What to Eat When Having a Millennial over for Dinner

Abstract

Millenials are the generation everyone is talking about and the generation who loves to talk about themselves. More than just a media buzzword, researchers, marketers, and retailers are interested in how the soon-to-be-largest segment of the population is making food purchasing decisions. This paper uses the difference-in-difference method to determine the causal "millennial effect" on the share of income spent on various food expenditure categories. Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Consumer Expenditure Survey was used to identify how young people's food expenditures compare to older people's in 2015 and in 1980. Results indicate significant "millennial effects" that might have policy implications for future health care spending. Millennials have higher demand for cereal, beef, pork, poultry, eggs, and fresh fruit and lower demand for "other" food, and for food away from home relative to what would have been expected from the eating patterns of the young and old 35 years prior.

Are improvements in convenience good enough for consumers to prefer new food processing technologies?

“…Consumers in this segment, on average, consume RTH meals 69 days/year. This is somewhat aligned with findings in Conley and Lusk (2019) in that Millennials allocate less income towards frozen and prepared meals.…”

Food lifestyle patterns among contemporary food shoppers

“…95 years old and the measurement emphasis of health-related considerations, we found the age distribution differs by segments and younger consumers tend to fall in the passionately involved segment Conley and Lusk (2018). lend support to our finding that Millennials allocate food dollars differently, showing preferences for protein sources and fresh fruit over frozen and prepared meals.…”

“…Owing to our large nationwide sample covering U.S. food shoppers between 18 and 95 years old and the measurement emphasis of health‐related considerations, we found the age distribution differs by segments and younger consumers tend to fall in the passionately involved segment. Conley and Lusk (2018) lend support to our finding that Millennials allocate food dollars differently, showing preferences for protein sources and fresh fruit over frozen and prepared meals. Are differences in food lifestyle patterns and food purchase decisions between younger consumers and older consumers due to the aging nature of the life cycle or related to the cohort effects that are possibly identified by generational backgrounds?…”

Does the order of presentation of extrinsic and intrinsic quality attributes matter when eliciting willingness to pay?

“…In relation to the characteristics of panelists, the variable binary variable millennial equaled 1 if the panelist was born in 1981 or after, the binary variable for household size was 1 if the panelist household included three individuals or more, the binary variable self-reported as healthy equaled 1 if the panelist indicated a value equal or greater than 4 in a 5-point liking scale (1 = not healthy, 5 = healthy). Previous studies have suggested that age and health factors influence consumer preferences for convenience food (Brunner et al, 2010;Conley & Lusk, 2019;Costa et al, 2001;Geeroms et al, 2008;Zhang & Gallardo, 2018). The FTNS (Cox & Evans, 2008;Matin et al, 2012) score was measured.…”