Zoomers: Clean, green and keen
Last weekend a very popular 20-year-old international pop artist performed a live concert in Brisbane. It was a normal concert by Gen X standards with the usual line ups, overpriced food and drinks along with thousands of hyped-up fans. What was different about this occasion however was the ‘plant-based diet’ advertising just prior to the main stage concert, and the ‘social conscience’ aspects of the performance.
Make no mistake, the plant-based movement is one horticulture hasn’t yet capitalised on, however not eating meat is only one part of the movement. Videos of ocean life, protest signs, and speeches about protecting our planet were interspersed with high energy songs. It was like a well organised, yet far more subtle Midnight Oil concert.
You may well be asking, why are music concerts important to this column? The answer is not so much the concert, but the audience. The audience was predominantly made up of Generation Z, or the Zoomers, as they are fondly known due to the fast-paced upbringing of the generation.
Unless you have made a conscious effort to get to know the 10–24-year-olds in your life, as a grower, there’s a chance you haven’t given the demographic much thought. If this is the case, my advice is to start thinking about them, and their 2 billion interconnected friends.
Gen Z accounts for over 33% of the world’s population. They are the early adopters having no knowledge of life without internet. They are the people with the ability to influence potential buyers of a product or service by promoting or recommending the items on social media – yep, it’s a real job aptly named ‘influencer’. They don’t just represent the future; they’re actively going about carving one out that suits them. They are food and health minded. They expect those of us connected to food and agriculture to rethink how food is grown, produced and marketed.
They’re our current and future employees. They’re the ones talking about sustainability, ethical sourcing and packaging. And they’re the ones who, with a bit of energy invested into some deeper understandings of their behaviour, we can turn into our biggest consumers and advocates.
