Coronavirus and its impact on our food & cooking

With restaurants off limits, grocery shopping has become fiercely competitive, junk food is making a comeback ,stocking-in and comfort cooking are trending

As we continue to be middle of the largest crisis in recent times, it will be fascinating how it will look like in future. Our relationship with food has changed in this time of Coronavirus would be a gross understatement. It has gone for a toss!

Restaurants, cafes, roadside stalls - where we used to go for meals casual and special, for kicks, for fun, are out of bounds, for now. We are staying home, bewildered by how our worlds have shrunk in such a short time.

My wife is still in shock that she won’t be able to gulp those delicious pani-puris (spicy water pancakes) roadside for months or may be years.

Food shopping has become more than just a mindless chore. It is almost a blood sport, especially since the announcement that several Indian states might extend the extended lockdown.

Once we get into the stores, there is no guarantee we can find the stuff we want. People are seen wandering up and down the aisles, and buying stuff without checking the retail price (which is so unlikely of us, no pun intended).

Ordering groceries online used to be so easy. Now, we have our shopping carts ready to go and we stalk the app for those precious delivery slots, released at odd hours. And when they open up, we pray our fingers are fast enough to secure one before others do. I personally haven’t been successful either on Big Basket or Amazon Fresh and my struggle continues.

He is back

Junk food, has made a comeback as people seek comfort in bewildering times. People are stocking chocolates, frozen foods, soda based beverages and what more! Stuff which we had been avoiding for months are all back in our kitchen. 

Talk about comfort eating, which I can completely relate to! Pasta and pasta sauces in stores are cleaned out - and have you seen the decimated shelves of instant and cup noodles? When the going gets tough, the tough crave carbs and sugar.

Emergence of the ‘chefs’ in us

With kids needing to be fed four times a day - or with time on our hands, for those of us who do not have children - cooking and baking have become more than just weekend hobbies. I marvel at how isolation brings out the inner chef in us. One friend, who just knew to boil eggs, is now posting his baking adventures on Instagram. Another one is cooking up such a storm that I hope he can stay home with him, if this happens again.

Parents are realizing how hungry their kids get and are wondering what on earth to cook next. Now is as good a time to launch those kids’ snacks products, if you can.

How are we buying currently

I order my groceries online often but my savior is the neighborhood mom and pop store and a vegetable & fresh fruits chain named “Safal”. For many of you, Safal means successful, which I am sure the world will be in defeating this awful crisis. There are also millions of vegetable vendors across the country, which are helping our kitchen up and running.

There is also emergence of entrepreneurs in residential societies, who somehow have found supply chains and is selling stuff including non-essential items thru WhatsApp and of course at a mark-up. One friend and colleague, Neha , shared that she is getting interesting stuff, more than earlier at her doorstep ( contact less delivery). And everyone willing to pay few bucks extra!

Restaurants seeing a dim future

It would interesting how the restaurant landscape here will look like when this is over. Will people be so used to ordering in that they don't want to go to restaurants anymore? When home cooks can buy quality produce to cook at home, if they can order restaurant-quality food easily, is there a need to go out?Which restaurants will be left standing?

Restaurants are also likely to get more sober, with quieter, perhaps more serious dining, back in fashion.Nobody knows what diners will do when there is no need to hunker down any more. Will they tighten their belts because of the global recession? Will we still have jobs to support our restaurant habit?

It will be a brave new world for everyone in the food industry and everyone who loves to eat. 2020 was supposed to be the year when we were supposedly to set up on Mars, travel in hyper-loop or high speed trains but the reality is way different. Brought to our knees by a virus , businesses are struggling and continue to fight this together.

The new ‘normal’ is definitely ‘abnormal’.

?Yaser Siddiqui is a Business Development Manager at Austrade, working with Australian companies to export food, wine, health & beauty and fashion products to South Asia. As well as having an MBA in International Business, he has over 8 years of marketing and business development experience, working across several industry sectors in South Asia. When not working, you can find him creating new business and marketing content, collecting matchbox covers (yes you read it correct) or playing Peekaboo with his 2.3 year old!