Peter Huszka

Department of Marketing and Management, Faculty of Economics, Széchenyi István University, Hungary 

huszkap@sze.hu 

ORCID 0000-0001-5389-0666

The coronavirus’s effect on the decisions and habits of food purchases in Hungary

Peter Karácsony*

University Research and Innovation Center, Óbuda University, Budapest, Hungary

karacsony.peter@uni-obuda.hu 

ORCID 0000-0001-7559-0488

* Corresponding author

Timea Juhász

Department of Methodology for Social Studies, Faculty of International Management and Business, Budapest Business School,

Hungary

juhasz.timea@uni-bge.hu

ORCID 0000-0001-5386-0678

Abstract. This article was inspired by current events. The shopping craze generated by the coronavirus pandemic raised some questions that this article aims to answer by analysing a variety of suppositions. The coronavirus pandemic caused panic shopping amongst consumers, whose motivation for increasing the volumes of shopping revolved around ensuring a safety margin of groceries while also reducing the number of shopping trips. The consumers did most of their shopping in hyper, and supermarkets, as well as in bigger ABCs and grocery stores (Lidl), where there’s a wider range of products and larger stock. The average consumer bought much more than the basic groceries during this period. Our research started in March 2020 and ended in May 2020. To validate our assumptions, primary information is derived from the statistical processing of a large number of data from a representative questionnaire survey of 724 respondents. The results show that for many people this period was about stockpiling storages of groceries. Flour saw the biggest increase in purchase volumes, but chicken and pastas were also amongst the more popular items. Stores with the biggest range of selection were able to satisfy this demand. As evidenced by data, consumers also purchased items, which are needed for any household during an emergency and are easy to store in higher volumes. These items include different oils and fats, which are required for cooking, and non-perishables, such as salamis, canned foods, rice and mineral water.

Received: April, 2021

1st Revision: January, 2022

Accepted: March, 2022

DOI: 10.14254/2071-8330.2022/15-1/10

JEL Classification: D12, O52

Keywords: consumer, COVID-19, market, shopping behavior, purchaser