Millennials are taking fewer trips to the grocery store

Last week, the Wall Street Journal reported that twenty- and thirty somethings are bidding adieu to yet another cultural mainstay of the Baby Boomer generation — shopping trips to supermarkets. With an abundance of options on the streets and at their fingertips, young shoppers are eating out at restaurants and bars, ordering in on their phones, or snagging groceries at convenience stores, such as CVS, and superstores, such as Walmart.

Supermarkets, meanwhile, are stuck in a middle that is being hollowed out by choice and technology. “I don’t think we’ve seen shopping change so dramatically ever,” Marty Siewert, senior vice president for consumer and shopper analytics at Nielsen, told reporter Heather Haddon.

But this story reflects two universal truths about culture. First, many cultural changes for which Millennials are initially blamed really reflect broader trends affecting even the oldest consumers. Second, many cultural changes are really reversions to old norms.

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