UK: increases in edible grocery purchases due to COVID-19 outbreak in 2020, by type

In the week ending on March 8 of 2020, beverages sales rose by 9.3 percent and packaged food increased by around 15.7 percent compared to a year before. In contrast, sales of fresh foods and alcohol only increased by 3.2 percent each. About two months later in the Week ending on May 3, beverage sales had almost normalized compared to the prior year. However, by now Frozen food sales showed an increase of 27.5 percent compared to the same week of 2019. In the week ending on May 17, frozen foods sales had grown even more as had alcohol sales that now stood at a 29.1 percent increase compared to the same week in 2019.

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