What's Up, What's Down in Grocery Two Years Into the Pandemic

The world just recently surpassed the two-year mark when the World Health Organization officially declared COVID-19 a global pandemic, spurring sudden changes in shopping behaviors—and those behaviors are still shifting.

Through its buyer intelligence platform, Catalina recently released grocery buying behavior for the two years since March 11, 2020 (the date a pandemic was declared), looking at how select categories, including food, home cleaning, baking, adult beverages and personal care products, performed during this time.

The top 10 categories seeing the greatest sales growth during year one of the pandemic have either seen strong year-over-year increases since 2019 (pre-pandemic) or experienced declines last year, St. Petersburg, Fla.-based Catalina noted, but the majority are still above where they were when the pandemic began.

Unsurprisingly, home health testing kits (face masks, home COVID test kits) saw the greatest sales growth, up 602% in year two vs. two years ago. Other strong performers include bacon, up 230%; refrigerated snacks/cakes, up 133%; frozen vegetables, breaded, up 129%. Items that grew in year one but took a hit in year two include processed cheese slices, which saw sales jump 141% in year one but took a 24% hit in the second year; liquid hand soaps, up 174% the first year but down 57% the second; and personal moist towelettes, up 108% initially but down 56% in year two.  

Just before and just after lockdowns began in March 2020, shoppers made more trips than average, but their in-store visits fell off dramatically in April of that year. The trend of subdued store traffic began to turn around in 2021, and spending has trended higher, too: Average weekly spending on groceries—boosted in part by inflation, as well—is up 16% from prepandemic levels, according to Catalina. 

With most bars and restaurants closed or limited to takeout during the first months of the pandemic, sales of adult beverages saw a significant uptick in 2020, with spirits sales up 18% between March 2020 and March 2021 and sales of premixed cocktails and coolers—a category also benefiting from growing SKUs in grocery—up 64% in the 12-month period. Year two was a different story: Most adult beverage categories saw sales decline from 2021 to 2022, with sales of spirits down 10% year over year and sales of imported wine down 12% (after spiking 16% the year before). Premixed cocktails bucked the trend, recording sales growth of 41% in the 12 months ending in March 2022. 

As for the surge in scratch baking due to the pandemic, sales for baking extracts were up 33% as was wax paper, which climbed 44% in year one. Overall, this at-home trend two took a dip in year two but remained higher than prepandemic levels. Catalina said scratch baking may not be quite as popular, with yeast sales continuing to decline over the past year, but brownie, cookie and cornbread mixes continue to sell well as sales combined for year one and year two were up 18%.