Millennials Spend Less On Groceries Than Any Other Generation, Research Shows

Flickr / Bruce A Stockwell

We may like our avocado, but it turns out that we millennials don’t spend as much money on groceries as one might think. U.S. Census Bureau data shows that millennials make up for 26 percent of the total population as of 2014, and yet a new survey finds that the demographic spends less on groceries and fresh foods than previous generations, including Traditionalists, Baby Boomers and Gen X’ers. Is it too early to say we’re “killing” grocery stores?

The Economic Research Service surveyed respondents that fell into the millennial, Traditionalist, Baby Boomer and Gen X generations of varying incomes, with equal numbers of households in each group. The respondents answered questions about food preference, as well as cooking and grocery shopping tendencies.

The results? Millennials with higher household incomes spend more on groceries than millennials with lower household incomes, but overall, millennials spend less on groceries than any other generation. The research showed that millennials on average spend just $80 per month on groceries while Gen X’ers spend $85, Baby Boomers spend $135 and Traditionalists spend $154.

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In terms of specific foods, millennial shoppers were shown to purchase more prepared foods, pasta and sugar/candy than the other generations. Millennials spent 13.6 percent of their grocery budgets on these categories compared with 12.4 percent of Gen X’ers’, 11.5 percent of Baby Boomers’ and 11.2 percent of Traditionalists’ household grocery budgets.

Even more interesting: on average, millennials only spend 88 minutes per week doing food preparation, presentation and clean-up, which clocks in at 55 minutes less than Gen X’ers who spend 143 minutes. And, grocery trips decrease with each younger generation (Traditionalists frequent grocery stores more often than Baby Boomers.).

We may love our food, but we clearly don’t love our grocery stores. We’ll always reach for the avo toast…if someone makes it for us.