Impacts of Covid-19 on Brazilian Meat Consumption

In recent years, the meat consumption profile of Brazilians has changed significantly with a switch from beef to chicken and pork, seeking lower prices and healthy consumption. Nine hundred and ninety-one responses from the 5 Brazilian macro-regions were analyzed, involving the preference and consumption of different meats, before, during and after the COVID-19 pandemic. Participants were grouped into 4 groups called “Clusters” through the Non-Hierarchical Clustering Method (grouping), by the K-Means algorithm of the Scikit-Learn library in Python language. The analysis reveals a similar consumption among all groups (clusters), before the pandemic with predominant consumption of beef, however, during and after the pandemic, consumption was reversed, with respondents consuming more chicken meat. The group with the highest participation in the Northeast region (Cluster3), formed only by women and also the one with the lowest income (Up to 1 minimum wage), had the highest consumption of chicken before the pandemic (30.08%), and also had the highest protein consumption during the pandemic (75.43%). It is concluded that there was a relevant change in the consumption profile of the interviewees in the pre, during and post pandemic periods in the 5 Brazilian regions, with the main occurrence being the exchange of beef for chicken and pork.