food-insecure before the pandemic (i.e., the insecure-insecure subgroup, β = −0.01, P > .05; the insecure-secure subgroup, β = −0.11, P > .05). CONCLUSIONS: The study reports that in general people reduced the frequency of grocery shopping trips to avoid epidemic exposure while increasing the food expenditure per trip. The increase in food expenditure was not statistically significant among the food-insecure populations likely due to their budget constraints.