Picture this: You eat overnight oats first thing in the morning. Workout at the gym. You rush to meet a client, so you grab a breakfast burrito on the way. After the meeting, you head to your favorite cafe. You order a pretzel to go with coffee. You hang out with friends in the afternoon. You fish an oatmeal cookie from your bag on the way to a new cafe. You order a chicken sandwich. At night, you head down to a food truck with amazing empanadas.
You get the gist. Millennials are all about work-life balance. Somewhere in between meetings and hanging out, they squeeze a bite or two.
With the cost of living piping up at such high speed, this generation is caught up with paying the bills that they can’t risk losing valuable and productive time. This is why they’ve cultivated a snacking culture. 58% of Millennials eat snacks at least four times a day, and 40% of the time, they look for quick-service food.
As a result,investing in fast food franchises is more timely than ever.
As a food business, why do you need to cater to Millennials?
44% of Millennials’ budget goes to food. According to Technomic, a website focusing on foodservice research surveyed Eater Archetypes (EAT) and found that 54% of the demographic is Millennials. They also comprise the top three of these archetypes: Functional Eaters, Foodservice Hobbyists, and Busy Balancers.
- Functional Eaters look for nutritional value and low prices in their food, and they tend to patronize familiar places.
- Foodservice Hobbyists seek pallette adventure and are drawn to food that is worth the price.
- Busy Balancers are multi-taskers who rely on fast food for convenience.
Nutrition Facts
Nevertheless, the definition of “snacks” in this context has changed. Basing on calorie count, an ideal snack has around 200 calories.
Since this generation is thought to be the most informed, they have now brought it upon themselves to know what they are putting in their bodies. Granola bars, oatmeal cookies, and other packaged food filled with health benefits now fall on the snack category.
They think of the benefits: “Will it satisfy a craving or improve my health?” Sometimes, it’s both. Most times, one outweighs the other.
Consistency
For them, snacks should be delicious and filling. Millennials also tend to keep coming back for the food they like. Once they start trusting that a place is good, they patronize it, knowing that it will not let them down. Therefore, consistency in flavor should be achieved by the brand–perhaps, with a traditional passed-on-to-generations recipe.
Packaging
This is a generation that swipes left and right. This is a generation that uses Instagram. Be that as it may, superficiality is a recurring theme in the Millennial narrative.
Businesses should live up to this as well. It’s a “the eyes eat first” situation, but this time, it doesn’t get to be eaten if it doesn’t catch the eyes. This favors marketing as well since Millennials would tend to post it online and review the product.
Gen Y is an interesting generation. They’re shifting trends. After all, their idiosyncrasies are a reaction to the world they had to navigate, and they’re doing what they can to survive. It may be odd, but to a millennial, snack culture is the way to chase after productivity.
