Consumers Are Turning to Alternative Health Remedies During Coronavirus

As we continue to adjust our daily lives during the coronavirus pandemic, health is top-of-mind more than ever before. With major actions being taken to flatten the curve, such as San Francisco being placed under quarantine, Italy on lockdown and New York City has imposed a ‘New York On Pause’ Executive Order effective as of Sunday night, one in five Americans is being mandated to stay home.

Looking at typical recipe and ingredient trends during March, it’s clear that there’s an array of ways that consumers already use food as medicine to help with seasonal allergies or cold season. As staying home now becomes recommended practice and the best way to protect everyone, consumers are faced with more time on their hands and are taking to the internet to look up causes and symptoms, followed by remedies and at-home reinforcements to keep fevers at bay and immune systems up. As a result, we’ve seen an uptick in so-called “superfood” ingredients that claim specific health benefits.

“We typically see an increase in superfood ingredients during all cold, flu and allergy seasons as consumers turn to food to boost health and self-medicate in more holistic ways,” says Joey Petracca, Chicory’s Co-Founder and COO. “The difference between the coronavirus outbreak and seasonal illnesses is that there’s a sustained uptick in views for recipes with these particular ingredients because there’s no defined endpoint. So consumers will continue to search for home remedies as long as this period continues and in fact, may search for them even more as measures get more stringent across the country.”

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