I think there is a bug in the current yeoman generator. I was able to resolve this by using the plugin in the jhipster sample project.
<plugin>
<groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
<artifactId>spring-boot-maven-plugin</artifactId>
<configuration>
<arguments>
<argument>--spring.profiles.active=prod</argument>
</arguments>
</configuration>
</plugin>