COVID-19 New Corona: 2020-12-20

Saturday, December 26, 2020

Google tapped this 29-year-old producer to create its Year in Search song and he brought together over 80 Black artists, engineers, producers, and managers

Google's 2020 Year in Search campaign featured a song by music producer Peter CottonTale, the first original song ever commissioned for the campaign, the company confirmed to Business Insider.
The song features Chance the Rapper, singer and actress Cynthia Erivo, and the Chicago Children's Choir, among others.
The 29-year-old CottonTale told Insider the song's goals were both to highlight Black creatives and the narrative of loss through the perspective of the Black community, which has been disproportionately impacted by the pandemic.
CottonTale says over 80 Black artists, engineers, producers, and managers came together to create the song.
Google will donate $35,000 to the Chicago Children's Choir and $15,000 to the Merit School of Music. In 2020, just 3.7% of Google employees were Black, up from 2.4% in 2014, as reported by Fortune.
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This summer, Google sent an email to music producer Peter CottonTale. The tech giant wanted to know if the Grammy-winning artist, best known for his work with Chance the Rapper, could create a song that described the past year for its Year in Search.

The Year in Search showcases moments and top trends from the past year, based on the words or questions that people continuously searched. For example, this year's top trends included Juneteenth, Black Lives Matter, and murder hornets. This is the first time Google has ever had a Year in Search original song, the company confirmed to Insider.

"Trying to make a sound that culminates 2020 ... was honestly way too sad," CottonTale told Insider. "Because for a lot of people [the year 2020] sounded like loss, or it sounded like a lot of challenges in their personal lives."

Instead, CottonTale decided to "write the optimistic view of how we will make it into 2021" through the perspective of Black people - a community that's been hit disproportionately hard by the pandemic.

Over 40% of Black businesses have closed for good during the pandemic, compared to 17% of white-owned businesses, CNBC reported in June; unemployment levels for Black people reached 14.6% in July compared to 9.2% for white people; and Black people were infected with COVID at rates three times higher than white people, according to the National Urban League.

CottonTale spent two months, encompassing multiple lockdowns and a COVID-19 scare, working remotely with the Google team and over 80 Black artists, engineers, producers, and managers to create the song "Together" for Google. He released it independently and has retained all rights associated with the song.

The song features actress Cynthia Erivo and Chance the Rapper, as well as the Chicago Children's Choir, and premiered on Google's homepage on Wednesday, along with a short film.

Per a request by CottonTale and his manager, Binta Niambi Brown, Google is donating $50,000 to the Chicago's Children Choir and the Merit School of Music. The tech firm's diversity initiatives contrast with the fact that in 2020, just 3.7% of all Google employees were Black. That number is up from 2.4% in 2014, as reported by Fortune.

"All the stars aligned on this collaboration with Peter CottonTale," Google's Head of Production Patrick Marzullo told Insider. "The tone and story he wanted to tell through music aligned perfectly with our vision for the film, so from there it was easy to give him the time and space to do what he does best."

Peter CottontTale — Courtesy of Peter CottonTale

CottonTale kept working through COVID-19 shutdowns and tight regulations

With the release of the song, CottonTale (born Peter Wilkins) wraps up a year that has, as it has for most entrepreneurs, been a bit bumpy.

He was able to release his debut solo album earlier this year, but his Chicago-based recording studio, which he opened just a year-and-a-half ago, was affected by the lockdowns amid the pandemic. As he was recording the song for Google, he was also juggling how to keep his studio staff, and how to keep the recording studios extremely clean.

Then, in the middle of mixing the song, his engineer caught COVID-19 and CottonTale had to isolate himself for five days before he could get tested. His engineer had to lock himself in a room while finishing up the demo tapes.

"As a business owner, I've never had to deal with a pandemic in the workplace," he said. "I never thought it would boil down to coming all the way into my workplace."

