| The following GAIN reports were released on July 16, 2021. _______ Germany is by far the biggest market for food and beverages in the European Union. The food retail sector is saturated, highly consolidated, and competitive. There is good sales potential on the German market for U.S. exporters of nuts, fish and seafood products, dried fruits, bakery products, and organic products. The COVID-19 related lockdown measures heavily impacted the German food sector as well as consumers'eating and purchasing patterns. Whereas online grocery shopping was still a niche market in Germany in 2019, it showed the highest growth in e-commerce in 2020. South African retail food sales totaled US$ 39.8billion in 2020, a 6 percent decrease from 2019 due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. A nationwide lockdown in March 2020 brought rapid changes to the South African retail sector, as retail operations adapted to new ways of doing business. Some of the government's restrictions to reduce the spread of COVID-19 negatively affected for retail sales, constrained consumer spending, slowed GDP growth, and caused massive unemployment, which according to Statistics South Africa (StatsSA), increased to 32.5 percent in the fourth quarter of 2020, up from 30.8 percent in the third quarter. South Africa remains the biggest market for food and beverage products in Southern Africa and is a gateway to other Sub-Saharan African countries, with opportunities for U.S. exporters that can offer quality products at competitive prices. Export prices of all grades of rice decreased 2-3 percent due to a further weakening of the Thai baht against the U.S. dollar caused by increasing concerns of the current COVID-19 situation in Thailand.
For more information, or for an archive of all FAS GAIN reports, please visit gain.fas.usda.gov/. | 
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