The COVID-19 pandemic is going to have a long-lasting and far-reaching influence on the way that consumers look after their home, and they will not immediately return to the way they looked after their homes before the pandemic. 36% of household care buyers/users expect to clean frequently touched surfaces more than they did before, while 30% will prioritise disinfection more than they did prior to the pandemic.

The future of the household care market will be strongly influenced by the rate at which the COVID-19 virus threat and social restrictions that have dominated society over the last year are eased. Brands therefore have a limited amount of time to fully engage consumers during this period of higher involvement with the category. Younger consumers in particular are being more experimental and are learning more about products and brands than ever before.

There is a danger that, after such a long period of heightened category involvement, consumers will draw back and become more disengaged with household care when the need is less obvious. This will encourage shoppers to cut their spend and view the market as functional only, rather than one that really provides benefits to their whole lives.

The opportunity for brands is to leverage the trust that they have built during this period, and use it to align their products more closely with how people want to live. For example, helping consumers to see how household care brands can help achieve their health and wellness goals will be crucial in turning the pandemic engagement into a longer-term trend.

• The impact of COVID-19 on the household care market size and forecast.

• How the pandemic and subsequent economic disruption has influenced consumer behaviour.

• The changes in household care behaviour that COVID-19 has encouraged.

• The impact of the pandemic on the price that people are prepared to pay for household care products.

• What consumers expect their future household care behaviours to look like compared with prior to the pandemic.

The first COVID-19 cases were confirmed in the UK at the end of January 2020, with a small number of further cases in February. Rapidly rising case numbers led to the first national lockdown, starting on 23 March. It wasn’t until 15 June that non-essential stores were allowed to reopen, followed by pubs, restaurants, hotels and hairdressers on 4 July, and many beauty businesses on 13 July.

By September, it had become clear that the UK was at the start of a second wave, and social-distancing measures were intensified. Continued increases in infection numbers led to Wales implementing a two-week national lockdown from 19 October, England announcing a month-long lockdown from 5 November and Scotland introducing a new five-level system of coronavirus restrictions.

Despite these restrictions, however, case numbers continued to increase. All four UK nations tightened restrictions in January 2021, effectively leading to a full UK-wide lockdown.

On 22 February, Boris Johnson announced the roadmap to an easing of restrictions in England, starting with the reopening of schools on 8 March, followed by easing of restrictions on outdoor gatherings on 29 March, and with a hoped end to all restrictions by 21 June. The Welsh and Scottish governments also gave more details on their plans to ease restrictions, with both nations taking a slightly more cautious approach to the one planned for England.

The UK’s vaccination programme started on 8 December, 2020, and the Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna and Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccines have all been licensed for use in the UK. By the start of May 2021, almost 35m people had received their first dose of the vaccine, and 15.5m were fully vaccinated.

Mintel’s economic assumptions are based on the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR)’s central scenario included in its March 2021 Fiscal Sustainability Report. After the fall of 9.9% over the course of 2020, the scenario suggests that UK gross domestic product (GDP) will grow by 4% in 2021 and 7.3% in 2022.

GDP isn’t expected to return to pre-COVID levels until Q2 2022, although this is six months earlier than the OBR forecast in November 2020, mainly because of the faster than expected roll-out of vaccines.

Unemployment is expected to peak at 6.5% in Q4 2021. As with GDP, this is more positive than the OBR’s November forecast, but the OBR does raise the prospect of long-term scarring on employment, especially in the more exposed retail and hospitality sectors.

At the time of publication, Mintel’s assumptions are based on the continued successful roll-out of the vaccination programme, and therefore the government roadmap unfolding as planned, with people able to meet up inside homes from 21 June, as well as more of a consumer willingness to return to public spaces including restaurants and workplaces.

This Report examines the UK household care market, covering the following categories:

• Air care products

• Dishwashing products

• Hard surface cleaners and toilet care products

• Household cleaning tools (eg cloths, sponges, scourers etc)

• Household paper products

• Laundry detergent, fabric conditioners and fabric care products.

The market size includes all of the above.