Those Meddling Kids (Gwen Moritz Editor’s Note)

When Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the Bentonville Behemoth where Job One Is Always Low Prices, announced that it would sell only cage-free eggs by 2025, our managing editor, Jan Cottingham, joked, “Those meddling kids!”

Now, it isn’t entirely correct to credit (or blame) the millennials for successfully demanding more humane animal husbandry. I know folks who have been squawking about corporate farming practices for longer than some of these young adults have been alive.

But it does seem that younger consumers are more likely to be concerned about things like sustainability, sourcing and materials, especially in food but also in other consumer products. (It never occurred to the younger me to wonder whether a plastic baby bottle or sippy cup could be dangerous.)

It was after Wal-Mart’s egg news that Jan interviewed Jamie Davidson, founder of Strong Suit Clothing, for a story that appeared in last week’s Arkansas Business. It turns out that tailored suits and cage-free eggs are just two examples of the difference in young adult consumers and their parents and grandparents — especially when the older generations were young.

Despite having daunting expenses for education, health care and child care, younger consumers seem less impressed with getting the lowest possible price on everything they buy so they can buy more things. Instead, millennials have spent their entire lives in a sea of consumerism, and they are picky about what they spend money on.

As Davidson put it, “People shop with much more intent now … They care about experiences more than stuff.”

That’s not to say they don’t buy stuff. They buy stuff that provides them with experiences. The latest smartphone, yes, because that’s part of their entertainment experience; Rolex watches, not so much.

When you think about it, you see this kind of streamlined, quality-conscious consumerism all around us. I don’t think “tiny houses” will ever be more than a fringe lifestyle, but the fact that shrinking houses to a few hundred SF is even a fad (complete with second-annual National Tiny House Jamboree coming to Colorado Springs in August) goes straight to the heart of the intentional (sometimes called “mindful”) consumer. If you are going to live with the fewest possible things, what will those things be?

Locally grown produce, local brews, locally prepared foods — I don’t think these are fads. Yes, they can be more expensive than the mass-produced versions that we boomers embraced, but consumers seem OK with a small uptick in the share of income going to food. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the share of income spent on food dropped from 17.5 percent in 1960 to 9.6 percent in 2007, but had actually risen to 9.9 percent in 2013.

This is the kind of thing that you can be sure Wal-Mart considered when announcing the switch to cage-free eggs. Currently, cage-free eggs can cost the consumer twice as much as eggs produced in the typical “battery cages” that restrict hen movement. But Wal-Mart has said that differential will decrease as cage-free ceases to be a specialty product and becomes the industry standard. Wal-Mart has decided — rightly, I suspect — that consumers of all ages will accept slightly more expensive eggs in exchange for a better standard of living for the hens.

(If you don’t think that consumer attitudes toward animal welfare have changed over time, you haven’t paid attention to trends in pet foods. Some of the dog food commercials touting quality and purity of ingredients make me feel guilty about the hot dogs and Velveeta I let my kids eat.)

Clothing is Davidson’s specialty, so I’ll trust him when he says that younger consumers (the ones who are buying his suits now that the boomers are retiring) value the knowledge that a garment is not made in a sweatshop. Clothing, like electronics, has become relatively cheaper during my lifetime, but American consumers of all ages have become painfully aware of the downsides to cheap manufacturing that is almost always overseas.

Which brings me back to Wal-Mart. Eggs aren’t the first crack in Wal-Mart’s effort to push prices eternally downward. The company has also sought out more American-made products and raised pay for rank-and-file “associates.” These are costly commitments, and they may not work.

But this is the kind of long-term thinking that Larry Fink, CEO of BlackRock Inc., the biggest investor in the world, has been calling for. All signs suggest that the old Wal-Mart mentality — more and more stuff made cheaper and cheaper — is approaching its sell-by date.

Gwen Moritz is editor of Arkansas Business. Email her at GMoritz@ABPG.com.