Gallery: Specialty food sales on the rise

Millennials and their Boomer parents are driving sales in the specialty food market — encompassing products with limited distribution and a reputation for high quality — which grew to $88 billion in sales last year, according to the Specialty Food Association’s State of the Specialty Food Industry 2014 report, prepared in conjunction with Mintel International and SPINS.

“When the recession hit in ’07 Millennials reached maturity, and these children of Baby Boomers are now in their 20s and 30s,” said David Lockwood, director of consulting at Mintel. “[Twenty- and thirty-somethings] have always spent a lot on food and beverage, but this generation is different. They were raised to be more worldly and diverse and more well traveled than any previous generation.”