Heterogeneous Effects of COVID-19 on Fruit and Vegetable Markets

The COVID-19 pandemic caused abrupt changes in food purchases and consumer behavior because of both supply and demand shocks. Stay-at-home orders resulted in large reductions in demand for food consumed in food-away-from-home settings. At the same time, the demand for food purchased at grocery stores and online spiked. We analyze the association between pandemic, related media coverage, and prices of specialty crop commodities. We find that prices of specialty crops consumed mostly away from home exhibited a demonstrative negative relationship with the pandemic and associated media coverage compared to specialty crops consumed mostly at home.