It seems like nothing is safe from Millennials, and with the exception of the hallowed avocado, this includes food.
First, they came for your diamonds and beer. Now, they’re coming for your condiments.
When Sandy Hingston noticed that her mom’s tried and tested recipes weren’t getting any attention from the kids at family gatherings, she did some investigating.
She wrote up her findings in an article titled How Millennials Killed Mayonaise, which was published last week in Philadelphia Magazine:
I racked my brain for the source of this generational disconnect. And then, one holiday weekend, while surveying the condiments set out at a family burger bash, I found it. On offer were four different kinds of mustard, three ketchups (one made from, I kid you not, bananas), seven sorts of salsa, kimchi, wasabi, relishes of every ilk and hue …
What was missing, though, was the common foundation of all Mom’s picnic foods: mayonnaise. While I wasn’t watching, mayo’s day had come and gone. It’s too basic for contemporary tastes — pale and insipid and not nearly exotic enough for our era of globalization. Good ol’ mayo has become the Taylor Swift of condiments.
Since its publication, in true Millennial fashion, the subtle political undertones of the article were ignored and people focused on the real question: are Millennials really killing mayonnaise?
Here’s Mental Floss:
As evidence of the eggy mixture’s untimely demise, the article’s author, Sandy Hingston, cited BuzzFeed headlines outlining why mayonnaise is the “devil’s condiment” and pointed to her personal experience of having to bring home potato salad and deviled eggs that went untouched at a family cookout.
Hingston went on to write that 20-somethings “would sooner get their news from an actual paper newspaper than ingest mayonnaise.”
There seems to be some truth to the idea that mayo is on the decline:
Business Insider did some digging and discovered that mayonnaise sales are, in fact, down. In the U.S., sales fell 6.7 percent between 2012 and 2018, according to Euromonitor.
To sell their products, Hellmann’s and Kraft have been forced to lower mayonnaise prices, which fell 0.6 percent from the beginning of 2017 to 2018.
And, Millennials tend to get blamed when sales numbers tank in particular industries because, as of 2018, they are the largest generation alive and also account for the most spending power.
Houston suggests that Millennials don’t like mayo because it jiggles, it looks like a gross bodily fluid, and it seems like “a boring white food”, as opposed to something exotic, like aioli (which is really just fancy mayo with garlic).
Don’t panic just yet though, because you won’t be losing that braai-staple potato salad anytime soon:
…while Millennials may have “deeply wounded mayonnaise,” according to Business Insider, it probably won’t disappear from store shelves anytime soon. Instead, companies are getting creative and releasing new mayonnaise products, like Heinz’s new Mayochup (mayonnaise and ketchup) and Real Mayonnaise, made from cage-free eggs, lemon juice, oil, and vinegar. Many supermarkets also sell garlic, herb, hot and spicy, and lime variations.
Jason Dorsey, who has the worst job in the world researching Millennials at the Center for Generational Kinetics, says that:
The real issue is not that Millennials are not killing industries or businesses, but businesses aren’t adapting.” Jeff Fromm, the president of consulting firm FutureCast, agrees: “Millennials are the canary in the coal mine regarding trends. Innovation is going to be required.”
In other words, Millennials are dictating everything, ‘literally’.
God help us all.
[sources:philadelphiamag&mentalfloss
