Zers and Alpha are In a Pickle

Every generation has a few defining foods. Figuring out what they are is an inexact science, to be sure, but they tend to feel intuitive – imagine a Greatest Generation mom serving Jell-O salad to her family in the '50s; Gen Jones Boomers in the '60s eating granola and sprouted grains; Gen Xers drinking Sunny D and eating colorful breakfast cereals while they watch Saturday morning cartoons in the '80s. 

And so, most recently, the totemic food of Gen Z has been declared: it's the pickle. And it's everywhere. And yet, if you've been tracking these trends as long as we have, it can also feel a little disorienting. Guys, didn't we just do this? 

You're right – Millennials were Pickle Generation 1.0. Back when they were still carefree 20-somethings, brands like McClure's were omnipresent at farmer's markets, pickling was a running gag on Portlandia, home fermentation classes were packed... it even led to a feature film about the pickle phenomenon starring Seth Rogen, An American Pickle.

So what's going on here? Are pickles the New England Patriots of food trends? Is Gen Z just copying Millennials' homework? The answer is a little more nuanced.

The key to understanding how two different generations both arrived at the pickle is to look at what it means for them, within their own food narrative. Bear with us.

In An American Pickle, Rogen's character is a 19th century worker at a Brooklyn pickle factory who finds himself accidentally preserved for 100 years; he wakes up in peak-hipster Brooklyn and decides to do the only thing he knows – making pickles. Millennial foodies, seeking authentic, handcrafted, small-batch foods, plus the gut-healthy benefits of natural fermentation, make his pickles a huge hit. This is all pretty spot-on, and a good primer on what drove mustachioed Millennials to farmers markets in 2009 to stock up on dills, half-sours and spicy hots.

Now, consider the products that come up when talking about Gen Z and pickles. There's the Hot Pickle Challenge, plenty of pickle flavored potato chips, pickle flavored ketchup, and a whole pickle menu at Popeye's. The distinction we see is that, for Zers, the appeal of the pickle is far more about intensity of experience than it is about reconnecting with traditional foodways.

Some of this is tied back to how pickles taste, of course; this is a generation that grew up eating Takis and seeking extreme flavors. But a lot of those extremes were also performative; from Hot Ones to mukbang videos, Zers experience food trends as another form of entertainment – a moment to engage with, experience, potentially transform into some TikTok or YouTube content, and then move on.