“We are three or four generations removed from the farm,” said David Fikes, director of consumer affairs for the Food Marketing Institute. “There was a generation of people who said, ‘I don’t care where it comes from, I’m just glad that someone else is doing it.’ That day is over and gone.”
A panel of real, live Millennials — who, along with many people under age 30 at the event, sported ribbons labeling them as such — seemed to confirm the trend.
“We want to know where it comes from, and we want to be involved where we can,” said Miles Milliken, a senior at George Washington University, where he serves as an “eco-rep.”
“For a lot of kids, sustainability doesn’t mean anything anymore. It’s been green-washed,” agreed Jesse Schaffer, another GWU senior wearing a bushy beard. “Real food needs to reflect negative externalities.”
And here’s the problem: A lot of modern food production isn’t all that pretty. People have heard about “factory farms” and “frankenfood” made with genetically modified organisms, which has spurred labeling campaigns all over the country. Then there are marketing campaigns like Chipotle’s, which cast industrial agriculture as a dystopian world in which cows explode after being fed “petropellets.”