Open AccessReview on the Consumers’ Response to the Covid-19 Crisis in Latvia
Author(s) -
Dina Bite,
Ženija Kruzmetra
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
proceedings of the international scientific conference "economic science for rural development"/economic science for rural development
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Conference proceedings
eISSN - 1691-3086
pISSN - 1691-3078
DOI - 10.22616/esrd.2021.55.054
Subject(s) - latvian , government (linguistics) , covid-19 , business , population , food insecurity , pandemic , politics , marketing , economic recovery , economic growth , political science , food security , geography , economics , environmental health , medicine , philosophy , linguistics , disease , archaeology , pathology , infectious disease (medical specialty) , law , keynesian economics , agriculture
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.