EXPENDITURE ON FOOD AND FOOD CONSUMPTION IN HOUSEHOLDS IN POLAND DURING THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic influenced many areas of human life, one of those areas is expenditure on food and food consumption in households. The paper aims to identify changes in household expenditure on food and food consumption in Poland in the span of the COVID-19 pandemic. The analysis covers the period from 2015 to 2021 (2022 when available). Based on data from Statistics Poland, percentage changes of nominal and real values as well as shares were presented. The results show that from 2015 to 2020 in real terms the value of household total expenditures increased and decreased after 2020. Households in Poland in 2020 spent more than earlier on food and non-alcoholic beverages and less on eating outside the house. The consumption of selected food products also changed in 2020 regarding the previous periods (2015-2019), but the majority of those changes were only temporary turmoil. Only the consumption of some dairy products in households in Poland increased during the COVID-19 pandemic and stayed at a heightened level.