Meat Demand Monitor during COVID-19

Simple Summary Meat products represent a core aspect of the US food supply chain and faced multiple disruptions in the COVID-19 pandemic. Available data are often aggregated or lagged in availability, thus limiting insights into consumer behavior. Using household-level data from continuous consumer tracking in the Meat Demand Monitor project, we extend understanding of consumer behavior during the pandemic. This provides a timely example of the improved insights that follow from refined and ongoing data collection to generate valuable information. Meat products represent a significant share of US consumer food expenditures. The COVID-19 pandemic directly impacted both demand and supply of US beef and pork products for a prolonged period, resulting in a myriad of economic impacts. The complex disruptions create significant challenges in isolating and inferring consumer-demand changes from lagged secondary data. Thus, we turn to novel household-level data from a continuous consumer tracking survey, the Meat Demand Monitor, launched in February 2020, just before the US pandemic. We find diverse impacts across US households related to "hoarding" behavior and financial confidence over the course of the pandemic. Combined, these insights extend our understanding of pandemic impacts on US consumers and provide a timely example of knowledge enabled by ongoing and targeted household-level data collection and analysis.