How We Eat

Consumer demands for smaller, more local food options will disrupt supermarkets.

The typical?supermarket shopping experience is probably not the most inspiring part of your day. Many supermarkets operate in strip mall-type spaces, featuring?big box shops and a huge, crowded parking lot, designed?to cram in as many cars as possible.?Today, the experience of navigating already-crowded parking lots has become even more complex, as now many supermarkets reserve spaces for customers who bought their groceries online and are merely picking them up at the store.?While you’re shopping, it’s doubtful you’ll see anything novel or compelling. But your shopping experience could change?dramatically soon, as new consumer expectations and crises such as climate change reshape the future of food.

“Technology helped big food get bigger in the 20th century, but in the 20th century, tech is helping us get smaller, more efficient, more democratic.”

In an age when consumers can buy practically?anything with the click of a button, people are gaining awareness of the life cycles of their food through digital technology. This growing awareness prompts many to demand more socially conscious and environmentally friendly options.?Consumers will likely?witness the disruption of supermarkets and the emergence of exciting new food futures.?For example, farmers could hydroponically grow and sell food locally in?greenhouses or repurposed?shipping?containers.?

Grocery store?customer experiences should be less transactional, friendlier and more educational.

Supermarkets can take inspiration from retail giants such as Apple and Sephora, which transformed the customer experience by training sales associates to wander around the aisles –?rather than stand rigidly behind a cashier desk – and engage in friendly interactions with customers. In produce departments, for example, sales associates could act as “produce sommeliers,”?engaging in?friendlier, less transactional interactions with customers?and offering food preparation advice and assistance. People already enjoy these informal and educational interactions at farmers markets, where they have opportunities to learn more about the food they consume directly from growers. Supermarkets would be wise to mimic this engaging feature.

“I’m struck by the fact that our produce sections have become so splendid, and our tastes so sophisticated, and yet the store exerts so little effort in selling us.”

Shoppers can learn about packaged foods through their ingredients lists. But they have access to far less information about the vast array of vegetables and fruits on offer; frequently, the only information?grocery stores share is on the price tag.

One strategy to bridge this information gap entails the future use of QR codes?to link consumers to information – for example, vegetable recipes or cooking preparation videos. Supermarkets should cater to consumers who are willing to spend more to shop conscientiously. Stores should embrace standard labeling, so people can better assess?whether their purchase aligns with their ethics.

For example, it should be easy for customers to understand which eggs are cruelty-free, but as it stands now, consumers must attempt to navigate vague labeling – for example, “cage free” or “all natural.” Supermarkets could use QR codes to connect customers to a video, for example, of the farm where the chickens laid the eggs.

Technology will?integrate?digital elements into grocery shopping.

Few customers enjoy grocery store checkouts. Often, lines are too long, people find the experience poorly organized, and shoppers?end up antsy and bored. In Western European countries, such as Sweden, people scan their own groceries?as they drop them into their carts, weigh their purchases to ensure they scanned everything correctly, then pay on the way out. This is a time-saving technology-enabled activity that supermarkets elsewhere might be wise to employ.?It also reduces labor costs.

“Our supermarket knows who we are, what we eat, when we shop, which brands we prefer, what offers we respond to.”

Customers could expect other technologically enhanced features to assist them with their shopping in the future.?If stores have access to your shopping history data, for example, they can alert you as you move through the aisles if your favorite products are on sale.?Your mobile device might connect to your smart fridge to tell you that you’re out of ketchup when you stroll through the condiment section.?While some customers might resent these intrusions, others will feel they gain a value-added shopping experience.

New farmers?are creating hyper-local, technology-enabled solutions to the climate crisis.

Square Roots –?a 20-acre basil farm located in the?parking lot of a repurposed industrial building in?Brooklyn, New York – embodies the possible future of urban agriculture.?The farm offers a local alternative to unsustainable industrial farming practices. Conventional farming practices rely on overplanting, and generate a billion tons of wasted, uneaten produce every year. Small urban farms like Square Roots challenge this?status quo.?Square Roots uses a?technology platform it can scale to grow its basil indoors during winter, adjusting conditions such as humidity and CO2 to mimic other climates, thus reducing shipping costs and gas miles. CEO Tobias Peggs?dislikes that retail stores reject any produce that doesn’t match their aesthetic idea of perfection, lamenting that people throw food away while over 800 million don’t get enough?to eat.

“Imagine the environmental impact we’ll avoid if we can grow less and still feed everyone.”

