The Spanish we Last year we spent a total of 95,000 million euros on food, beverages and hygiene products in supermarkets and hyper. It is 6.4% more and almost double what this sector (the consumer goods sector) usually grows in a normal year, without a pandemic.
From this figure, 3,100 million were extra expenses derived from the pandemicIn other words, purchases in supermarkets that we would not have made had we not been confined and had been able to consume more on the street, according to data from the Nielsen consultancy at the end of 2020.
Part of this increase in spending (70%) is because, being more at home, we have bought more products in these stores (volume grew). But an important part of this increase also came from the increase in the price of the average basket, which was 2%. Many products have increased their price but we have also bought others of more value.
In 2020 we spend much more time at home, due to confinement, and this, together with teleworking and restrictions in the hotel industry, have made Let’s visit the super market more and have transferred part of that consumption that we used to do outside (the school canteen, lunches at the office, dinners in restaurants …) to the home.
Prices
“Telework changes everything, where we buy, where we consume … There is part of that consumption abroad that will be recovered when the restrictions end, but another part will not be recovered, due to teleworking”, says Patricia Daimiel, director in Spain by Nielsen.
Of the Spanish shopping basket in 2020, 68% were packaged products (with a growth of more than 6%) and 32% were fresh products (with an increase of 6.5%). These increases are explained, in the case of packaging, because more quantities were purchased, but in the case of fresh products, it is due to a significant increase in prices, which, in the case of fruits, reached 13%.
The increase in consumption in supermarkets differs greatly according to the zones. For example, in tourist areas this expenditure fell by 7%, due to the drop in the arrival of foreigners. In Madrid it decreased by 1% and in Barcelona it grew by 2%. In municipalities with fewer than 10,000 inhabitants, these purchases of food and beverages in supermarkets shot up 22%.
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