"Corona Cooking": The interrelation between emotional response to the first lockdown during the COVID-19 pandemic and cooking attitudes and behaviour in Denmark

Klaus G Grunert; Meike Janssen; Rikke Nyland Christensen; Lauranna Teunissen; Isabelle Cuykx; Paulien Decorte; Lucia A Reisch

doi:10.1016/j.foodqual.2021.104425

"Corona Cooking": The interrelation between emotional response to the first lockdown during the COVID-19 pandemic and cooking attitudes and behaviour in Denmark

Food Qual Prefer. 2022 Mar:96:104425. doi: 10.1016/j.foodqual.2021.104425. Epub 2021 Oct 4.

Authors

Klaus G Grunert^{1

2}, Meike Janssen³, Rikke Nyland Christensen¹, Lauranna Teunissen⁴, Isabelle Cuykx⁴, Paulien Decorte⁴, Lucia A Reisch^{3

5}

Affiliations

¹ MAPP Centre, Department of Management, Aarhus University, Denmark.
² School of Marketing and Communication, University of Vaasa, Finland.
³ Consumer and Behavioural Insights Group at the Department of Management, Society and Communication, Copenhagen Business School, Denmark.
⁴ Department of Communication Sciences, University of Antwerp, Belgium.
⁵ El-Erian Institute of Behavioural Economics and Public Policy, University of Cambridge, POLIS, United Kingdom.

Abstract

For this study, the authors measured attitudes toward shopping for food and cooking, before and during the first lockdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic, among a sample of 526 Danish consumers, using an online survey. To analyse changes due to the lockdown, they applied a latent class Markov model, which revealed four states: middle of the road, love cooking (and like shopping), like shopping and cooking, and do not like shopping or cooking. In estimating transition probabilities, the findings reveal that most respondents remained in the same state before and during the lockdown, but those that changed were more likely to exhibit relatively higher liking of shopping and cooking. These states also reflect variations in people's food literacy and self-reported food consumption. Finally, respondents with stronger negative emotional reactions to the lockdown were more likely to change their states.

Keywords: Attitudes toward cooking; Behavioural change; COVID-19 pandemic; Cooking behaviour; Emotional response.