Filipinos turned to cake, pizza during pandemic, says food delivery app

To cope with the difficulties brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic, many Filipinos turned to food, specifically, cakes and pizza.

According to Grab’s Food Trends Report released Thursday, cake orders on its delivery app grew by 2.6 times in 2020 compared to 2019. It also ranked fast food and pizza among the top items searched on GrabFood, with the latter hitting over six million searches.

Most orders were made for dinner, lunch and teatime, and families with children were the main consumers of food delivery services. The top reasons for ordering food, meanwhile, were “to satisfy cravings for food I can’t cook,” “no time to cook,” and “no need to worry about traffic/parking.”

The report also said cooking at home and food delivery orders went up by 14% compared to “before COVID-19.” It added 34% of meals in the Philippines were had via dining out, takeaway, and delivery, the last one accounting for “3 in 10” or about one-third of the consumed food.

The company said GrabFood’s monthly active users in the Philippines doubled in 2020 compared to 2019.

Grab said its first-ever Food Trends Report was based on research conducted by NielsenIQ and included interviews with food industry professionals, restaurateurs, consumer surveys, and focus groups. It also included insights derived from Grab’s internal database between 2019 and 2020. – RC, GMA News