Elderly´s experiences of new ways of shopping groceries during Covid-19: Learning for the future

In Sweden, elderly (70+), are since mid-march urged to keep physical distance from other people in order to avoid being infected by Covid-19. Instead, they are dependent on help from others or to shop online.

A recent retail report shows that consumers have made several changes to their grocery shopping during the pandemic; some consumer seek stores with less people, others have started to purchase food online.

While statistics show that some elderly consumers have changed their routines, no insights are given into how these changes are carried out and experienced in practice.

Reliefs are expected during the fall, but we cannot assume grocery shopping or other habits to be as before.The project aims to contribute with insights to deepen the knowledge of how the food system down streams has been working for elderly during the Corona pandemic and how the system might be improved.

The project relates to several areas and objectives in the strategic agenda for the national food-research program.Based on theories of social practices the project will analyze how elderly consumers have organized their grocery shopping and developed strategies to provide for (safe) food provisioning since mid-march 2020.

The main target group is a broad group of elderly consumers, but the project will also provide insights from other actors, mainly online and offline store managers and home care organizations. The main method for data collection will be interviews, complemented with observations.