Anna Cashman, Europe and North America, Bord Bia - The Irish Food Board
Due to Africa’s extremely youthful population structure, limited testing capacity and supposed climatic differences, the number of African positive COVID-19 cases is significantly less than those in other parts of the world. However governments are still adopting Northern Hemisphere virus confinement measures and movement restrictions has led to swathes of the continent’s economy have either been brought to a halt or significantly impaired. This has an undeniable influence on consumer behaviour and purchasing power.
E-commerce
In Kenya for instance where internet shopping was once deemed irrelevant, brick-and-mortar retailers now scrambling to establish themselves in the e-commerce space (Shore, 2020). According to Sagaci research “2020 is likely to be the year in which internet retail begins to go mainstream in Africa, with a Cambrian explosion of new entrants and strategies set to grow out of a step change in consumer attitudes and behaviour.”
Move to more hygienic packaging
Bord Bia’s thinking house conducted research of key trends that are emerging due to the COVID- 19 pandemic. One of the trends pinpointed was how consumers are re-prioritising basic, simple safety needs from their food. In West Africa the trend is echoed where FFMP (a type of powdered milk) is usually sold loose without packaging in a “scoop” market format. Bord Bia’s West African market specialist Ese Okpomo expressed that there has been a surge in consumers purchasing FFMP in sealed sachets as they are deemed more hygienic.
Disposable income to be hit hard
African consumers are now more price sensitive than ever and they are more likely to spend their grocery shop on staple foods in small qualities and in smaller pack sizes. Overall deflating the average basket size that had been slowly increasing over the last 10 years. (Shore, 2020)
Africa’s consumer behaviours will continue to evolve and change as the pandemic persists and are essential to monitor in order to offer the desired product to the consumer. Therefore it is even more important to keep up to date with all new developments in order to pinpoint new opportunities within the continent.
Bord Bia’s African manager Nicolas Ranninger has identified some of these opportunities and has expressed them to The Farmer’s Journal at the following link: https://www.farmersjournal.ie/market-insights-africa-is-the-market-we-have-just-begun-to-discover-510635
References:
1) Shore, D. (2020). Assessing the impact of Covid-19 on African consumers. Retrieved 22 April 2020, from https://www.sagaciresearch.com/six-ways-in-which-covid-19-will-impact-consumer-behaviour-in-africa/
2) BordBia Covid early Indicator Shielding : https://www.bordbia.ie/globalassets/bordbia2020/industry/covid/indicator-reports/indicators-shielding-march.pdf