The COVID-19 Pandemic and its Implications for Food Consumer Behavior: A Bibliometric Analysis of Institutionally Affiliated Research in Brazil.
| Autor | Franco, Antonio Carlos |
Introduction
The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted all countries in the world and significantly influences the economy, social aspects, and health (Severo et al., 2021). Research shows the SARS-CoV-2 virus COVID-19 occurs by contact with secretions that are contaminated by humans, through contact with a contaminated surface , and inhalation of virus particles (Chhikara et al., 2020). The use of masks, cleaning environments and surfaces, social distancing, hand washing and avoiding the use of shared objects are among the main practices to prevent infection (Martinelli et al., 2020).
At the beginning of February 2020, Brazil declared COVID-19 a public health emergency of national importance. Data on active cases and deaths by the disease were made available by health authorities (Mucinhato et al., 2022; Severo et al., 2021). Therefore, the COVID-19 pandemic allowed knowledge of actions on the disease in Brazil and, consequently, the determination of public policies aimed at reducing the increase in the number of cases (Rodrigues et al., 2021a).
Brazilian society faces the need to find alternative paths for its development in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic (Da Silva et al., 2020). This trajectory is unknown and results in a challenge in projecting possible future scenarios in which consumers need to make decisions (Cordeiro et al., 2021). Based on this, there are some problems to assess how consumer behavior could be affected by the new contexts experienced by the population (Maragoni-Santos et al., 2021), which is particularly important when considering that the current behavior of the Brazilian consumer emphasizes the consequences of the consumption background (Da Silva et al., 2020).
According to cultural and nutritional habits, Brazilian society chooses certain foods for a meal (Silva et al., 2021). The selection of food requires identification and classification as suitable or not for consumption (Rodrigues et al., 2021b). Therefore, in addition to biogenic factors, food sealing is also related to social and environmental aspects. In countries with a capitalist economy, consumers have great autonomy in purchasing their food (Cordeiro et al., 2021). Hence, the behavior of the Brazilian consumer must be analyzed through the interactions of the organism, in an attempt to understand the relationship with the environment (Silva et al., 2021). The Brazilian population is inserted in the consumer market with purchases, which reflects a behavior that adopts dietary decisions according to the economic and health context (Hakim et al., 2021).
Since there is no effective treatment available for COVID-19, one of the measures to contain the virus is physical distancing and isolation (Maragoni-Santos et al., 2021). Therefore, several institutions, businesses and non-essential businesses and other businesses that serve meals or food for consumption on site remained closed during the most critical days of the pandemic. In Brasil, supermarket chains were strengthened through virtual sales (Medeiros et al., 2021) and an increase in the use of ready-to-eat delivery applications (Horta et al., 2021).
During the pandemic people used to spend more time at home, thus being exposed to food advertising on the internet and television, especially processed foods. This reality enabled the rescue of culinary skills and food preparation, as well as the use of social networks to increase the consumption of healthy foods (Santos et al., 2022). In addition, the COVID-19 pandemic established important challenges to collaborative consumption offerings such as product-service systems (Horta et al., 2021).
In light of the above, this ar ticle aims to address the COVID- 19 pandemic and its implications for food consumer behavior in Brazil, providing for the reader a refined and critical analysis of the main research studies carried out, difficulties, keywords, researchers, among other information, through a bibliometric analysis. This research sought to broaden the literature on trends and challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic and its implications for the food consumer behavior in Brazil. With this article we expect to contribute to the subject, since no studies using the systematic literature review to relate these themes to each other were identified.
The importance of this work is grounded in the fact that social isolation stopped the business world for a while, but companies are slowly returning to routine and, therefore, marketing professionals must be prepared for the new secenario; after all, marketing teams will need to be able to reinvent and innovate. To start restructuring the business, the first step is to analyze what happens outside the company, that is, consumer behaviors and habits. From this perspective, knowing consumer behavior is no longer an option but has become a survival factor.
Understanding consumer behavior is essential to know the reasons leading people towards purchasing decisions. With the COVID-19 pandemic, the food sector was strongly impacted by several changes in consumer habits. People began to adopt domestic food safety practices and increase food purchases in supermarkets. In addition, people tend to spend more time at home, which increases the number of food advertisements on the internet and television (Maragoni-Santos et al., 2021; Silva et al., 2021). Other aspects can be observed as negative factors for the food trade sector; for example, consumers avoid places and services with greater movement of people and have reduced meat consumption, as well as overall food consumption as a precaution against the greater likelihood of losing their jobs (Quevedo-Silva et al., 2022). Therefore, marketing strategies need to be assertive to conquer and satisfy consumers.
The study is structured as follows. This section presented the initial considerations, the purpose of the study and its originality. The next section brings the theoretical background and the methods adopted. Then, the main trends and discussions on the theme and their theoretical basis will be presented. Finally, some final considerations will be drawn.
Theoretical background
The objective of marketing is to analyze consumers' behavior, satisfying and meeting their desires and needs, so it is up to the consumer to analyze their aspect as an individual and group, in addition to the ways in which they use certain product or service (Bravo et al., 2011; Kotler, 2000).
To understand consumer behavior it is necessary to establish a relationship between stimulation and response. The stimuli from the environment (social, cultural and political) and from marketing (product, price, place and promotion) are part of the consumer's consciousness. However, what leads to the act of purchase are the consumer's characteristics (physical, personal and psychological) and the decision phases that arise from a problem, leading to the search for information, search between alternatives, and the act of purchase (Kotler, 2000).
According to Franco and Franco (2018), the search among alternatives is the stage that involves the various factors that will best meet a consumer's needs, such as price, product characteristics, delivery time and good service. Accordingly, the benefits assessed by the consumer can be influenced by economy, quality, safety and status, among others. Therefore, it becomes essential to evaluate the business from the point of view of consumer's needs and requirements. Based on this information, it is necessary to carry out market research on segmentation, where another relevant aspect emerges: the lack of certainty about the profitability of a specific segment, which is one of the most common barriers identified by consumer behavior studies (Bravo et al., 2011; Velázquez et al., 2008).
Regarding food consumer behavior in Brazil, it has been observed that local consumers are increasingly experiencing substantial changes in the food sector as a result of factors such as the phenomenon of globalization, different habits and customs, and the speed in the delivery of information (Almeida & Almeida, 2021; Amaral et al., 2021).
In recent years, Brazilian consumers have been disappointed in their search for safe and good quality food. Moreover, they are concerned about the fact that the same quality and food safety contained in exported agricultural products do not always correspond to what is distributed in the Brazilian domestic market (Martinelli et al., 2020; Smaira et al., 2021; Quevedo-Silva et al., 2022). Also, given the importance of studying consumer behavior during the COVID-19 pandemic, in Brazil several areas of scientific knowledge became interested in this phenomenon and investigated its implications for food consumer behavior; among these areas, we can mention economics, administration (marketing), health studies, and psychology (Campos et al., 2021; Cordeiro et al., 2021; Da Silva et al., 2020; Rodrigues et al., 2021a).
With the arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic in Brazil, in February 2020, most of the population became more averse to risks, not only related to health, but also to the impact of family income. In this way, in relation to food consumer behavior, the greatest impact was observed from July 2020, with a reduction in household income and greater consumer caution towards food...
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