"We had to shut down the studio for a week," Brown recalled. "We would find ways to do what we could."

For example, the 50-person orchestra that was used on the track could not come into the studio to record due to COVID-19 regulations. "They had to record over the course of three days," Brown said. "Which made it take longer."

CottonTale said he knew he was competing against other creative ideas that Google had floating around for the Year in Search, which made him work even harder.

A main focus for CottonTale was finding a way to center the perspective of Black women, a group that he said he feels felt had been "affected the most by this year."

"We knew we wanted a female voice," Binta Niambi Brown, CottonTale's manager, told Insider, and Cynthia Erivo was an obvious choice. "We felt like the vocalist needed to be somebody who actually exudes the best of being a diva, and that's Cynthia."

In addition to bringing on Erivo and his longtime collaborator Chance the Rapper, CottonTale incorporated singer Jamila Woods, the all-Black Matt Jones Re-Collective Orchestra, and had youth poet Kofi Dadzie do a spoken-word voiceover for the song's accompanying film.

In what CottonTale said was a nice coincidence, all these Black artists also have Black managers. "I can't take credit for that," he said. "But I'm glad it worked out."

Allowing Black creatives to participate in this project was incredibly important to CottonTale

So often, CottonTale said, Black people are the ones kept away from the opportunities that would help them grow. For example, he said it was important to expose the children in the Chicago Children's Choir to as "many opportunities as possible."

Brown said it was important to her and CottonTale that the children's choir be compensated for its work on the song, and selected the Merit School of Music because "part of its purpose is to make sure that children of all backgrounds come together through music."

Chicago's Children's Choir — The Chicago Children's Choir perform during the Recording Academy Chicago Chapter Nominee Reception and Membership Celebration, at the Chicago Athletic Association on January 24, 2017 in Chicago.
Barry Brecheisen / Stringer / Getty Images

CottonTale said he used prayer to get through these past few months. That, and he made sure to save finances for all those rainy days. Brown said she will never forget the phone call that took place with Google's PR one day, talking about all the Black talent that was being brought on for this project.

"From our first call, it was clear he was inspired and knew exactly what he wanted to make," Marzullo said. "We provided the Search data and it only took him a few days to show us the first signs of his magic in a demo."

CottonTale said he used to get scared when big companies would put out commercials about Black people. "I'm like, 'Oh my God, hope a Black person is in the writer's room,'" he said. "The importance of employing Black is such a necessity for the advance of our culture."

This time, there was.

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Meet post-pandemic Gen Z, the most unemployed generation, now in danger of repeating millennials' struggles

gen z college student — The oldest Gen Zers graduated into a crippled economy.
Noam Galai/Getty Images

Gen Z has been grappling with the coronavirus pandemic during a critical time as its members figure out their identities.
The pandemic has been hard on Gen Z financially: they've been hardest hit in the labor market and are now on track to repeat millennials' money problems.
But 2020 has also made Gen Z more politically and socially active as it seeks change in the world.
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2020 has been a wild ride, especially for Gen Z.

The generation, the oldest of whom turned 23 this year, has been grappling with the pandemic during pivotal life stages. Younger Gen Zers are at a point in their adolescence when forging social relationships is central to identity formation - something difficult to do during quarantine. And older Gen Zers are in the phase of emerging adulthood, the period between adolescence and adulthood when they struggle to figure out who they are and what they want of life.

Many of the older cohort have graduated into the chaos of the coronavirus recession, which is putting them on track to repeat millennials' money problems. They've become the most unemployed generation, and many have moved back home with their parents.

On the other hand, 2020 has made many Gen Zers aware of politics and activism, and the generation is set to take over the economy in just a decade.

From financial behaviors to mental health, here's a look at the life of a Gen Zer in 2020.

The pandemic has put Gen Z on track to repeat millennials' money problems.

