Yet another careful study of shifts in spending on food and restaurant purchases tells us that yes indeed, GLP-1s will likely reshape markets for food. Food systems already feel it and are beginning to adapt. But truthfully, this is probably just a faint, flickering indication of what’s to come.

A Careful Analysis of Food Purchasing Behaviors

On December 18, Sylvia Hristakeva, Jura Liaukonyte, and Leo Feler published the latest research that points us to this conclusion. They carefully analyzed food purchasing behaviors from a sample of U.S. households where a GLP-1 user lives. This was spending both on groceries and on restaurants. The research appears in the Journal of Marketing Research.

In those households, grocery spending went down by 5.3% within six months of a member of that household becoming a GLP-1 user. In higher income households, the drop was even bigger – 8.2%. In spending at at fast-food chains, coffee shops, and limited-service restaurants, the decline was 8.0%.

The types of foods these household purchased also changed. Purchases of fresh fruit and yogurt went up, for example. Calorie-dense and highly-processed foods went down. The authors noted a 10.1% decline in savory snacks, for example.

Those changes persisted for the first year of a person becoming a GLP-1 user, though the effect faded a bit after six months.

Scoff at Your Own Risk

This is one more piece of a very big puzzle that is taking shape with surprising speed. We will admit to having been cautious about exuberant proclamations early on regarding profound shifts in food systems coming from wide adoption of GLP-1s. But more and more, it is becoming apparent that the choices people make in food and restaurant spending change profoundly when they get such an effective treatment for obesity as a GLP-1 agonist. The effects are real.

And what’s more, the adoption of these medicines is still in its early stages. In this study, they found 16% of households had a GLP-1 user. But there is a flood of new and better medicines for obesity. Health systems are catching up with the need for them. Even health insurers, though they might try to resist paying for them, are realizing that these medicines are on their way toward becoming an essential benefit. Their struggle is all about the pricing and financial impact. So prices are coming down.

Food Marketers Get It

Food marketers already see the writing on the wall. They are adapting, figuring out how to make money from genuinely healthier products that meet the needs of consumers no longer driven by food noise and obesity. The future of food systems will be very different.

It’s funny really, that the long-standing thought that promotion of healthier eating was more important than treating obesity has been turned on its head. We are finding out that when we deliver effective obesity treatment, healthier eating can be the result.

Click here for the study in the Journal of Marketing Research and here for a freely-available version from SSRN and Cornell. For further perspective, click here, here, and here.

The Onion Market, painting by Raoul Dufy / WikiArt