New Food and Beverage Choices Fill Millennials’ Shopping Carts in Phoenix

Which food and beverage choices did you purchase the last time you needed something to eat or drink? Was it a green tea or maybe a breakfast smoothie? If so, you might be one of the many Phoenix residents who have recently posted online about your experience.

According to a recently released study by CBD Marketing, Millennials, or those between the ages of 18 and 35, have played a key role in changing “long-standing truths” within food and beverage categories. The research analyzed 10.8 million social media posts and other online content specific to food (8.6 million) and beverage (2.2 million) product groups. Frequently used hashtags for foods included #healthy, #organic, #naturalfood, and #healthyfood), while #greentea, #healthy, #coffee, and #tea were seen most frequently for beverages.

Even though Millennials are tech savvy and share their thoughts and buying habits frequently and openly, it would be a mistake to treat all Millennials as one group. Millennials consist of three overlapping subgroups whose differences can greatly impact their preferences. Some are college students or living at home, others are out of college and just entering the workforce, and others are buying homes and starting families.

And don’t forget to consider other Phoenix demographics when monitoring social media insights. For example, women created 62 percent of the content while men created only 38 percent. The study also found that “Millennial men and women use very different descriptors when talking online, so it’s important to use language that reflects your target audience.” The top terms used more frequently and often by women include love, amazing, good, best, favorite, enjoy, and delicious) while men used good, love, great, enjoy. Men also seemed to express negative options more frequently.

CBD Marketing’s Co-CEO Lori Colman said it best when she said that “businesses and brands that mine this treasure trove of online data will be the ones that market their products successfully.” In order to learn about your Phoenix employees’ food and beverage preferences for the office break room consider the following criteria.

Food Preferences

• Like healthy, natural foods; support alternative food distribution via meal delivery and meal services
• Buy from environmentally conscious manufacturers and purveyors; want transparency
• Gravitate to cultural flavors and foods like Scandinavian and Indian

Beverage Preferences

• Looking for green tea, kombucha and even traditional hot lemon teas
• Want flavored, sparkling and plain water, “better-for-you” drinks promoting energy, immunity, digestive health
• Enjoy plant-based milks and cold brew

How many of these healthy food and beverage choices are available for your employees in the Phoenix office break room? If you’d like to add more options or bring some variety to your current vending machine offerings, Southwest Vending can help. Contact us at 623.780.3036 to get started.