"I'm a little worried about ending up like those who graduated around 2008," Maya Tribitt, a junior at the University of Southern California, previously told Insider. "A lot of the fear people my age have about getting jobs right out of college have come from the horror stories of people 10 years older than us. It's really scary to think that might be our new reality."

Tribitt's concerns are valid. A Bank of America Research report called "OK Zoomer" found that the pandemic will impact Gen Z's financial and professional future the same way that the Great Recession did for millennials.

"Like the financial crisis in 2008 to 2009 for millennials, Covid will challenge and impede Gen Z's career and earning potential," the report reads, adding that a significant portion of Gen Z is entering adulthood in the midst of a recession, just as a cohort of millennials did. "Like a decade ago, the economic cost of this recession is likely to hit the youngest and least experienced generation the most."

They've been impacted the most in the workforce, facing higher unemployment rates than other generations.

Unemployment rates for all generations peaked in April, according to data from the St. Louis Fed. Gen Z was hit hardest, with an unemployment rate of nearly 27% for those ages 20 to 24. By July, that unemployment rate had dropped to 18.5% but was still higher than other generations. By November, it hovered just over 10%.

Between February and May, when the pandemic first hit, one in four American workers between the ages of 16 and 24 had lost their job, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

This is largely because Americans of those ages tend to work in industries such as retail and hospitality, both of which were hit hard by pandemic layoffs and store closures.

More than 2 million Gen Zers have moved back in with their family in the wake of the coronavirus.

By the beginning of August, 58% of Gen Zers were living with their parents as the coronavirus continued to sweep through the nation, according to a study by StuDocu, a crowd-sourced online learning and sharing platform for students.

StuDocu's findings echo a June report by online real-estate marketplace Zillow, which found that nearly 3 million young adults have moved back in with their parents or guardians as a result of the pandemic. Gen Zers comprise the majority of that number, at roughly 2.2 million.

The pandemic has also pulled Gen Z off course to becoming the most educated generation.

gen z pandemic graduate — Scott Olson/Getty Images

Gen Z was set to unseat millennials as the most educated generation ever, but the pandemic has delayed — and set back — Gen Z's educational progress, according to the "OK Zoomer" report. It's intensified the troubling pre-pandemic trend of learning stagnating for American children at all levels.

At this point during the pandemic, the report said, half of lower secondary school graduates will now lack minimum levels of proficiency, compared to the typical 40%.

This shift to at-home learning will have a long-lasting impact on the educational landscape, Charles Thornburgh, a veteran education technology CEO, previously told Business Insider: "We'll have reverberations with this generation that we won't even begin to understand for a few years."

It's no surprise, then, that one-third of Gen Zers are financially stressed and one-quarter think they'll be worse off when the pandemic is over.

That's according to the Center for Generational Kinetics' State of Gen Z report, which also found that Gen Z is more stressed about saving money and having money to support their basic needs than anything else. But the generation isn't as financially stressed as millennials, per the report's findings.

The report surveyed over 2,000 Gen Zers and millennials.

It also found that the pandemic has caused 43% of Gen Zers to fall behind on credit cards, rent, or other payments, and 46% to borrow money from a family member or friend.

Financial stress, combined with quarantine, is hurting Gen Zers' mental health.

Gen Z is most likely to feel not "mentally well" during the pandemic.

And when the pandemic first hit, 62.4% of Gen Zers said isolating during COVID-19 had worsened their mental health, social-learning network StuDocu found in a poll of 1,600 students between March 24 and April 17. The top emotions for those polled were stress, frustration, anxiety, and loneliness.

Michael Pankowski, a sophomore at Harvard University, told Insider's Dominic-Madori Davis that he has felt "overwhelmed" and "distraught" by how many lives have been lost to the coronavirus, even as his own world has been knocked off balance.

He said that in addition to the stress of the pandemic, his school closing also had an emotional impact on him, as it happened with such haste. "With one email, we learned we had just five days to say goodbye to all of our friends," Pankowski said.

