One in two households reduced their spending on basic food items during the lockdown due to the covid-19 pandemic. Families have reduced their consumption of the most expensive foods in their shopping basket, namely red meats, fish and fruit.
The effects of covid-19 on food expenditure, observed during the sanitary confinement, concerned 10 products considered basic for Moroccan households, according to figures from the High Commission for Planning (HCP).
These products are flour and cereals, vegetables, fruits, legumes, red meats, white meats, fish, milk and dairy products, oils and, finally, sugar, indicates the HCP.
No big drop in consumption of sugar, oil and flour
In detail, more than 3 households out of 10 (31.2%) have reduced their spending allocated to fruit and more than one household out of 4 to red meat (28.3%) and fish (27.8%).
And 20.8% of households saw their spending on white meat purchases drop, 19.5% on vegetables, 18.7% on flour and cereals and 16.4% on legumes.
But this drastic drop did not concern all categories of food products. Moroccan families have not reduced their consumption of milk and dairy products, oils and sugar so much, considering them irremovable from their diet.
Thus, the reduction in expenditure was less substantial for milk and dairy products (13.1%), for oils (9.2%) and for sugar (8.2%).
Only 3 out of 10 households kept the same lifestyle during confinement. The results of the survey show that 30% kept the same level of expenditure for all the 10 food products mentioned above.
Fruits and meats were the least consumed
The largest declines were recorded among the poorest 20% of households, among whom 40.4% reported having reduced their expenditure on fruit acquisition, compared to 15.5% among
the wealthiest 20%.
For other food products, these proportions are 32.8% versus 22% for red meat, 32.2% versus 20.5% for fish, 28.8% versus 10.8% for white meat , 27.6% against 7.7% for flours and cereals, 27.3% against 9.4% for vegetables, 25.3% against 9% for legumes and, finally, 18.4 % against 8.8% for milk and dairy products.
City dwellers have reduced their consumption the most
Between urban and rural dwellers, city dwellers have been the strictest in their food budget cuts. By food category, the gap is smaller between urban and rural dwellers when it comes to red meat or fish, with 30.7% and 27.2% of households respectively having reduced their expenditure on meat red, and 30.5% and 26.6% for fish.
On the other hand, the difference is more convincing on a majority of food products such as fruit where rural dwellers did not seem to save as much as city dwellers with a reduction of 36.4% for city dwellers against 28.9% for rural dwellers. .
Same significant difference in white meats, 24.3% reduction in urban miles against 19.2% in rural areas, 25.2% for vegetables against 16.9%, 23.1% for flour and cereals against 16.7%, and 20.5% for legumes against 14.5%.