Consumer Dining Insights: Youth Will Be Served

Who is Generation Y and what does it want from foodservice?

By Scott Hume, Executive Managing Editor -- Restaurants & Institutions, 3/15/2007

How can foodservice be expected to cater to a demographic when there’s no agreement about what to call it, who it includes and how many members it has? Most call it Generation Y, except for those who prefer Millennials, Echo Boomers, Net Generation or one of many other alternatives. Which is fine, because this is a group that aggressively resists being pigeon-holed by a snappy moniker for marketing purposes.

That may be because this generation is on to marketing, knows when it’s being targeted and prefers to dodge rather than receive brand messages too obviously tailored to reach it. Also, it is an amalgam of so many sub-cultures—from computer geeks to fashionistas—that Gen Y doesn’t believe any one name possibly could do it justice. This is a generation educated by the Web rather than television, and, according to Nike executive Mary Slayton’s often-cited 1999 quote in BusinessWeek, "Television drives homogeneity. The Internet drives diversity."

Loosely, we’re talking about roughly 80 million Americans born between 1980 and 2000, so, to add yet another label, they can be thought of as Generation RBC, encompassing the disparate presidencies of Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton, a progression from conservative to centrist to liberal that epitomizes the rapid pace of socio-economic change since Gen Yers were born. Consider that in 1980, IBM hired Paul Allen and Bill Gates to create an operating system for its personal computers; in 2000, 51% of U.S. households (to say nothing of U.S. workplaces) had personal computers.

Gen y It’s no wonder, then, that developing dining concepts and writing menus that appeal to Gen Y can prove frustrating. It should be easier: the sons and daughters of baby boomers—who transformed dining out from a special-occasion event to a nearly daily part of life—grew up with dine-in, drive-thru and takeout meals. But Gen Y’s tastes in food and experiences are eclectic and ephemeral. It is used to "the next big thing" coming down the pike with regularity; even more, it likes to define "new" for itself.

Gen Y is more inclined to try new restaurants than are older demographics, according to R&I’s New American Diner Study. They are more likely to describe themselves as adventurous diners and to say they expect an "experience" from a meal than are older demographics. Many of its members are students or still live student lifestyles, so Gen Y isn’t big on morning meals, but it thrives on mini-meals between lunch and dinner (unlike Gen X, which prefers late-night snacking).

In the spirit of Gen Y’s diversity, what follows are some additional names for this age group as well as information foodservice operators can use to decide what, when and how it wants to eat.

Consumer Dining Insights: Youth Will Be Served
50%	Percent of New American Diner Study’s Gen Y respondents who strongly agree that “Food tastes better at a restaurant than at home.” Supermarkets are a source for prepared meals for 44.3% of Gen Y, not a warehouse of ingredients. This is a generation that is used to getting what it wants. But while it may not understand why anyone would want a cake if it couldn’t eat it, too, it doesn’t know how to bake a cake. Or a chicken. Gen Y is comparatively more likely to use a drive-thru window or have food delivered for dinner than are other groups.
18%	Percent of Gen Y who say they had ordered wine in the past year, according to R&I’s 2005 Tastes of America Study, but it may not necessarily have been because many of its members are under-age: 36% of Gen Y respondents say they ordered a cocktail. That bests the 32% of baby boomers who say they ordered spirits.
14%	Percent of Gen Y respondents to R&I’s New American Diner Study who strongly agree they are “making a sustained effort to eat healthy at restaurants,” which is lower than for any other age group. They are the least likely to say that nutrition issues influence their meal selections, although 24% strongly assert that they like menus that provide nutrition information.
53.6	Average minutes per day teens 12 to 17 spent online during September 2006, according to Nielsen/NetRatings. The five most popular sites for teens that month were PLyrics.com, Snapvine, WhateverLife.com, QuickKwiz and PureVolume. Nearly 25% of Gen Y members agree strongly that “Restaurants I choose reflect my personality”; 16% strongly agree that restaurant choices “reflect my social status,” according to R&I’s New American Diner Study. Both percentages are higher than for other age groups.
25%	Percent of Gen Y who say bottled water accompanied their most recent restaurant lunch (versus 8% of baby boomers); 12% say they ordered bottled water with their most recent dinner (also highest among all age groups). Gen Y is less likely to order a soft drink with dinner than is Gen X, more likely to choose pop at lunch. For Gen Y, coffee may have become a separate-occasion indulgence—at Starbucks or wherever--and less a meal beverage: Only 29% say they have ordered it in a restaurant in the past year, compared with 45% of Gen X and 52% of baby boomers.
68%	Percent of Gen Y members who frequently eat dinner away from home who say they’re likely to order something different from what they usually eat at home (compared with 58% of their baby boomer parents). Gen Y is the only age group that selects chicken as its likely entrée of choice if it were going to be dining out tonight. Gen Xers most often say they’d order steak or beef; baby boomers are most likely to predict fish/shellfish as their choice. However, Gen Y also gives pasta a stronger vote of confidence as an entrée choice than does any other demographic.