Today’s American farmers average 57 years of age and?their children are opting not to take over their farms. When these older farmers retire, members of?a younger generation must possess the skills to grow food. Farmers of 2021 are incredibly different from those 100 years ago. Few have farming backgrounds, and they must develop solutions to?climate change threats to arable land.?Square Roots invests in training?the next generation of farmers,?who must acquire skills?such as branding,?marketing and indoor-growing.?Due to climate change and intensive farming techniques, by 2069, farmers in the United Kingdom will no longer be able to grow food outdoors, so tech-enabled indoor farming approaches will become the norm.

The physical storefront of the future supermarket should be a unique, boutique experience.?

The design firm Carlo Ratti Associati showcased the project “The Supermarket of the Future,”?which featured an experiential store, at the 2015 Milan World Expo. Visitors?encountered futuristic design elements such as smart mirrors hanging above produce displays that displayed information about vegetables and fruits to anyone passing. Designer Carlo Ratti embraced the idea that every product had its own story – for example, where was an orange grown? – and used striking design elements to embed?that narrative?into the shopping experience.

“When people consistently say they are pressed for time and want to spend less of it shopping for food, will they fall in love with stores that offer experiences instead of efficiencies? Or do we want both? Don’t we always?”

There may soon come a day when traditional supermarkets are obsolete.?Ratti works with the assumption that in the future, people will use the convenience of apps to buy staples – such as toilet paper – and have them delivered, thus avoiding the supermarket.?He believes that when?people choose to?shop at physical storefronts, they’ll do so because they enjoy the unique experience.?

In the alcoholic drinks market, luxury brands don’t always have?a competitive advantage.

Humans have been drinking alcohol for at least 11,000 years. Wine residue was found in stoneware cups from China’s Stone Age.?Drinking is about much more than the beverage?itself. People pay for the privilege of sitting in a nice, social bar environment and to enjoy the company of others. When people wear Tobii eyeglasses, which connect to an eye-tracking system, researchers can tell exactly where a person’s pupils gaze, and thus, what they pay attention to when they enter a bar – the center of the beer tap list.

“Who knew that putting some blue and silver ribbon on a bottle of prosecco would make it so popular?”

People are opting to bypass more expensive brands – for example, those by champagne producers – in favor of cheaper, well-packaged beverages, such as prosecco.?People often care more about the packaging and label of an alcoholic drink than the drink itself. If you want to improve your competitive advantage, consider investing in more appealing packaging.

Corporations profit when people eat unhealthy, ultra-processed foods.

The most unhealthy food group in the NOVA food classification system – a system that essentially holds that the more a food item?undergoes certain forms of?processing, the more it tends to be bad for you – carries the label “NOVA Group 4.” This food group comprises ultra-processed junk foods such as sodas containing artificial ingredients and items with ingredients such as?high-fructose corn syrup and?hydrogenated fats. Once a healthy staple, today many shelf-stable grocery breads fall into this group, due to the long list of chemical ingredients manufacturers now add to bread.

Over half of the calories that?people living in the United States and United Kingdom?eat every day come from the Group 4?category. Countries with more traditional diets, such as Portugal and Italy, consume significantly less of?these items.

“Major corporations would lose billions in sales if we really stopped eating junk, which is cheaper to produce than whole foods are to grow or raise.”

Corporations have a vested interest in continuing to sell heavily processed foods from Group 4. Junk food is cheaper for food corporations to produce, as it doesn’t require refrigeration and has a longer shelf life.

Nutritionist Marion Nestle critiques the food industry’s pushing of ultra-processed foods.? She expresses frustration that companies keep trying to brand ultra-processed foods as healthy – such as vegan meat replacements?using ingredients like?pea protein – because, she explains, such foods cannot offer the health benefits of foods with little or no processing.

Push back against Big Food to protect younger generations.

In the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, Grubhub’s data analytics revealed that its younger user base mostly ordered wine,?cake,?boba tea,?beer?and doughnuts. Millennials snack more than any generation. Young people today, for example, enjoy eating breakfast cereal straight from the box.?American food companies invest almost?$2 billion each year into marketing targeted toward children. When child influencers promote food, 90% of the time they hawk junk food. The youngest generations are on track to develop unhealthy habits, as have previous generations.

“Rescuing our kids from the clutches of junk-food hucksters sounds like a worthy goal, and I wish campaigns like this all the luck in the world. But I wonder if big food isn’t already too big to tame.”

The United Kingdom recently voted to ban junk food advertising, while the public school system in New York City switched to serving students lunches with locally-sourced, healthy ingredients. Perhaps there exists a glimmer of hope that people can take back control over the foods they eat.