Supermarket Perimeter - January 2021 - 10

by helping customers connect those dots across the store to form
their plate. "
Cross-merchandising, recipes and meal ideas are also particularly
helpful to this generation of shoppers. For two generations always on
the go, convenience is key, noted Darren Seifer, New York-based NPD
Group's food and beverage industry analyst.
" Everyone's been making more meals in the home, " said Seifer. " So
what consumers, Gen Z and millennials, are looking for right now are
meal solutions. Gen Z, especially, is very much in that life stage where
they are possibly going into their ﬁrst home and they don't have that
mental cookbook. "
The popularity of meal kits has shot up with younger generations.
Seifer noted that grocers have an opportunity to put together their own
meal kits more efficiently than meal delivery companies because there
are so many options already at their disposal.
" If we think about it, if that consumer walks into the
store and the ﬁrst thing they see is the meal kit, right off
the bat that answers the question of what's for dinner. So,
it helps transform the store and also provides a solution. "

Telling a story

54% of Gen Z
and 65%
of millennials
reported
shopping
for groceries
online in
2020.

The main driver behind purchase decisions for
millennials and Gen Z, isn't price, it's transparency and
personalization.
" Some might say the pandemic actually accelerated
their interest in buying with purpose, " said Shelley
Balanko, senior vice president of the Bellevue, Wash.based Hartman Group. " The pandemic showed us the
very tenuous nature of the global supply chain. And then of course,
with the eye toward social injustices and biases in our society, it's the
younger generational cohorts who are paying attention to this and
feeling mobilized to purchase in a way that makes a difference. "
The easier it is for young shoppers to ﬁnd out more information
about speciﬁc products, the better.
IRI's Parker suggested using signage-or for online shopping, web
page callouts-to highlight speciﬁc product attributes.
While fresh products can help millennials and Gen Z meet their eating
goals, Parker pointed out that the frozen department has done a better
job of playing up to younger generations' needs and desires and fresh
departments should take note, she suggested.
While changes don't come often in the fresh department, frozen foods
are constantly evolving with various assortments catering to individuals
rather than the masses. This resonates with young shoppers. In the
frozen section there is more of a variety of serving sizes and ﬂavors, and
packaging is often far more descriptive than most fresh item packaging.
Retailers can help close this gap by making information about fresh
products more easily available, This can be accomplished through
signage or even QR codes, that these technologically ﬁt generations
can quickly pull up on their phones. Plus, fresh foods already have the
advantage of products that come from easily transparent backgrounds.

Health and wellness
The fresh perimeter is particularly poised to engage with younger
consumers and cater toward the beneﬁts they want from their foods:
10 - JANUARY 2021

health and wellness. 71% of millennial and Gen Z shoppers look for
foods with healthful beneﬁts whether that be foods that help with
eating in moderation (70%), are high quality (66%), have speciﬁc beneﬁts
for the body (63%) or are holistic (61%).
" One thing the pandemic has really done for all consumers is
highlighted the importance of eating for wellness, " Balanko said. " And
when I say eating for wellness, for younger consumers in particular,
they deﬁne wellness most holistically. For them issues around stress and
anxiety are more salient than say chronic conditions. "
Balanko noted that telling a holistic wellness story goes back to
being transparent.
Products that are sourced more intentionally, sustainably and
ethically seem inherently healthier, whether they actually are or not.
According to Balanko's research, younger generations consistently
index higher on searching for foods that are organic,
free-from, sustainably produced, locally made and
ethically sourced.
When it comes to deciding which product attributes
to highlight, Balanko suggested using blanket terms to
help items appeal to different generations for different
reasons. For example, let the organic product attribute
tell the Boomer that the product will be better for
helping them avoid various cancers, while the millennial
interprets the same attribute as buying that product
is doing something for the greater good in terms of
environmental sustainability.
" We often say the days of groceries being all things to
people are gone, right? " said Balanko. " But we do believe
that you can still speak to a broader swath of folks if you really just focus
on the product attributes and let them infer the relevent beneﬁts. "

Moving past COVID
Over the last year, coronavirus has quickly accelerated the trends most
relevant to young shoppers, but will those changes in consumer habits
stick around? It all depends on what the industry does next, Parker
predicted.
By May 2020, 40% of Americans reported buying groceries online
within the last three months, almost double the amount that reported
doing so in 2019.
According to FMI's Grocery Shopper Trends 2020 report, 54% of Gen Z
reported shopping for groceries online in 2020 while 65% of millennials
did so, and 76% of millennials with kids. The generations that grew up
online are expected to continue online shopping patterns, but they need
the same variety and access to products as they would get in the brickand-mortar store.
" There is such an opportunity, " Parker said, " Five years from now will
Gen Z and millennials potentially go back to their old food buying and
cooking habits? Only if we don't make it easy for them to continue the
current habits they have developed. "
To do that, Parker said, " We have to embrace the digital shopping
experience and the digital inspiration experience. We have to connect
with them where they are and with what they want. This is an
incredibly curious set of consumers and we need to stoke the curiosity
using digital media and personalized connection. "

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