Aims: The aim of this retrospective infodemiological study is to investigate the public interest to the bakery products in the early period of coronavirus outbreak through Google Trends and open access data banks.
Methods: The category and regions were selected "food and drink", Turkey, Italy and Sweden, respectively. Keywords were searched in Turkish, Italian and Swedish language by Google Trends. Search spectrums were "1 February 2011-1 September 2020" and "1 February-1 September 2020" to determine the monthly and daily search queries, successively. Sweden was included into study as a control group because there was no strict implementation in the pandemic. Daily case number of coronavirus, stringency index, stay at home requirements value and relative search volume (RSV) scores about selected foods and coronavirus were synthesized.
Results: Search queries of "flour", "yeast", "dough" and "bread" were too higher in Turkey and Italy within the outbreak period, corresponding to previous years. The RSV score of bread was higher than vegetable, fruit, fish and meat in all countries, but search profiles were different. It has been determined the potential relationship between RSV scores about some bakery products and stringency index in Turkey and Italy. In addition, daily new case number of coronavirus and RSV score of coronavirus can be related to public interests to bakery products in Italy. Bakery products related top queries were usually about finding a recipe.
Conclusion: Quarantine enforcement can cause the increased web-based search volume of the bakery products in the early period of COVID-19 outbreak. Understanding of search queries about food choices will help to effectively combat against coronavirus. According to followed data, the public should be informed about the outcomes of dietary habits in the quarantine regions.
Keywords: Bakery products; Coronavirus; Food choice; Google trends; Impact health.
© 2021 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.