Cooking or consuming food from away home after the COVID-19 lockdown in Brazil.

Abstract

This research online aimed to evaluate the consumers’ intention to cook at home and purchase food away from home after the COVID- 19 lockdown in Brazil. Of the 970 participants, 84.0% reported being afraid of contracting COVID-19 in food service establishments and 97.2% were in social distancing. Most of the participants intended never or rarely to buy food by delivery/take away/drive-thru and eat out. Moreover, 73.3%, 60.0%, 60.7%, and 50.5% of the participants intended daily to cook breakfast, morning, afternoon, and evening snacks, respectively. A significant association was observed between fear of contracting COVID-19, and level of social distan- cing and the consumers’ intention to cook some meals (p < 0.05), to

purchase some meals using ordering food services (p < 0.05) and to eat out (p < 0.01). Therefore, the fear of contracting COVID-19 and social distancing seems to affect the intention to cook and to purchase food after lockdown.