Why Is The Coronavirus Pandemic Making Everyone Bake Bread?

With 44 states having declared stay-at-home orders since March 19th, consumers are looking for ways to keep busy at home with their fully stocked pantries. As consumers continue to adapt to this new way of life, they look for new rituals: breakfast with kids who’ve entered their third week of remote learning, planning easy lunches for the week to free up time for video calls, the list goes on. It’s what many are referring to as “the New Normal.”

So, how are consumers spending their time? Cooking and recipe browsing are on the rise. And, in looking at our trends, baking and bread-making are a particularly popular pastime for Americans right now.

Within the first week of stay-at-home orders and recommendations for social distancing, from March 15th to March 21st, Basic Homemade Bread soared to the second most viewed recipe within our network of 5.4+ million recipes. And during the week of March 29th, our top three most-viewed recipes were all bready basics, whether traditional sandwich bread, quickbreads or tortillas. So why is the coronavirus outbreak making people bake bread?

For many Americans, bread is a comfort food. And with consumers no longer able to run over to their neighborhood bakery or grocery store to pick up their daily loaf, making one's own bread seems to be the perfect solution.

Bread is also often the start or end to many meals, whether a vessel for cheese during pre-dinner apéritif or a tool for sopping up every last bit of sauce from that night’s culinary endeavor. 

There’s also the factor of time. For anyone who’s fallen into the homemade bread trend, you know that what's needed even more than flour is time. Perfectly planning a proof means a baker needs to be present to keep an eye on when a dough has doubled in size. Over- or under-risen bread can mean lackluster texture, so with most Americans staying put at home, it’s the perfect time to spend an afternoon whipping up a boule.

As the supply chain inevitably faces higher concentrated demand and greater strain, we’ve seen a number of shelf-stable goods become difficult to come by. But in looking at our network ingredient trends, flour and yeast are seeing particularly drastic levels of engagement, with active dry yeast growing +317% in views over the past month.

Our network also saw a 119.75% increase in views on How To Make A Sourdough Starter from the week of March 15th to the week of March 29th, paralleled by a 50.39% decrease in views on “Basic Homemade Bread.” As consumers hit their third or fourth consecutive week of sheltering-in-place, they’re looking for new challenges in the kitchen, no matter the time commitment.

Additionally, we’ve seen a rise in views around quick breads like banana bread, most popular among novice and first-time bakers. These breads don’t require wait times for dough to proof or rise (kid approved!) and are easy to customize. Consumers can clean out their packed pantries by including ingredients like dried fruit, spices or spoiled bananas -- a perfect solution for consumers who panic-bought large amounts of produce as concern for availability loomed in the early weeks of the pandemic. And with consumers across the board more conscious of waste as they look to avoid unnecessary excursions, recipes that incorporate those over-ripened bananas and mushy blueberries have never felt more included.

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