PHASE 1 (Document/ report review on food retail landscape in each country)

To describe the characteristics of food retail environments in the four study countries

• Existing data and information from food retail industry reports used to describe the food retail environment in each country
• Utilized diverse data sources:
• Annual reports from retailers' websites and governmental agencies
• Industry insights from Global Agricultural Information Network (USDA)
• Economic and socio-demographic statistics from national and international sources like the World Bank and Euromonitor International.

To describe potential implications of COVID for food retail in the region

• A comprehensive six-step thematic analysis was used to search news text on food retail environment issues from both retailers and consumers side and the effect and responses (actions or policies) to COVID-19 in each country and in Southeast Asia level in general were conducted.
• Each country used keywords to search for relevant news articles that helped to describe COVID-19 impacts on the food retail environment in their respective country.
• News text on food retail was obtained through search engines, Scopus, and other relevant news outlets.
• For the news outlet selection, countries were given the liberty to choose which news outlets were relevant to their country.
• Each country collected all news articles that appeared in the first five pages of the keywords search. All articles were summarized and coded per theme.