Grocery spending up 6% during coronavirus, despite shoppers' less frequent trips to the store
Food spending at grocery stores jumped from an average of $310 to $330 per month
Americans are grocery shopping less, but spending more.
Customer spending at grocery stores jumped 6% from $310 to $330 per month on average; however, supermarket trips dropped nearly 11% compared to a year ago, according to data from digital marketing firm Catalina.
Customer spending at grocery stores jumped 6% from $310 to $330 per month. (iStock).
The data shows that shoppers made more trips than average in March at the height of the pandemic to stock up on food and supplies with stay-at-home orders in place in many parts of the country. Those trips dropped in April and the number of trips to the grocery store dropped 10% from May through August, according to Catalina data.
During the month of August, the findings show shoppers made 6.7 trips to the grocery store, down 11% from 7.5 trips per month in 2019. However, they’re spending an average of $49.28 per grocery haul this year, up from $41.58 in August, a 19% increase, the data shows.
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Consumers spent the most money on the following categories during the month of August: face masks and home health testing kits, which saw 367% year-over-year sales growth; liquid hand soap, up 224%; disinfectant cleaners, up 212%. Meats were also up 121%, according to the report.
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Less frequent trips to the grocery store could also be a result of more Americans shopping online as retailers beef up convenient online shopping experiences. Nearly 80% of Americans ordered groceries online during the coronavirus pandemic, Supermarket News recently reported.