But the pandemic has made some Gen Zers more cost-conscious than ever, which has helped them make strides in financial preparedness.

More than half (54%) of Gen Zers have saved more money since the pandemic began than prior to it, according to the State of Gen Z report. And 38% have opened an online investment account, while 39% have opened an online bank account.

The pandemic has taught Gen Z how to be frugal, according to Jason Dorsey, president of Center for Generational Kinetics (CGK), the company behind the report. They've begun saving money earlier in their lives than previous generations, have started investing, and are seeking good job benefits, he said.

And even though the pandemic could ultimately cause Gen Z to potentially lose $10 trillion in earnings, they're still set to take over the economy in a decade.

Gen Z students could lose $10 trillion of lifecycle earnings due to Covid lockdowns, the World Bank has estimated.

But Bank of America Research's "OK Zoomer" report found that Gen Z will fare well in the long run. The generation currently earns $7 trillion across its 2.5 billion-person cohort, it stated. By 2025, that income will grow to $17 trillion, and by 2030, it will reach $33 trillion, representing 27% of the world's income and surpassing that of millennials the following year.

While Gen Z has grappled with how the government has handled social injustice issues, it's pushed the generation to the front lines of activism.

Gen Z has been at the forefront of numerous demonstrations, such as the March for Our Lives anti-gun protest and the climate change movement.

2020 put the generation front and center in the anti-police-brutality demonstrations sparked by the killing of George Floyd, a Black man who died after a white police officer in Minneapolis violently restrained him.

Yubo, a social networking app, exclusively worked with Business Insider to poll 38,919 US-based Gen Zers between the age of 13 and 25 to see how Gen Zers are responding to the civil unrest sparked by the ensuing protests, reported Davis.

The survey found that 77% of respondents had attended a protest to support equality for Black Americans, and 62% said they were willing to get arrested during a peaceful protest to support this equality.

The generation played a pivotal role in the 2020 election, which may have finally captured the elusive youth turnout.

young voters college campus — PITTSBURGH, UNITED STATES - 2020/11/03: University of Pittsburgh students with Biden/Harris signs and stickers. On the University of Pittsburgh campus many students organizing get out the vote campaigns through signs, stickers, and text messaging their friends during the United States Election Day.
Aaron Jackendoff/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images

The youngest voters may have played a pivotal role in the 2020 election making voter turnout history, Insider's Juliana Kaplan reported.

Tufts University's Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning & Engagement (CIRCLE) has been tracking and analyzing young voter turnout since 2001. According to its latest estimates, youth voter turnout for 2020 was up by at least 5% from 2016 — and could have been up by as much as 9%.

Milu Parrilla, an 18-year-old freshman studying biology at Georgia State University and an organizer with Student PIRGs New Voters Project, told Kaplan that many of the young voters she spoke with wanted to become more involved in politics.

"A lot of young people are scared. Once they get out of college, how will they be able to get work?" Parrilla said. She said that students wanted to become a part of the discussion — and many have sought out information on key dates or registration procedures.

Gen Z, known for creativity, remains as innovative and entrepreneurial as ever.

face shields students for hospitals — Part of the Students for Hospitals team.
Jalen Xing

More than half (58%) of Gen Z respondents in a DoSomething Strategic survey said that, since the pandemic, they had picked up a new activity or were doing more of something they already enjoyed.

Similarly, 88% of Gen Zers polled in an April VSCO survey said that creatively expressing themselves has helped them feel less anxious during this time.

"Gen Z is innovative and powerful," Emma Havighorst, a 22-year-old 2020 graduate, previously told Insider. "The way we see the world is very different from prior generations."

For three years, Havighorst has hosted the podcast "Generation Slay," which profiles Gen Z creators and entrepreneurs, from mental-health advocate Gabby Frost to nonprofit founder Ziad Ahmed. She said she thinks the pandemic will produce even more innovators.

