Every generation influences society, and in recent years, it has been the millennials’ turn. About a year ago, for instance, the millennials, generally thought of as adults from ages 19 to 35, became the age group to make up the biggest chunk of the American workforce. So it should be no surprise that when businesses want to attract the masses, they make sure what they’re doing makes their millennial customers happy.
And good, healthy food makes millennials happy. The push to eat healthier, more eco-friendly foods like cage-free eggs and the rise of the meal preparation companies that send customers nutritious, fresh ingredients that they can quickly make into a cooked meal – that’s all been attributed to the influence of the millennials.
Some of the fascination with food may be due to millennials being so linked to technology. When the author Eve Turow was discussing her 2015 book (and this title is a mouthful), A Taste of Generation Yum: How the Millennial Generation’s Love for Organic Fare, Celebrity Chefs, and Microbrews Will Make or Break the Future of Food with The Atlantic, Turow said: “We have formed into a society that’s so accustomed to sitting in front of a screen and typing, for the vast majority of the day. And the truth of the matter is that it’s not exciting all of our senses. Through interviews over and over again, I kept hearing that people want something that’s tangible, that they can see and feel and smell and taste and that we’re the guinea pigs of growing up in that [digital] world.”
So with the new year here, how will millennials continue to shape how we eat and think of food in 2017? A few educated guesses include…
You may start thinking of what you eat as an extension of your personality. That is, if you don’t already do that. Wanda Pogue, chief strategy officer at Saatchi & Saatchi New York, a creative advertising agency, has a lot of experience working with food brands. She believes that in 2017, Millennials and the next generation will continue to take the whole “you are what you eat” to an entirely new level. That is, food isn’t just about good nutrition but that what you eat says a lot about your identity.
“Just as people have always sought to express who they are through the clothes they wear and possessions they own, Gen Z and Millennials will further explore and express their identity through the foods they eat,” Pogue says. “Food has become just another platform for self-expression for both consumers and companies – a way to express creativity and even their sense of design.”
Pogue offers up an example of what she means: Kith Retail, LLC, a clothing and sneaker store in Brooklyn. When Kith opened up a cereal bar, Kith Treats Cereal Bar, on its premises in 2015, that was an extension of the business owner’s personality. Ronnie Fieg, the owner, apparently bet that his customers would find the idea of a cereal bar as much of a nostalgic sugar rush as he did. Evidently, his customers did. Fieg opened up a second cereal bar at another one of his stores.
Food photography will become even more important for businesses. Every since photography was invested, food-related businesses have always lavished attention to how they photograph food. (Here’s a 1988 newspaper article about a food stylist, or a food photographer. A November 19, 1964 article about food photography from The Baltimore Sun, which I found in my public library’s newspaper archive and isn’t available online, opened an article stating: “If you can’t make that pie or casserole to look like the yummy, appetizing advertisement you saw, don’t despair. The home economist who prepared it and the photographer who took the picture may have had problems, too. Possibly several souffles were baked before one was j-u-s-t r-i-g-h-t.”)
So this isn’t a new concept, but Pogue says that restaurants will be more conscious than ever as to “how their food will photograph and look on social media.”
Source: Forbes
