are groceries really a splurge?
on persistent millennial food stigmas and anxieties
Just when it felt as though we finally moved past the connection between millennials, housing, and avocado toast, that Business Insider article on groceries came out.
The headline about millennials looking to “splurge” more at grocery stores has quickly made rounds on social media. While I’m ever wary of headlines as clickbait, this one drove me to investigate the numbers behind it further. And of course, the actual study looking at spending habits across generations quickly pointed to a more nuanced story around food and cost-anticipation than the headline itself.
The article’s popularity feels as though millennials are again being called out by our eating habits and food feelings, rather than being seen as a generation that is doing the best with what we have available. By framing the idea of grocery purchases as a splurge, it continues to position millennials as lazy, selfish, and entitled around their food – rather than looking at millennial’s relationship with food under the lens of generational control, belonging, and purpose in society.
the business insider study on splurging
One of the striking elements of the McKinsey & Company survey that fuelled the Business Insider piece is that all adult generations were asked what they anticipate they will spend more on this year, which was then defined as a “splurge.” Across generations, almost all participants noted they were expecting to spend more on groceries this year than in previous years.
Millennials were anticipating spending more than other generations (though only 3% more than Gen Z participants). This category makes sense for a population that is also in the thick of parenting young children at home (I know — not all might be parents, but that does factor in). Grocery bills for family units tends to go up (as do the number of millennials making jokes about being bankrupted by their toddlers for berries). My average grocery receipt for a family of three was a solid $200-250 a week in 2021-2023, and the same number of groceries is now around $375 to $400, which doesn’t account for the unborn baby’s eventual addition.
These priorities in spending categories are notable in comparison to the baby boomers entering retirement and prioritizing dining out and travelling.
In the same McKinsey & Company report, Gen Z respondents were identified as those with the highest intent to splurge within the next three months – this was at 63% of survey respondents compared to 38% overall for all generations. Higher income Gen Z also had the highest interest in “treating yourself.” Even millennial trends around intent to splurge were most pronounced across higher income participants. While what constituted a splurge was driven by groceries for millennials, the general trend for all 4005 surveyed participants was that people expected to splurge or spend more at restaurants, dining out, or in bars.
Two things strike me about this survey:
A badly framed question shapes how we end up thinking about our food purchases – there is ambiguity in blending the ideas of splurging, treating yourself, and anticipating that you’ll spend more money in the coming months that makes this a difficult survey to feel representative of broader populations (at least in the States).
The question structure was a “select all that apply” which also means these responses aren’t really weighted by priority or importance.
I know that headlines are meant to attract more traffic and pull all the layered meanings and potentials from numbers to fit what will make people the most reactive. Yet with this headline, it returns to positioning millennials as foodies with quirky fad and trend diets that marked the 2010s discourse. It trivializes the very real concerns of a generation that has been shaped by multiple recessions, a pandemic, and climate change (to name a few elements).
hungry for what, exactly?
In Eve Turow-Paul’s 2020 book Hungry: Avocado Toast, Instagram Influencers, and Our Search for Connection and Meaning, she argues that the cultural trends of millennials and Gen Z that are initially deemed trivial or trendy are often signalling deeper yearnings (do you ever yearn, George?).
These yearnings or desires are in areas where needs are most unmet, what cultural values we’re emphasizing to be important into the future, and whether we’re working towards them for better social and community wellbeing. A 2016 report from the Organic Trade Association found that millennials (then aged 18-34) represented the largest group of organic food consumers in the United States, making up 52% of all parents in that time frame that bought organic foods. (In contrast, 35% of Gen X and 14% of Baby Boomer parents were purchasing organic foods at that time).
Obviously much has shifted economically and politically since that period, with climate change, global conflicts, grocery store inflation schemes, and other global supply chain disruptions shaping what food is available and when. Millennials have long found themselves in a position of additional financial hardship, graduating from college and university into the Great Recession and acknowledging a world where the cost of living reflects a new type of reality in which we live.
With the ever-looming recession, we’re seeing the return of economic ideas like the “lipstick index,” which suggests that cosmetic sales stay heightened during difficult economic periods, as shoppers favour lipsticks and other more affordable indulgences over higher-priced items. By the end of 2023 in Canada, beauty sales had increased by 18% (as analyzed by Circana), noting that “Even though [shoppers] may be pulling back on those bigger commodities, they're definitely still treating themselves to those little luxuries and beauty plays a nice part in that."
Turow-Paul questioned the idea of food-focused splurges being easily explained away as affordable luxury:
“With our financial realities, Millennials should not be waiting in lines around the block for raw cookie dough or leaving lucrative jobs to become pastry chefs, yet this is exactly what so many of us are doing today. Why, at this moment in time, has food culture become a fetish of the young?... Is it irresponsible for a generation facing horrendous debt and financial insecurity to be spending our time and money on artisan ice cream, single-origin chocolate, and home sous vide machines? What is it that we are so hungry for?”
