Many fruit and veg shops, specialist butchers and bakers are benefiting from the shift in spending patterns created by coroanvirus, broadcaster NOS said on Monday.

In particular, consumers spent 40% more at greengrocers in the second quarter of this year than during the same period in 2019, NOS said, referring to figures from market research group GFK.

Butchers’ turnover is up 36% while bakers’ are enjoying a 16% increase in sales, NOS said. In total, specialist food retailers have had a €55m boost thanks to Covid-19.

‘It became more important to eat well at home because we could not eat out for a while,’ researcher Joop Holla said. ‘And local shopkeepers organised a lot of different initiatives, which also played a role.’

Some people may also have started using local shops because they wanted to avoid busy supermarkets, Holla told website Nu.nl.

Meanwhile, mail order company Wehkamp said its net profit doubled in the year to end-March 2020, thanks to a new strategy and focus on more profitable items.

However, both sales and net profit continued to grow in the first quarter of the company’s current book year, which coincided with the lockdown in the Netherlands, the company said.