foods Article COVID-19 ′ s First Wave: Examination of Impact on Food Purchasing Behaviour in the Eurozone Belén Gutiérrez-Villar 1 , Rosa Melero-Bolaños 1, * and Mariano Carbonero-Ruz 2   Citation: Gutiérrez-Villar, B.; Melero-Bolaños, R.; Carbonero-Ruz, M. COVID-19 ′ s First Wave: Examination of Impact on Food Purchasing Behaviour in the Eurozone. Foods 2021, 10, 1179 . https://doi.org/ 10.3390/foods10061179 Academic Editor: Derek V. Byrne Received: 4 May 2021 Accepted: 21 May 2021 Published: 24 May 2021 Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affil- iations. Copyright: © 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ 4.0/). 1 Departamento de Gestión Empresarial, Universidad Loyola Andalucía, Escritor Castilla Aguayo 4, 14014 Córdoba, Spain; belengut@uloyola.es 2 Departamento de Métodos Cuantitativos, Universidad Loyola Andalucía, Escritor Castilla Aguayo 4, 14014 Córdoba, Spain; mcarbonero@uloyola.es * Correspondence: rmelero@uloyola.es Abstract: COVID-19 has had a negative impact on the living conditions of people in all countries worldwide. With a devastating economic crisis where many families are finding it difficult to pay bills and make ends meet, increases in prices of food basket staples can be very worrying. This study examines the relationship between the incidence of the pandemic during the first wave in 16 Eurozone countries with the variation experienced in food prices. We analysed the harmonised index of consumer food prices (included in HICP) and the classification of the degree of pandemic impact by country, the latter established with the index of deaths provided by the Johns Hopkins Center. The procedure used compared actual food prices during the first wave (March to June 2020) with those foreseeable in the absence of the pandemic. Time series analysis was used, dividing the research period into two phases. In both phases, the Holt–Winters model was applied for estimation and subsequent prediction. After a contrast using Kendall’s tau correlation index, it was concluded that in the countries with the highest death rates during the first wave, there was a higher increase in food prices than in the least affected countries of the Eurozone. Keywords: food prices; COVID-19; Eurozone; Holt–Winters model 1. Introduction The coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19) is one of the most significant challenges humanity has faced in recent times. Although the disease has affected the entire planet, it has not had the same incidence everywhere and at the same time since it was classified as a pandemic by the World Health Organization (WHO) on 11 March 2020 [1]. Since that fateful moment, humanity has already experienced two peaks in the number of deaths and infections. The first, known as the first wave of the pandemic, lasted from its beginning in March until June 2020; the second wave, whose effects began to be felt at the end of the summer, lasted until the end of 2020, although there have been spikes in cases in January 2021 that warn of the possibility of the beginning of a third wave [2,3]. Today, the coronavirus has affected almost every country on the planet, but its impact during the first wave of the disease was uneven. Among the main factors that, combined, could explain the differences in mortality figures caused by the virus are the speed and restrictive measures imposed by governments, along with factors such as demographics, culture, and the country’s environment [4]. In addition, the suspension of activities and restrictions on movement that many governments have adopted to curb the pandemic have meant a sudden and abrupt change in the lives of citizens and businesses, changes in the structure of demand, and a drastic contraction of the global economy. According to World Bank forecasts [5], the economic effects of the containment mea- sures undertaken by governments are particularly profound in the countries most affected by the pandemic, leading to significant reductions in employment and incomes. The ILO [6] Foods 2021, 10, 1179 . https://doi.org/10.3390/foods10061179 https://www.mdpi.com/journal/foods