Industry performance impacted by COVID-19
The revenue of the food market in Indonesia has been continuously growing. Especially during the COVID-19 pandemic, food expenditure was expected to grow significantly. At the beginning of the pandemic, most grocery retailers in the country reported significant sales increases due to panic buying as the government imposed large-scale social restrictions. Demand for packaged and canned food products such as rice, noodles, and other processed food was especially high during this time as they last longer compared to other food products. This was reflected in the upward trend of the retail sales value of packaged foods since the outbreak of COVID-19.Even though offline retailers have been the key purchase channels for groceries in Indonesia, online retailers have seen increasing sales values in the last few years. A positive change in the sales value of the e-grocery market in the country indicated a growing popularity of this grocery shopping method. Moreover, the e-grocery market was expected to increase steadily and reach a sales value of approximately 5.6 trillion U.S. dollars by 2026.