CHICAGO — IRI is continuing to collaborate with its partners at the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) to analyze the latest consumer purchase trends in Italy, France, Germany, Netherlands, New Zealand, Spain, U.K. and U.S. The firm just updated the report, “Consumer Spending Tracker: COVID-19 Impact,” to capture the most recent insights.

Key highlights from the research include:

As the COVID-19 outbreak accelerates in Europe and the U.S., governments, businesses and consumers are changing behaviors rapidly — this is reflected in consumer purchases in Italy, France, Germany, Netherlands, New Zealand, Spain, U.K. and U.S.

• Across geographies, edible sales remain elevated as in-home consumption increases due to stay-at-home orders; non-edible sales have reverted to normal.
• Non-edible private label brands grew share during peak stockpiling; while most markets returned to pre-COVID share, Spain remains elevated.
• E-commerce continues to show strong growth over last year in Italy, France and Spain, indicating consumers are shifting their purchasing patterns from in-store to online. In all three countries, there is a consistent, increasing shift to e-commerce since the beginning of the crisis.
• Easter candy sales declined in the U.S., Italy, France and the U.K. with offsetting growth in proteins resulting in overall growth in all countries except the U.K. where edible sales were flat compared to the prior year.
• Trends toward smaller CPG manufacturers are so far continuing post-COVID-19, with manufacturer performance linked to overall category trends during stock-up.