The
time: Wednesday April 4, 5:27pm.The place: Aisle 1 of Safeway, suburban Denver, Colorado.
The players: Marie, Alex and Cara Torres.
The mission: Select nutritional provisions for the coming week’s menu.
It is approaching 5:30 one blustery April evening, and Marie Torres and her 11-year-old twins Alex and Cara are expertly steering a shopping cart into the canned food aisle at their local Safeway supermarket. With an intricately plotted calendar of soccer matches, Girl Scout meetings, tai-kwon-do class and homework, this particular evening is the only unclaimed block of time available to plan their menu for the week.
Along with many of the 60 million kids of their generation, Alex and Cara have taken an active role in shopping for the family's groceries. Consumer analysts estimate that American kids directly influenced $190 billion of their parents' spending in 2000. With a growing legion of working mothers and an overall decline in the number of children per household, trends indicate that American kids are making more decisions in the grocery aisles. This independence extends to the kitchen- a 1999 survey found that 12-17 year old kids are preparing 95% of their own meals.
Who are these young consumers, A.K.A. Generation Y? Born between 1977 and 1996, Gen Y-ers spend an average of $608 per year on food and drinks. They are more ethnically diverse and sophisticated than any generation before them, have busy after-school schedules and tend to use cell phones and pagers to stay in touch. They also heavily utilize the Internet not only to make online purchases, but to also learn about new products.
All of these factors add up to a more empowered, adventurous and subsequently, more informed young consumer. Though surveys have found kids are increasingly influential on grocery purchases overall, nowhere is it more apparent than in the snack food segment. Studies find that Gen Y-ers tend to snack away from home, prefer individually packaged items and like to try new, fun products. Kids' foods today are in turn, highly portable, come in new "extreme" flavors, have multi-purpose packaging and often possess fantasy or interactive themes.
For example, one recently developed concept beverage, called Swirl 'n Swig, allows kids to custom-mix their drink by choosing flavor combinations and adjusting the flavor's strength. Another hot product among the tween set are Mickey Mouse Fruity Peel-Outs, fruit snacks featuring peel-out shapes of various popular Disney characters.
Alex spies the neatly-lined row of cheddar-flavored Nabisco Sportz crackers, a personal favorite on the snack menu. He pitches a box into the cart from six feet away, eliciting a scowl from Marie. "Can we please not play with our food until we get home, Alex?" she half-quips.
She's right though- the latest trends in kids' foods are snacks designed for play. In the great tradition of animal crackers and bubble gum, food manufacturers have been dishing up kids' foods in inventive ways, with product packaging that transforms into toys, or brightly-colored Heinz ketchup with easy-to-grip, molded bottles, encouraging true creativity with condiments.
Cara holds a box of Yoplait Go-Gurt in one hand and a package of Dannon Danimals in the other, silently weighing the options. Both products are handsomely designed, sporting bright colors, engaging cartoon characters and portable, easy-to-grip packaging. Yogurt-on-the-go was a hands-down favorite among consumers last year, and a host of new products are currently in development to add to the mix. Cara opts for the Go-Gurt this week, and the family heads for the checkout line.
As kids grow more discerning and sophisticated about their food, manufacturers continue to respond with products that fuel imagination and creativity. The Torres kids are but two of an entire generation of movers and shakers, players and trendsetters- a multitude of Gen Y-ers on the lookout for culinary innovation.