Gourmet Business October '19

Fresh Preparation

The Key To Drawing Millennials Into Our World

On the top of every industry participant’s mind these days should be deriving merchandising strategies to draw the Millennial generation into the world of housewares.  I believe that right now, we have the opportunity to accomplish this task by enticing Millennials into the kitchen by appealing to their sense of well-being.

This generation are very aware that eating foods that are minimally processed, and containing wholesome ingredients will help them feel good and live long, healthy lives.  On the other hand, they do also have time pressures, and active social lives.  They aren’t at an age where the majority has settled into a cocooning family life.  Many are still living in big cities, working long hours, and frequenting bars and restaurants in their free time where they can socialize with their friends and colleagues.  I believe the key motivation in attracting such a crowd to the kitchen will be to continue to drive home the point that preparing meals in their own kitchen allows them to control the ingredients and preparation method in such a way as to help them achieve their healthy eating goals.  

Of course, like any good thing, preparing meals for oneself does require a sacrifice.  That sacrifice is time and energy.  We can improve the time it takes to prepare fresh meals with helpful gadgets and appliances that can speed up the process of preparing fruits and vegetables into complete meals.  We can provide them with storage solutions that enable a person to bring their prepared meals to work to eat for lunch or save for another night when they anticipate having less time.  This is the way we will start to draw this generation into the kitchen, and get them comfortable with preparing their own meals.  Some will have successful results, and begin to experiment making dinner for friends and family on the weekends, creating demand for better kitchen products.  As they gain experience, they will realize that they have more needs for kitchen tools, tableware, and serveware.  Once we find the right starting point, I think the lifetime of projected purchases will be an upwardly sloping curve.

Pushing this starting point out into the future is only going to delay the growth, and keep sales suppressed.  I encourage you all to experiment, communicate using various media, and find the message that resonates with this group.  Those that get this right will both engage the next generation of consumer with their brand, and benefit from repeat business for many years in the future.