"Necessity breeds invention," she said. "We'll be trying to figure out solutions to problems that plagued past generations."

Consider high schoolers Daniel Lan and Jalen Xing, who created homemade face shields for hospitals during the pandemic, starting the initiative Students for Hospitals.

But despite the pandemic potentially slowing down Gen Z's futures, one psychologist thinks they'll "shrug it off" in the long run.

gen z teenagers — Roman Evgenev / Shutterstock.com

Jeffrey Arnett, a Tufts University psychologist who studies when and how people become adults in modern life, said he thinks the pandemic downturn will be more catastrophic for those in their 40s and 50s, who have established career and financial obligations. Gen Z, despite the setbacks, will eventually get by.

"Even in good times, young adults feel they're falling behind and not making enough progress," he said, adding that it's typical for young adults to struggle in their 20s as they figure out their identity and future. It's a positive, he said, that they have less at stake.

"I wouldn't make light at all of the challenges Gen Z will face," Arnett adds, "but they will be able to pick up the pieces and move on."

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Photos show vaccines arriving at hospitals across Europe, after regulators finally approved the Pfizer shot

Franck Huet, head of the hospital pharmacy division of the AP-HP (Paris Hospitals), speaks to the press in front of boxes of Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccines at their arrival in the AP-HP central pharmacy on the outskirts of Paris on December 26, 2020, before being transported to hospitals in Sevran and Dijon. - France's first doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine were delivered early on December 26, 2020, to the Paris hospital system's central pharmacy outside the capital, an AFP journalist saw. A refrigerated truck brought the roughly 19,500 doses from the Pfizer factory in Puurs, northeast Belgium, to Paris, the capital's APHP hospital authority said, with pharmacy chief Franck Huet calling it a "historic" moment in the pandemic. (Photo by STEPHANE DE SAKUTIN / POOL / AFP) (Photo by STEPHANE DE SAKUTIN/POOL/AFP via Getty Images) — Franck Huet, head of the hospital pharmacy division of Paris Hospitals, seen with boxes of Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccines in Paris on December 26, 202.
STEPHANE DE SAKUTIN/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)

Saturday marked the day that the first vaccines for the coronavirus were rolled out across Europe.
The European Medicines Agency approved a vaccine from Pfizer and BioNTech on Monday, joining the US and UK in doing so.
The EMA has taken much longer to approve the vaccine, and the European Commission and EU governments had pressured the EMA to work faster, Reuters reported.
Countries have been allocated a maximum 10,000 doses each as part of the first shipment.
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Europe has begun to receive its first doses of the coronavirus vaccine.

On Monday, the European Medicines Agency approved the vaccine from Pfizer and BioNTech, joining the US and UK in doing so, after an extended delay.

Doses of the vaccine were manufactured in Belgium and were shipped across the European Union on Friday night.

Out of the first batch, the EU's 27 member states are by and large limited to 10,000 doses each, The Associated Press reported.

"It's here, the good news at Christmas," Jens Spahn, the German Health Minister, said Saturday.

"At this moment, trucks are underway across Europe, across Germany and its regions, to deliver the first vaccine."

"This vaccine is the decisive key to end this pandemic," he said.

Here's what the moment looked like across Europe.

Hungary

Hungarian carry boxes from the first shipment of Pfizer-BioNTec vaccines against the novel coronavirus (Covid-19) at the South-Pest Central Hospital in Budapest on December 26, 2020. - Hungary has started vaccinating healthcare workers against the coronavirus on December 26. The vaccine, manufactured in Puurs, Belgium, the first in Europe to be approved, is transferred from the hospital, the main vaccination centre, to other domestic vaccination centres. The first shipment contained 9750 doses of vaccine, which allows about 4875 people to be vaccinated. (Photo by Szilard KOSZTICSAK / various sources / AFP) (Photo by SZILARD KOSZTICSAK/POOL/AFP via Getty Images) — Hungarian military personnel carry boxes of the Pfizer vaccine at the South-Pest Central Hospital in Budapest on December 26, 2020..
SZILARD KOSZTICSAK/POOL/AFP via Getty Images

