Abstract
The COVID-19 pandemic has affected the food system, increasing barriers to food access and exacerbating food insecurity across the U.S. The Virginia state government initiated a stay-at-home order to help reduce the spread of COVID-19. Prior to the pandemic, the Virginia Fresh Match (VFM) Nutrition Incentive Network partnered with food retail outlets to provide Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) participants point-of-purchase incentives (e.g., Double Up Food Bucks, SNAP Match), which function as matching discounts on fresh fruits and vegetables (F/V). These can enable participants to increase their purchasing power and potentially reduce food insecurity. In response to COVID-19, VFM removed the limit on incentive discounts (previously $10[1]) to further incentivize the purchase of fresh F/V by SNAP participants. This study sought to characterize the purchasing patterns of SNAP participants at a food co-operative (co-op) partnered with VFM before and during the Virginia stay-at-home order. A total of 654 transactions at the co-op were included. Independent t-tests were utilized to determine differences before and during the order. The results indicated a significant increase in the mean incentive discount received during the order (pre-shutdown=$3.95, inter-shutdown=$5.01, p=0.035); however, simultaneously there was a decrease in the mean number of fresh F/V purchased (pre-shutdown=3.08, inter-shutdown=2.39, p=0.015). Although F/V purchases decreased, the presence of unlimited point-of-purchase incentives at the food co-op may have helped prevent a greater decline in fresh F/V purchases and helped increase access to fresh F/V in this population during the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Highlights
The spread of COVID-19 and subsequent changes to working conditions and retail environments have had a substantial impact on the food system (Devereux, Béné, & Hoddinott, 2020; Richards & Rickard, 2020; Siche, 2020; Singh, Kumar, Panchal, & Tiwari, 2020), threatening the food supply chain in multiple ways
There is limited data from which to draw conclusions as to the plausible causes of these differences, the results demonstrate that there was a significant increase in the mean gross price of fresh fruits and vegetables (F/V) items purchased and there was not a significant change in the gross cost of fresh F/V items per transaction, signaling that the significant decrease could be the result of customers balancing the cost of the fresh F/V items with the quantity due to budgetary concerns
Customers significantly reduced the number of fresh F/V items they purchased, which may have been the result of consumers desiring shelf-stable products or purchasing different types of fresh F/V items that were less cost-effective
Summary
The spread of COVID-19 and subsequent changes to working conditions and retail environments have had a substantial impact on the food system (Devereux, Béné, & Hoddinott, 2020; Richards & Rickard, 2020; Siche, 2020; Singh, Kumar, Panchal, & Tiwari, 2020), threatening the food supply chain in multiple ways. Sales of food at home—i.e., foods acquired from grocery stores and other food retail outlets (Elitzak & Okrent, 2018)—increased from about $65.2 billion in January to $69.2 billion in April, with a large spike in March of $79.3 billion (USDA ERS, 2020a). These purchasing behaviors resulted in demand-side shocks to food supply chains, which had difficulty accommodating unexpected surges in demand from consumers (Hobbs, 2020). Depleted supplies of grocery store food items can cause greater barriers to accessing adequate food and especially threaten individuals with low incomes who may not be able to find affordable products(Feeding America, 2020; Kinsey, Kinsey, & Rundle, 2020)
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