Ocado.com has today revealed the nation’s change in shopping habits during the week when restrictions slowly lifted and things began returning to normal.
The results indicate that the nation is embracing in-garden entertainment and picnics as well as quicker, more convenient food choices as people return to the office and spend more time away from home.
In the past month, searches for canapes sky-rocketed by 142%, for nibbles by 96% and for burgers by 53%. The most popular items include M&S Cocktail Blinis and the M&S Tiger Prawn & Dim Sum Selection. The data suggest that Ocado customers have turned to these traditional entertaining foods to coincide with reunion events for family and friends.
In the past week, Ocado has seen a surge in demand for quick and easy to prepare foods such as stir-frys, fresh pasta, soups, ready meals and breakfast bars as people prepare to head back into an office and start to require quicker work lunches and after work meals.
Particularly popular items include Alpen Light Jaffa Cake Cereal Bars and Dell Ugo Tomato & Mozzarella Tortelloni. Microwavable rice alone received an extra 6,000 search views already and this is expected to continue to grow.
In addition, alcohol choices over the past month reflect the longer days and prospect of warmer weather with sales of Pimms and Aperol rising by 337% and 142% respectively.
Laura Harricks, chief customer officer at Ocado Retail, said, “Being the UK’s only pure play online grocery retailer means that we have real-time insight into what our customers are looking for.
'With lockdown lifting this week, there have been loud and clear shifts in the popularity of certain products - our customers are understandably enjoying new found freedoms. With our capacity ever increasing, and more delivery slots opening up, we’re looking forward to welcoming new customers onto ocado.com.”
Ocado’s capacity is greatly increasing this year, with a customer fulfilment centre in Bristol now open and two further customer fulfilment centres (CFCs) opening up later this year. The CFCs are where customer orders are processed, picked and packed - powered by market-leading robotic technology.