trying my first dot cake:

trying my first dot cake: This viral dot cake trend the most viral dessert in NYC @mandyeatsny This viral dot cake trend Dot cake Iced Latte Dot cake Iced matcha cream says so much about Gen Z's access to material goods and how food items like these are so quickly becoming a luxury item. refuse to lose my whimsy the most viral dessert in NYC @mandyeatsny The dot cake, like so many viral foods, is a made to be aesthetic cake with sprinkles: But really, this is the epitome of Gen Z's "little treat" culture. Vogue Business wrote a great article about our generation's 'economic nihilism' How should brands navigate Gen Z's economic nihilism? In response to the turbulent socioeconomic climate they've grown up in, young consumers are embracing escapist aesthetics, chaotic spending beyond their means and contradictory expectations. How can brands respond? BY AMY FRANCOMBE May 28, 2025 basically capturing our economic instability. money money money We can't buy houses, money money money we can't save money. We are in so much student debt. So hard for us to attain material luxury goods in our economic climate right now. So these types of items, these viral food trends, become luxuries instead. The Broken Plate 2025 Our flagship Broken Plate report documents the health of the UK food system and how it impacts our lives, and what must change to ensure healthy and sustainable diets are available and affordable to everyone. This year's publication, which uses 16 key markers to provide a snapshot of the food environment, shows good food has become increasingly hard to access and afford and high rates of obesity, tooth decay and decreasing healthy life expectancy are all common for our children today. At the same time, we see harm to our environment and planet, and the findings show unless action is taken, the consequences will continue to place avoidable pressure on the NHS and on the UK economy. How severe food insecurity is in the UK. Households in the lowest income fifth of the population would need to spend 85% on food to afford the government-recommended healthy diet Right now as food is increasingly more expensive. Of course, that places more emphasis and desirability on little treats like these. and desirability on little treats like these. dot cake. Just as we see with fresh food becoming almost a status as it's increasingly harder to access by cost, we're seeing the same thing with the states being able to access these luxury treats. Is Luxury Ready To Win Over Gen Z? In 2022, the luxury industry had 400 million consumers worldwide. By 2025, the number had dropped to 340 million. Sixty million fewer consumers in just three years. At the same time, new customers The luxury market is dropping. We're increasingly unable to access these goods. We think of things like, say, designer sunglasses, designer purses, but consumption of luxury goods is dropping, which is exactly why we connect to brands like coach like Prada opening cafes, doing, like, cafe pop ups in their store. Because in a time where for so many, it would be completely unfeasible to, say, walk into Prada and buy a purse, for many, their closest entry point to luxury goods would be to walk into a Prada café and spend £10 on a latte on a matcha. That very much is a realistic equivalent right now. But even still, it is a privilege and a luxury in itself to have your perception of luxury goods, say, change from material goods to things like a 10 pound cake to a Hailey Bieber smoothie. Because for so many, a luxury right now is just being able to access food in the first place. Like I said, in our cost of living crisis, food crisis, energy crisis, everything rising is so much. And often food is the first thing to be cut back. If it's not just skipping meals altogether, it's often things like going to food banks. And I keep coming back to this one ITV News investigation that they did into people's reality of the cost of living crisis in North Shields. I spoke to this woman called Liz, who was saying, it's a luxury now to be able to have a slice of toast because she cannot afford to use her toaster, she cannot afford to use her cooker because her energy prices have gone up so much. And this is a woman who works five days a week. And all this does is place even further emphasis, even further status on things like a 10 pound cake that's realistically a glorified school cake, a glorified Mexican cortadillo cake. These are such simple things even. Same with like the Hailey Bieber smoothie. Take a crumbl cookie. So many of our viral food trends are overpriced, aestheticised items, largely rooted in the aesthetic and Instagram quality of them. But in a backdrop of such economic insecurity, of cost of living crisis that impacts people's diets and what they eat, of course, that places further emphasis on these items as somewhat of a luxury. Well, at the same time, in that tier system of luxury goods, for so much of our generation, that is the most that can be accessed. Right now. I have two other episodes, the UK food system and improve our diets "food as a status symbol" whole food, fresh produce which I think you'd enjoy. But thank you so much for watching and I'll see you soon.