As with most other retail sectors, the grocery retailing sector in Italy has been significantly affected by the COVID-19 outbreak during 2020. A national lockdown mandated that only essential stores (which included grocery retailers) were able to stay open for a period which lasted around two months. However, unlike most other retail sectors, the impact of the outbreak has been generally positive, with a few exceptions, since sales have been boosted by the enforced closure during lockdown of nearly all out-of-home eating establishments, while the lockdown and consumers’ subsequent reluctance to shop in-store has also provided a dramatic boost to the uptake of online grocery shopping services.
Our research for this report identifies a number of ways in which Italian grocery shoppers have changed as a result of the COVID-19 outbreak. Due to rising unemployment and tighter household finances, many have switched to discounters, while there has also been a renewed focus on the part of consumers on buying products sourced in Italy and retailers using local suppliers and nearly 40% have been buying more own label groceries.
Looking to the future, the tough economic conditions that have enabled discounters to thrive in 2020 are going to continue and may even get worse with the unemployment rate set to grow significantly in 2021 and stay high in 2022. Although the health imperative of shopping online will gradually reduce once a programme of vaccination of the Italian population is completed, we believe that the sector will continue to grow and that its development has been brought forward by a number of years by the pandemic.
Key issues covered in this report
The impact of COVID-19 on the grocery retailing sector.
The winners and losers in the grocery retailing sector since the start of the COVID-19 outbreak.
The growth of the online grocery channel and the boost given to it by the COVID-19 outbreak.
How people shop for groceries and which retailers they use for main and top-up shops.
How behaviours of grocery shoppers have changed since the start of the COVID-19 outbreak.
Areas covered in this report
This report covers the grocery sector in Italy, with a focus on supermarket, hypermarket and convenience store operators. The report does not cover the smaller food retailers, such as specialists (bakers, butchers etc., although some reference is made to them for context), markets, CTNs or wholesalers, in detail, nor does it cover food sold via non-food retailers, such as department stores.
The report combines analysis of the market in Italy, including market sizes and forecasts for consumer spending on grocery items and food retailers’ sales, along with our in-depth consumer data which analyses shoppers’ behaviours in Italy. We also include a number of relevant company profiles.
For our consumer research this year we asked questions on the following topics:
Who shops for groceries
How people shop for groceries
Grocery retailers used
Attitudes towards grocery retailers and COVID-19-related issues.
For the purpose of this report, Mintel has used the following definitions:
Consumer spending: The total amount spent by Italian households (including sales tax) on food, drink and tobacco. This is for retail purchases only, and excludes foodservice spending, such as through bars, hotels and restaurants. Tobacco is the exception to this rule.
Retail sales: Total sales of all types of goods and services (excluding sales tax) by grocery retailers. It includes online sales of these retailers where the majority of sales are in bricks and mortar outlets.
