The Field Guide To Millennial Foodies

CatchOn’s Future of Food │ Fourth Edition

They are the most scrutinised generation of our time.

And with good reason. While much has been written about millennials, this edition of CatchOn’s Future of Food series explores how this much-maligned demographic continues to change the world’s culinary scene.

If there’s one industry where their influence has had the biggest impact, it’s arguably food. Spurred by technological advances and connectivity, millennials have disrupted how restaurants are designed and experienced, altered how and what we’re eating and forced corporations and retailers to examine how they do business and create products.

Along the way, they’ve spawned a side industry of delivery and cooking apps, meal prep services, farming collectives, food influencers and historians, artisanal food products, lab-engineered protein and ‘nootropics.’

They’re eating consciously, mindfully and healthily, aware of how their choices impact their communities and the planet. Millennial-aged chefs are also revolutionizing dining. No longer a fallback vocation for aimless youths, the profession has earned a cachet of ‘cool’. Unshackled from the traditional dictates of cooking, they’re multicultural, multidisciplinary and creating cuisines that reflect their hybrid identities and passions.

Now in their late teens to mid ‘30s, as millennials move into their prime earning and spending years, they’re poised to become one of the largest generations in history. It’s no wonder they’re making us sit up and listen with a mix of exasperation and awe.

As historians and anthropologists look back on this period, this report aims to capture the zeitgeist of the time and identify the trends shaping the future of food.  To get the full report, email insights@catchonco.com.

Catherine Feliciano-Chon