Out of house and home

The closure of pubs and restaurants during lockdown has encouraged people to improve their eating and drinking experiences at home.  We look at who has benefited from the `hometainment’ trend, and whether it is here to stay.

Food
While the takeaway industry has been the natural beneficiary of lockdown, many of us have been making home cooking and mealtimes more of an occasion. 

Research across five European countries commissioned by Tesco showed that in July home cooked meals accounted for 72% of meal occasions, up from 60% pre-Covid. More than a fifth of Brits are now cooking every meal from scratch, compared to just one in eight before the lockdown. The average amount of time spent cooking a week had also increased from six to seven hours and over half of respondents said they had become more experimental with their cooking. There has also been a 93% growth in flour sales as many people have gone back to basics and started baking.

Lockdown has encouraged many people to rediscover the joys of home cooking - with more people cooking more from scratch and throwing away less food. Recipes and cooking tips are easy to access on the internet and social media has engaged and connected people through #CookingThroughCovid19. 

While cooking new recipes took off, so did meal kits and grocery boxes such as Hello Fresh, Gousto and Mindful Chef, which were up 114% YoY in sales in April as consumers sought to recreate the restaurant experience at home. 

This has led to a surge in home appliance sales. In the first week of April, purchases of deep fat fryers were up 76%, hot beverage makers by 65% and food preparation products rose 61%, mainly driven by the sale of stand mixers, which jumped by nearly 220%. The average price per product also increased, as some invested the savings from not eating out into more premium models.

Drink
With the closure of pubs, small breweries saw sales fall over 80% between March and April, whilst alcohol sales in supermarkets jumped 22% in March. Supermarkets were not the only benefactors. Happy hour has now also moved into the home and the `quarantini' was born. During the first lockdown Waitrose reported that a quarter of drinkers were drinking more, and that a fifth had taken part in virtual drinks with friends. It has now introduced a new interactive service with its `Cocktails at Home' Experience Boxes. Its experts have hosted more than 583 virtual experiences, and its customers have bought more than 23,000 tickets to online events.

Established in 2018 as a pop-up specialising in cocktail bars and classes, Boozy Events pivoted into the virtual and direct to customer market when lockdown was announced. It now delivers virtual cocktail experiences, along with bespoke cocktail kits delivered to homes. It has expanded these virtual classes into 15 countries.

Online searches for local beer deliveries shot up 500% during lockdown and like restaurants, breweries and distributers have launched direct-to-consumer models. A survey by the Society of Independent Brewers showed that 70% of breweries were offering new delivery or takeaway services.  Wilko experienced an increase in online homebrew sales of over 450% in the first week of May, whilst specialist retailer Malt Miller saw a 78% increase in the number of new customers between May and June as Brits try to recreate the pub at home.

As in the kitchen, the increase activity in the home requires additional equipment. Interior goods retailer Amara reported a 3430% increase in barware sales from January to May, compared with the same period last year.

While people may return in numbers to pubs and restaurants when they re-open, we do not expect hometainment to go away. Lockdown has forced us to reconnect with the kitchen, invest in equipment and become used to ordering quality ingredients. 

Ed Newton