Consumer demand for potatoes in Scotland during COVID-19 pandemic

Potatoes are a beneficial component of a healthy Scottish diet, when cooked healthily without excessive and potentially harmful additives. However, in recent decades fresh potato preparation has declined accompanied with an increase in consumption of potato-based convenience foods that may be higher in fat, sugar, and salt additives. Reduced time allocated by households towards cooking from scratch was identified in the existing literature as a potential causal factor for the decline in fresh potato consumption. The purpose of this paper is to empirically evaluate using differences in differences and data from a home-scanner dataset whether the advent of COVID-19 marked a deviation from this long-term trend in fresh potato consumption by providing households with an additional time endowment for exclusively domestic tasks, including cooking. The results did not find differences in the consumption patterns.