Retail prices of nutritious food rose more in countries with higher COVID-19 case counts

Yan Bai; Leah Costlow; Alissa Ebel; Sarah Laves; Yurika Ueda; Natalie Volin; Maya Zamek; William A Masters

doi:10.1038/s43016-022-00502-1

Retail prices of nutritious food rose more in countries with higher COVID-19 case counts

Nat Food. 2022 May;3(5):325-330. doi: 10.1038/s43016-022-00502-1. Epub 2022 May 19.

Authors

Yan Bai^{1

2

3}, Leah Costlow¹, Alissa Ebel^{1

4}, Sarah Laves^{1

5}, Yurika Ueda^{1

6}, Natalie Volin^{1

7}, Maya Zamek^{1

8}, William A Masters^{9

10}

Affiliations

¹ Friedman School of Nutrition, Tufts University, Boston, MA, USA.
² School of Public Affairs, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, Zhejiang, P. R. China.
³ The World Bank, Development Data Group, Washington, DC, USA.
⁴ Somerville Homeless Coalition, Somerville, MA, USA.
⁵ IPM Institute of North America, Madison, WI, USA.
⁶ UNICEF, Lilongwe, Malawi.
⁷ International Food Policy Research Institute, Washington, DC, USA.
⁸ School of Public Health, University of Califonia, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, USA.
⁹ Friedman School of Nutrition, Tufts University, Boston, MA, USA. william.masters@tufts.edu.
¹⁰ Department of Economics, Tufts University, Medford, MA, USA. william.masters@tufts.edu.

PMID: 37117565
DOI: 10.1038/s43016-022-00502-1

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has curtailed lives and livelihoods, leading to price spikes for some foods and declines for others. We compare monthly retail food prices in up to 181 countries from January 2019 to June 2021, test for differences over time and find that average prices rose significantly, especially for more nutritious food groups in countries with higher COVID-19 case counts. Analysis of retail prices by food group complements data on farm commodity prices and overall consumer price indexes, helping to guide policy for resilience and response to shocks.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't