This report has been graciously sponsored by TC Transcontinental Packaging.

Coffee, Consumers, & COVID-19: Road Map to Recovery

While businesses and supply chains have worked to adapt to the COVID-19 pandemic’s extraordinary challenges, little concrete data has been available to aid in understanding consumers’ needs, making it difficult for many in our industry to plan for the future. To meet this need, the NCA commissioned an exclusive COVID-19 supplement to our yearly National Coffee Data Trends (NCDT) market research series.

NCA’s poll is the first of its kind to examine the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on coffee consumption and provides an update to NCA’s annual National Coffee Data Trends Report, known as the “Atlas of American Coffee.” The complete poll and market analysis are available exclusively to 2021 NCA members who subscribe to the NCDT Market Research Series.

Highlights from Coffee, Consumers, and COVID-19: Road Map to Recovery 

• Just as before the pandemic, the vast majority of coffee drinkers (about 80 percent) drink coffee at home, but more than one-third miss visiting coffee shops. More than half of Americans have already returned to coffee shops or plan to do so in the next month.
   
• 75 percent of coffee drinkers say the pandemic has not changed their coffee consumption.  For those who have changed habits, the most reported change is making more coffee at home.
   
• App-based ordering, including delivery, rocketed up 63 percent amongst those who drank coffee in the last week.  Drive through ordering increased 13 percent amongst those who drank coffee each day.
   
• Consistent with measures recommended in NCA’s June 2020 COVID-19 reopening guidance, to feel comfortable and increase visits to coffee shops consumers most want to see visible precautions like workers wearing gloves and facemasks (48 percent) and mandatory facemasks for all customers (44 percent).