Nielsen: Food, Health and Cleanup Sales Skyrocket by Covid-19 in Latin America

With the daily growth of cases of the disease caused by the new coronavirus Covid-19, consumers in Latin America rushed to buy Cleanliness, Health and Food items, nielsen, a global market intelligence reference company, said. Nielsen compiled weekly data in all physical stores in major Latin American retail chains and ranked them in two ways: first by Food, Health and Cleaning baskets, and then listed which categories were most searched – data updated through the first week of March. Baskets In Saúde, Brazil, which leads the number of cases in the region, recorded a 972% increase in sales on March 2 and 8, compared to the same week last year*. In Chile, growth was 145%, followed by 128% in Peru, 83% in Argentina and 58% in Mexico. Food replacement had the highest percentages in Peru, with growth of 357%, ahead of Argentina (+319%), Brazil (+121%), Mexico (+57%) and Chile (+33%). Argentines, on the other hand, bought the most in the Cleaning basket, whose sales expanded by 76%. In Brazil, the increase was 51%, ahead of Peru (+49%), Chile (+26%) and Mexico (+21%). Categories Brazilians follow ostentatiously behind gel alcohol. Sales of these products grew 2857% until March 8, compared to the same period last year*. Other products that stood out were cleaning utensils (+75%) and cuts of frozen meat (+67%). In Chile, there was a 377% increase in sales of alcohol gel, 51% in canned food and 16% in cleaning supplies. In Peru, the highest demands were for gel alcohol (+287%), frozen foods (+568%) and cleaning (+35%). In Argentina, the highlights were for gel alcohol (+203%), frozen dessert (+822%) and cleaning (+71%). Sales of frozen meat in Colombia increased 358%, while in Mexico the highlight in this category was hot cakes and frozen waffles (+31%). * 2020: 5/jan - 8/mar versus 2019: 06/jan - 10/mar The adapted consumer In the six key steps for consumer behavior, created by Nielsen based on global data, Latin Americans are, on average, still in the first step, according to the chart below, when a proactive purchase pattern of health products is adopted. In Brazil, the situation falls within stage two, although some capitals are already in the 4th stage, such as São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro.