Where people, culture, and food collide.
Delivery apps aren't dying. But a real countertrend is building alongside them: Gen Z and Millennials are choosing the in-person, tactile version of grocery shopping, on purpose.
Farmers market attendance is up 18% year over year in 2026, and community gardens are up 13%, per Eventbrite.
By May, 2026 had already outpaced all of last year's full season. This isn't nostalgia. It's a generation choosing analog on purpose.
Here's what's driving it, and what it means for your brand.
Grocery stores became content
Erewhon gets the headlines, $19 smoothies, celebrity collabs, 4x the revenue per square foot of a typical grocery store.
But the haul trend isn't just a luxury flex anymore.
Aldi and Trader Joe's haul videos are everywhere too, budget finds, weekly restocks, "under $100" challenges racking up views right alongside the Erewhon content.
The insight: this isn't about expensive versus cheap. It's about any store that gives shoppers something worth filming. Price point doesn't matter. A reason to post does.
The supermarket became a dating app
In Spain, Gen Z singles started ditching dating apps for Mercadona supermarkets, showing up between 7 and 8pm for what they call "flirting hour."
A pineapple placed upside down in your cart signals you're single. Bump carts with someone else's upside-down pineapple, and it's a match.
The trend, dubbed "Tinder-dona," got so big that some Mercadona locations had to pull pineapples off shelves during that hour and call in extra staff to manage the crowds.
The insight: people didn't need the supermarket to change a single thing. They just needed a reason to be there, together, in person, instead of on a screen.
The store didn't build the moment. It just showed up as the backdrop for one people wanted anyway.
The aisle became a passport stamp
Travelers are increasingly building trips around grocery stores and local markets instead of restaurants, treating the snack aisle like a cultural checkpoint.
Nearly a third of Gen Z’s say they plan to visit supermarkets on their next trip abroad, specifically to find foods they can't get at home, per Skyscanner.
The insight: your product on a shelf isn't just inventory somewhere. To someone visiting from out of town, it's discovery.
The through-line
Erewhon, Mercadona, and grocery-store tourism are all proof of the same shift: the physical store isn't a backup plan to the feed anymore. It's the moment itself.
That means challenger brands need to stop designing exclusively for the scroll and start designing for the aisle: packaging that feels as good as it looks, textures and details built to be picked up and turned over, not just photographed.
It means treating in-store activations as more than a folding table and a tray of samples, think pop-ups, tastings, collabs, anything that gives someone a reason to linger.
The brands who win this aren't just showing up on shelf. They're building something worth walking into.
