Fresh and local food market in the UK - statistics & facts

Online fresh food market

Online grocery shopping offers consumers a convenient way to get access to fresh foods. Not only is shopping online easier for many consumers, leading online retailers like AmazonFresh offer cheaper grocery prices than many other UK food retailers. Compared to Tesco, grocery prices for AmazonFresh were over eight percent cheaper. In 2020, just about a 35 percent share of fresh food sales came from online channels. Fruits and vegetables were the most commonly purchased food online, followed by coffee and tea, and rice and pasta.

The impacts of COVID-19 on food purchasing choices in the UK

The online grocery market likely benefited from the lockdown measures of COVID-19. The first lockdown in the UK in early 2020 did not allow individuals out of the house for non-essential reasons. Though food shopping is an essential reason, online shopping was often the easiest and safest way to purchase fresh food. COVID-19 also changed the way many consumers eat. Alcohol and frozen foods saw the biggest increases in sales between March and April of 2020 compared to the year before. When buying fresh food such as meat during the pandemic, long usage date and price were the two most important factors for UK consumers. Almost 20 percent of consumers wanted to purchase meat that was locally produced and as a result of the pandemic, 58 percent of UK consumers purchased more local food in 2020 compared to before the pandemic started.

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