Italy

Germany

dpatop - 26 December 2020, Bavaria, Erlangen: Joachim Herrmann (M, CSU), Minister of the Interior of Bavaria, and Melanie Huml (r, CSU), Minister of Health of Bavaria, stand next to boxes containing the first doses of Corona vaccine for Bavaria. Photo: Daniel Karmann/dpa - ATTENTION: Address has been pixelated for legal reasons (Photo by Daniel Karmann/picture alliance via Getty Images) — Joachim Herrmann, Minister of the Interior of Bavaria, (C) seen with newly arrived Pfizer vaccines on December 26, 2020.
Daniel Karmann/picture alliance via Getty Images

Belgium

France

Spain

Austria

Vienna's Mayor Michael Ludwig presents a vaccine on the occasion of the arrival of the first coronavirus (Covid-19) vaccination doses, next to (LtoR) Governor of Lower Austria Johanna Mikl-Leitner, Herba Chemosan CEO Andreas Windischbauer, Austrian Defence Minister Klaudia Tanner and Pfizer Austria CEO Robin Rumler at the head office of pharmaceutical products wholesaler Herba Chemosan Apotheker AG in Vienna on December 26, 2020. (Photo by HANS PUNZ / APA / AFP) / Austria OUT (Photo by HANS PUNZ/APA/AFP via Getty Images) — A photo showing Austrian government officials holding the first doses of the vaccine in Vienna on December 26, 2020.
HANS PUNZ/APA/AFP via Getty Images

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Sales of sex toys have boomed during lockdown - and people are getting kinkier than ever, according to Ann Summers data

Since the pandemic first hit, people round the world have been buying more sex toys as they stay at home.
And people have been choosing kinkier options than usual, UK sex toy retailer Ann Summers told Insider, with sales of BDSM and high-tech equipment up in 2020.
"It appears we've been using our extra time to escape reality and try out new things in the bedroom," the retailer said.
Sales of sex dolls have risen in the US this year, but the apparel industry has taken a huge hit during the pandemic, and lingerie is no exception.
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People have been buying more sex toys during 2020 - and the products are kinkier than before, too, with more people buying BDSM and high-tech equipment.

Online sales of sex toys in the UK more than doubled when the country first entered lockdown in April. And this demand stayed strong over the course of 2020, sales data from British sex toys and lingerie specialist Ann Summers shows.

"The UK has become kinkier and more adventurous, with more people than ever spicing up their sex lives by trying out BDSM products and anal sex," Ann Summers said in a press release sent to Insider.

It sold nine times as many leatherette paddles for spanking in the week from November 26 as it did during the same week in 2020, and sales of spreader bars and ball gags & nipple clamps were up more than fourfold, too.

UK retail marketplace Love The Sales also noted that sales of bondage sets rose 97% and basque sets 101% from 2019 to 2020.

This interest in sexual experimentation during lockdown is reflected in what people have been googling in 2020. UK searches for "what is pegging in sex?" have seen a 250% increase, according to data from Google Trends, while "what is BDSM?" searches are up by 70%.

Ann Summers added: "2020 has been a difficult year for many and it appears we've been using our extra time to escape reality and try out new things in the bedroom."

High-tech sex toys have dominated its sales this year, the company noted, with the thrusting g-spot rampant rabbit its best-selling sex toy of 2020. Sales of remote control sex toys have also risen, with sales of one product up eleven-fold year-on-year.

"It's clear from this data that consumers are starting to favor sex toys that are smarter, more innovative, and more tech-focused in order to provide the kind of pleasure they want," Ann Summers explained.

"For many, this isn't always a realistic dildo design, so we're seeing artistic, modern, simple, and abstract sex toy designs on the rise."

