There is only one reason for this study. “...It helps us prepare for the next crisis...”, should tell you everything. I expect that a lot of these alternative means will soon go the way of food processing plants in this country.
We didn’t change our habits. If we wanted to eat out or dine in, we did. I did in-person shopping for groceries much the same way as I have for years. Only did curbside from places where I wasn’t allowed inside. As soon as they would let me in without a mask, I went in. One store was so rude to me, I have never returned. I had to find alternate sources for those items.
Meat and potatoes, eggs and all the staples in the baking aisle were the first to disappear here in rural MO during the Great Lockdown of 2020. Snack and soda aisles remained fairly untouched. I was impressed.
Within 2 weeks, not a freezer could be found in stores.
“As states restricted access to restaurants...”
Just my guess here. As The State forced restaurants to close, people went to restaurants less.
I saw a video of a farmer who had just gotten ramped up and fully operational selling to restaurants when covid hit. All the restaurants closed so he had to revamp his operation into mostly CSA. He did open shopping though instead of a box of whatever. It was points based. You could buy 15 points for a single share or 30 for a double share. All produce had points assigned and people could choose what they wanted so it was more like a shopping experience than the average CSA grab bag.
It started outdoors but he also built a farm store by converting a barn and designed it for a single direction flow of customers in a big U shape. Cooler doors were built into the wall and the backside was the walk in cooler room with doors on the other end. That way personnel could restock it from the back end instead of being up front where the customers were. The only employee in the front area was the cashier and the checkout counter was designed to keep a distance between the cashier and customer.
The outdoor booth didn’t take long to build and between that and people preferring it to going into a grocery store, he had a booming business very quickly. Helps that he chose his location well and had good exposure on a major road. By the time it got cold, the barn he started with was a farm store.
Video was almost an hour long and the guy was really impressive as a common sense farmer and businessman. Instead of hiring a construction company, he hired one knowledgeable guy full time and everything but the cooler doors was salvage or used. He also did a lot of the work himself.
"As a result of western governments’ taking collective action under the auspices of a ‘climate change’ agenda, we are on the cusp of something happening with ramifications that no one has ever seen before".
Don’t need a study to know that during The pandemic, dry goods and canned food completely sold out, and meat was near non existent unless you were right there when they were offloading it from the trucks and into the counters. Noodles, rice, pastas, tuna fish, soups both dry and wet, e5c were all very hard to Get during that time.
Well all I know is my habits are about to change... Inflation drove up fast food about $2 a meal, and has anyone else noticed the simultaneous reduction bof the size of burgers?? McMuffin and a Wendy’s double is a little bigger round than a tennis ball!! The size a kiddy burger was years ago. Truly truly pathetic!!
Lots of Blueberry Muffins until there was a mention in the news of people turning to ‘comfort food’ during ‘lockdown’
comfort food AKA FAT
so I weened myself of them
:)
I’m GOP and live in the SF Bay Area. I did switch to a meal prep delivery (Blue Apron) and I loved it and even decided to stick with it (3x/week). I also did all outdoor dining available year round (tents and heat lamps) and actually prefer eating outdoors. But was never terrified of indoor dining and resumed it once available again.
we hardly changed our dining habits at all since i cook from scratch (or near scratch) ... i’m picky regarding quality and freshness of ingredients so shop at several stores 2-3 times a week ... did that before, during and after covid ...
we reduced our already minuscule restaurant attendance because so many restaurants dumped “happy-hour” specials, increased prices, replaced experienced cooks with felons and drug addicts, enforced fascist masking and vax requirements, closed dining rooms, offered only takeout and/or “sidewalk” dining ... so overall,dining out was no longer enjoyable, but instead an actual VERY unpleasant experience ... even now, high prices are still in force with no early-bird specials anymore, so eating out is now a no-go option ... they chased us off and we won’t go back ...