Coronavirus: regions where food orders in drives have increased the most

The "drives" in France have met with great success since the coronavirus Covid-19 arrived on national territory. For the sake of making stocks and / or limiting human contact, many consumers have turned to this mode of consumption which allows them to shop online, collect them at a given point and thus avoid a passenger in a supermarket. If the retail chains had already reported an increase in the number of orders and the value of the average basket since the end of February due to the progression of the virus, we now know more about the geography and the temporality of the phenomenon .

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The lebondrive.fr site has established a map of France showing how much orders have increased in the different regions of the metropolis. From the data collected on its platform, which enables the prices of more than 5,000 drives to be compared, the start-up highlighted deep disparities between the territories.

Against all expectations, the increase in drive orders is not necessarily linked to the number of nearby cases. For example, the Hauts-de-France region, the main source of infection, saw its orders increase by 59% over the period from February 17 to March 2 compared to that from January 20 to February 3. Which is quite little compared to Corsica, which recorded an increase of 143% while the island is spared for the moment. The region where consumers seem the most worried is that of Pays de la Loire, with an increase of 176%. Until Wednesday evening, there were two confirmed cases. To date, France has three outbreaks of infection: the main in Oise (Hauts-de-France), a second in Haute-Savoie (Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes) and a last in Morbihan (Brittany).

Evolution of the number of drive orders by region over the period from February 17 to March 2, compared to that from January 20 to February 3. Lebondrive.fr

In its analysis, the comparator notes three key dates since February 1: a first on February 4, which corresponds to the “ beginning of the increase ” in the number of drive orders with an average of 1.5 times more daily orders compared to previous days. The second, on February 27, corresponds to a new peak in activity with twice as many daily orders. Finally, the third, on March 2, comes after the weekend where the epidemic went to stage 2 in France and where the number of infected people approached 200. That day), the drives recorded 3 times more orders than usual.

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The comparator also notes an average basket slightly increasing, from 77.50 to 79 euros. Among the most purchased products in the last fifteen days, milk occupies the first place, followed by flour, eggs, emmental, toilet paper, crème fraîche, pasta, coffee, rice and then ham.