Through her research, Turow-Paul identifies the link between food as affordable luxury and the unique backdrop to millennial and Gen Z lifestyles: that we grew up in the “anomalous and nascent digital world.” She sees the inclinations towards baking sourdough bread, the interest in Paleo or Keto diets, or the hyper-fixation on more tangible elements as coping mechanisms to make sense of our elevated digital world.
frozen foodies
In the TikTok era, this plays out in interesting contradictions. There’s a fine balance between taking interest and agency in a fractured North American food system and becoming a full-on Nara Smith-esque trad wife. Making bread, growing your own food (if you have access to land to grow it on), and the idea of “homesteading” (living a life of self-sufficiency) feel like an aspirational pathway away from the threats of A.I. warfare and cop cities that are shaping our current lives. Yet it is often the most privileged that maintain the access and ability to do so, which can push restrictive, hyper-conservative agendas about the roles of gendered domesticity.
There’s an urge for millennials to make sense of our financial and digital realities. How we can stretch a dollar to be more resourceful with our foods, return to strategies that our grandparents considered normal: preserving, canning, tinning and other Depression-era approaches to food and financial insecurities. A recent podcast guest, Jeff Swystun, spoke to me about the evolution of frozen meals and had mentioned that millennials have turned increasingly to the frozen food section for their meals. Other initiatives revolve around zero-waste cooking, batch cooking, and meal prep for the week (this one eludes me, I could not eat the same thing for six days straight).
I’ve spent the last few years thinking back to the tactics I observed my grandma practicing when I lived with her in my early 20s. Slicing and sugaring berries she picked to stretch them longer throughout the week, growing humble but efficient vegetable and herb gardens in her backyard, canning her garden tomatoes for chutneys and salsas to use through the winter, and scouring over deals at Costco and comparing grocery store prices to maintain dried staple foods. Even though she wasn’t in a position of need by then, she still approached food the way she would have when she grew up on a farm with more siblings than I can remember (8 maybe?). Admittedly, despite being invested in the quality and origins of my food early in my twenties, I did not pay much mind to food preservation until I was forced to with single parenting through a pandemic.
Millennials also have a persistent desire to eat more ethically and sustainably. We may not feel a sense of control over how regulated oil and gas industries are with their carbon offsetting, but we can choose foods and ingredients that reduce our own footprints. While the shift in frozen food consumption by millennials early in the pandemic may have been rooted in a sense of convenience, shelf-life, and ease of preparation during a time of reduced grocery trips and the inability to eat at a restaurant, what constitutes frozen food has changed as we become the primary drivers for sales.
Frozen entrees have changed to include a wider variety of plant-based, ethnic, and prioritize the idea of “better for you” foods that have transparent labels about where foods are sourced. Millennials now make up almost 48% of those purchasing frozen foods, and it certainly helps with reducing food waste when the alternatives tend to be expensive, rotting broccoli sitting in the produce section.
I don’t think it’s any surprise then, that the survey Business Insider reported on found that millennials were more devoted to groceries as a splurge than other categories. We’ve proven through the decades that food choices matter to us and offer an act of quiet protest, an ability to act on our values, and make sense of the very real financial landscape. Food is the tool that best reflects our attitudes, desires, and experiences.
Whether food represents a coping mechanism during a time that feels out of control, or as a comfortable entry point into broader sociopolitical issues, millennials can’t seem to escape the belittling that comes with it. In framing our groceries as a splurge, we again must explain ourselves to the world, as though we’re not trying our best to create lives that are sustainable (for ourselves and for future generations) in an inhospitable economy.
Thank you for reading! If you’re curious about Eve Turow-Paul’s work, consider checking out my conversation with her, linked here.
Paid Subscriber News
This Friday’s post for paid subscribers (April 19th) will be a transcript from an interview with Dr. Tina Sikka on how genetic diets and health tech are able to turn food into a surveillance tool.
Podcast Updates
AnthroDish Podcast has been putting out weekly episodes for the 8th season, with some really fun ones the last little while. Here’s the episodes that came out this March! I’ve linked their show notes pages but would encourage a listen on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.
The legendary chef and restaurant owner Len Senater on his newly-released, crowdfunded cookbook, The Depanneur Cookbook. If you lived in Toronto in the 2010s, this is a piece of history through cooking, compiling hundreds of recipes from all of the home cooks and newcomer cooks that passed through the walls of that very special place.
Torontonian YouTuber CharisMaggie (Maggie Leandre) on the relationships between food, language, and power, growing up in multi-cultural landscapes, and her new Kitchens of Toronto Season 2 series.
Māori scientist Natalie Patterson on weaving Indigenous and western sciences to create accessible access to microgreens.
Recipe developer Remy Park on developing meals that reflect her vegan and gluten-free lifestyle while maintaining her family histories, identities, and food cultures.
Certainly my grocery bill is high bc food costs are high and I have two small children. However, I do indeed “splurge” on groceries sometimes. Get that local kimchi that costs 50% more than the store brand, go ahead and buy the “fancy milk from happy cows” instead of the cheaper factory-milk. It’s more about prioritizing the quality of food over other “fun” stuff like dining out or new clothes.
Very well said. The irony is that many people don't even know the difference between Millennials and Gen Z. Living through a pandemic that resulted in severe shortages, price gouging, and inflation makes the life of a millennial much different than other generations.