Interest in anal sex also rocketed during 2020, Ann Summers said. The company's Intro to Anal Kit was its best-selling anal sex product of 2020, suggesting that more people were trying it for the first time.

As well as trying different toys, couples have also been buying more games to spice up their sex lives during lockdown. Sales of Ann Summers' Kama Sutra Sex Positions Cards were up 144% year-on-year during Black Friday week, while sales of its Monogamy Couples Board Game and 50 Days of Play Couples Game more than tripled.

Ann Summers added that "people in the UK who are missing the office this year may be turning to roleplay," noting that Black Friday week sales of its Sexy Secretary outfit doubled in 2020. Its Santa dress was its 10th best-selling item during Black Friday week.

It isn't just Brits that are buying more sex toys. Sex toy use in the US has grown 10% during the pandemic, according to a survey of 1,464 Americans by sex toy retailer Ella Paradis.

Some people are turning to other types of sex toys during the pandemic, too - including sex dolls.

The New York Post reported that Americans are buying more of the life-like dolls, with sales up 25% year-on-year, according to Silicon Wives owner Bryan Gill. The biggest spikes have been in New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Dallas, he added.

Although sex toy sales are booming, the apparel industry has taken a huge hit during the pandemic, and lingerie is no exception.

Mintel predicts that underwear sales in the UK will drop by 12% this year, with sales of high-end lingerie especially affected because of the cancellation of formal events such as weddings and parties.

But some lingerie companies and boutiques have seen above-average sales during the pandemic as people focus on self-care and divert their budgets from outdoor clothing. Love The Sales told Insider that sales of lingerie were up 49% year-on-year across its brands - including a 118% rise in sales of babydoll sets.

Silk lingerie is selling better than other fabrics these days because it's comfortable for working from home, one lingerie seller told Business Insider, and some companies have seen sales rise for other non-lingerie products, they say, such as loungewear and pajamas.

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The COVID-19 pandemic had a profound effect on the way we eat. Here are 2020's biggest food and drink trends, according to Kroger

Kroger's list of the top 10 trending foods and beverages of 2020 shows how people's eating habits have changed during the pandemic.
People bought premium burger buns and fresh ground beef to prepare their favorite restaurants meals at home, Kroger said.
Plant-based foods will be among the top food trends of 2021, the grocer giant added.
Scroll down to see Kroger's ranking of this year's top food and drink trends.
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What people ate and drank says a lot about what happened that year - and 2020 is no exception.

As the US was hit by several COVID-19 lockdowns over the year, people adjusted their eating habits. Americans dined out less, and to make up for this they ordered more takeout. They cooked at home more, too.

This is reflected in Kroger's list of the top 10 trending foods and beverages of 2020, which the grocer giant says shows how Americans embraced cooking and eating at home as part of their new routine.

Sales of coffee, fresh deli meat, and artisan bread soared as more people ate breakfast and lunch at home while working or attending school remotely, Stuart Aitken, Kroger's chief merchant, said.

As restaurants closed, people bought more fresh ground beef, premium buns, and shredded cheese to recreate restaurant-style burgers at home.

Zero-calorie soft drinks, unique potato chip flavors, wine, and chocolate were among the most popular comfort foods.

Kroger based its findings on year-over-year sales growth across its business, including nearly 2,800 retail stores and pickup, delivery, and shipping.

"Many of our customers rediscovered their passion for cooking and baking at home in 2020 and aspire to eat more healthy foods and explore more unique tastes and flavors in the year ahead," Aitken said.

Kroger also expects 2021 to be "a breakout year for mushrooms," and plant-based foods will also boom. Sales of foods with added benefits to support immune, gut and, brain health, energy levels, and stress management are also expected to grow, Kroger said. The grocer linked these forecasts to the "future-proofing" and "biohacking" trends, where people eat their way to better health.

Here are Kroger's top 10 trending foods and beverages of 2020.

10 Black Forest ham