The Future of Food Is Williamsburg, Basically
There was a time, Ad Age tells us, when canned soup or cereal were considered "easy" foods to prepare and consume. Can you imagine? The package-opening, the pouring-out, the adding of milk or water—if that was "easy," people in the olden days must have had it rough! Kids these days know better. For America's Greatest Generation—the Millennials—the future of food is a simple process of raising the Tater Stuffer™ from the rotating 7-11 heating case into one's mouth in one smooth, painless motion.
If you hate food, Millennials, or mainstream American values in general, I highly recommend that you read all of Ad Age's report, "How America Eats Today," a shocking and penetrating portrait of our loathsome culture's ability to simultaneously combine sloth and elitism. Now that the middle class has died, the only classes of consumers left are A) loathsome "foodie" snobs for whom no flavor is obscure enough, and B) loathsome Millennials for whom no packaged chemical-laden Snak Pak is convenient enough:
Indeed, of the 10 fastest-growing in-home foods and beverage categories over the past decade, only two are routinely heated (pizza and pasta), while the rest are pretty much open-and-eat, such as nuts and chips, according to NPD. Even staples such as soup and cereal — once considered easy — have lost momentum to items that can be scarfed down on the go.
Brands are putting old products in new, convenient forms. For instance, Kellogg Co. this year launched Eggo Wafflers, which are flavored tear-apart waffle bars meant to be eaten right out of the toaster — no syrup needed. J&J Snack Foods Corp. has managed to squeeze hashed-brown potatoes, eggs, cheese green peppers and onions into rolled form for a grab-and-go product called Tater Stuffers that are making their debut on the roller grill at convenience stores. No utensils required.
"Millennials" living in "hipster hubs" demand "out of the ordinary" flavors, so long as those exotic flavors are packaged in a snack bar that can be eaten "on the go," to perdition. As these young Millennials inevitably age into elitist yuppie foodies, they will demand the same convenience, accompanied by an ever-rising level of non-mainstream food traditions, resulting in urban areas littered with an abundance of Banh Mi joints and Korean Taco stands. All of them owned by Kraft™.
