Which Generation Snacks the Most? It's Not Millennials

Broke teens and millennials aren't the only ones fueling solid sales of candy, potato chips and multi-grain pretzels.

Their hungry babyboomer parents can't get enough of the stuff, either. According to new research from NPD Group, boomers buy ready-to-eat snacks 20% more often than millennials do. Based on NPD's findings, a boomer eats 1,200, or a group total of 90.4 billion snacks, each year. Their millennial offspring eat about 1,000 snacks, or a total of 83.1 billion, per year.

Fruit (good ol' apples, etc.), chocolate candy and bars and potato chips rank as the top three picks for both groups. Boomers and millennials take different approaches to snacking, says the analytics firm. Nuts and yogurt are the choice among boomers, while millennials reach for the less-healthy tortilla chips and cookies. As for the drivers of snack binges, they differ.

Millennials will often pick a grab-and-go snack (like potato chips) from grocery store shelves, because they're hungry (and perhaps a little lazy). On the other hand, mostly boomers snack because they don't want to prepare a big meal and eat alone. Is the empty nest syndrome leading parents to soothe their sorrows in snacks? Perhaps.

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The propensity of both groups to snack continues to fuel solid sales gains for the snack food industry.

According to research from Nielsen, 2015 sales of salty snacks such as corn chips, multi-grains and popcorn rose 3.3% year over year, to $26.8 billion. Snack sales have increased in four consecutive years, with the biggest and most consistent gains seen in cheese snacks, meat snacks (such as beef jerky) and popcorn.