If You Can't Get Enough of Sweets Right Now, You're Not Alone

PHOTO BY Unsplash/amirali mirhashemian ILLUSTRATION Warren Espejo

(SPOT.ph) Chances are, you've been turning to sugary treats lately to banish the blues—whether it's from being stuck at home most of the time (quarantine fatigue is real) or from any other big changes that have taken place since the pandemic. It's a perfectly understandable response given the events as of late—but here's the thing—you're not alone! According to research by the iPrice Group, Filipinos' interest in chocolates, sweets, and candy has grown since the pandemic started.

Been hankering for candy lately? So have a lot of Filipinos!

PHOTO BY Unsplash/Amit Lahav

iPrice took note of Google searches in the Philippines for the keywords "sweets", "candy", "chocolates", "tsokolate", and "tamis" from October 2019 to November 2020. Normally, these spike up only during February and October (due to Valentine's and Halloween, respectively)—but this time around, they stayed high (and grew even higher!) in other months. Check out the graph below:

Check out that increase in search interest for sweets!

PHOTO BY iPrice Group

For example, while the month of April isn't typically associated with sweets,  you'll see that there were more searches from that month than in February of 2020! The number of searches grows just about consistently from there on, too. Plus, the monthly average of Google searches in 2020 is 91% more than 2019's—and the increase could, perhaps, can be attributed to the pandemic.

There's more: iPrice also shows that the Philippines ranks third in Southeast Asia as far as interest in chocolates and sweets goes. The terms mentioned above were searched for by nearly 18.8% of the country's Google population—compare that to Malaysia's 21.8% and Singapore's 19.3% (note that iPrice recorded keywords such as "sweets", "candy", and "chocolates" in English and in those countries' respective languages).

Are you surprised that we ranked third?

PHOTO BY iPrice Group

It's worth noting that Western brands reign over local brands here. Based on the highest monthly average of Google searches, people in the Philippines look for Toblerone, Maltesers, and Ferrero Rocher the most. Still, as far as local chocolates go, Flat Tops, Chocnut, and Curly Tops get the top spots.

Read the full study by the iPrice Group.

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Source: Spot PH