Review on the consumers' response to the Covid-19 crisis in Latvia

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Date

2021-05-11

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Latvia University of Life Sciences and Technologies

Abstract

The regulations for restricting the Covid-19 virus set by the Latvian government, which entered into force on March 13, 2020, caused significant changes in the operation of outlets and consumer behavior. At the onset of the emergency, Latvia, like many parts of the world, experienced uncoordinated collective behavior that could potentially lead to significant changes in food supply chains. Therefore, one of the research directions of The National Research Program project “Towards the Post-pandemic Recovery: Economic, Political and Legal Framework for the Preservation of Latvia's Growth Potential and Increasing Competitiveness” (recovery-LV) (2020) was to find out how the Covid-19 crisis Restrictions have changed buyers' habits towards buying and consuming food. The article summarizes and analyses the research results of the content analysis, semi-structured interviews and survey conducted within the project. An analysis of the results shows that, as a result of the crisis, consumers are less likely to visit outlets, cook more often at home and choose more locally sourced food. It was concluded that the consumer agitation regarding the purchase of food products in 2020 was short-lived, which later returned to the usual limits of the habits of various socio-demographic groups of the population.

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Keywords

consumers` behavior, collective behavior, Covid-19 restrictions, food chains, 5.2 Economy and Business, 5.4 Sociology, 3.2. Articles or chapters in other proceedings other than those included in 3.1., with an ISBN or ISSN code, SDG 12 - Responsible Consumption and Production

Citation

Bite, D & Krūzmētra, Ž 2021, Review on the consumers' response to the Covid-19 crisis in Latvia. in A Auziņa (ed.), 22nd International Scientific Conference "Economic Science for Rural Development 2021" : Proceedings. vol. 55, Economic Science for Rural Development, vol. 55, Latvia University of Life Sciences and Technologies, Jelgava, pp. 526-534, 22nd International Conference "Economic Science for Rural Development", Jelgava, Latvia, 11/05/21. https://doi.org/10.22616/ESRD.2021.55.054
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