Kids or No Kids: How Millennials Are Grocery Shopping

By: Kelli Windsor, Director, Digital Communications, and Melaina Lewis, Manager, Communications, Food Marketing Institute 

We’re both Millennials, but we are about ten years apart in age and are at very different points in our lives. Melaina is single, has a solo-shopper household, and is charting her career path. Kelli is married, from a dual-shopper household and has a six-month-old daughter. While we might both fall within the same generation, our grocery shopping needs and preferences are very different, or are they? 

We decided to look at the U.S. Grocery Shopper Trends2018 findings on Millennials verses Millennials with kids and see not only if our personal habits match the trends, but also how closely in-line our habits are to each other. Here’s what we found:

Trends Finding: 43% of all Millennials report occasionally or fairly often shopping for groceries online. For Millennials with children, this figure jumps to 58%. 

Kelli’s Millennial Mom Take: I recently wrote about my reasons for not jumping on the online grocery shopping bandwagon, but I’ll also share that when it comes to purchasing some of the center store items like paper towels, shelf-stable items, etc., I am guilty of experimenting with online shopping. However, I’ve not made this a regular occurrence, but I do see how that could change. 

Melaina’s Take: A year ago, I found my digital shopping habits had moved from curiosity to comfort. I was actively experimenting with click and collect and various delivery models. This year, I find myself making more trips to my local store rather than filling my virtual shopping cart. I attribute this to the fact that I’m more comfortable in the kitchen and look to my store has a strong partner in helping me accomplish my health and wellbeing goals. 

Trends Finding: When it comes to online food shopping, Millennials lead the way across all methods for sourcing food with 16 percent using the click-and-collect method and 15 percent using the home delivery method. 

Kelli’s Millennial Mom Take: Before I was a mom I did click-and-collect grocery shopping a couple of times, mostly when I was returning from travel and didn’t have a lot of time to do a full shopping trip. So far as a mom, I’ve not made click-and-collect my staple way of grocery shopping, but I am entertaining the idea since it’s worked well for me in the past and I have several options in my area. 

Melaina’s Take: If I'm going to, I now lean on click and collect models for my center store items. When I’m out of regular household items, it’s so convenient to pick them up on my way home. 

Trends Finding: Millennials (especially Millennials with children) do expect that they will shop online more, specifically to help them in eating well. Twenty seven percent of Millennials believe they will shop more online in the next two to three years to help them in eating well. 

Kelli’s Millennial Mom Take: I do expect to shop more online in the future. I think as delivery improves and advances are made in technology that I’ll be increasingly likely to order grocery items online—especially nonperishable and household items. 

Melaina’s Take: I also expect to lean more heavily on my digital shopping skills in the future. For me, time is everything and it feels like I don’t have enough of it. I look forward to the day I purchase more perishable items online. 

Trends Finding: Fifty six percent of Millennials with children use at least one grocery-related app verses 32 percent among Millennials without children. Forty one percent of Millennials with children are likely to scan a label to learn more about the product, whereas, only 13 percent of Millennials without kids are willing to do the same. 

Kelli’s Millennial Mom Take: I've tested out a few general grocery shopping apps and never fell in love. But, as a new mom, I am more concerned about where my food comes from and how it is made. I tend to use the SmartLabel®app to answer those questions. My husband and I recently did a whole food cleanse to help us reset our systems a bit and spent a lot of time using SmartLabel to check ingredients and sustainability details on products. I’d say I use the app at least once a month in store while doing my regular grocery shopping. 

Melaina’s Take: I love my grocery store apps. I have and use several on my phone. I especially appreciate the customized experiences and alerts I receive to support my shopping trips. 

Download U.S. Grocery Shopping Trends