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Saturday, April 19, 2025

How GLP-1 Medication Are Slicing Down Grocery Spending



Ozempic, Mounjaro, and different glucagon-like peptide-1 drugs, in any other case generally known as GLP-1s, are altering how Individuals store for groceries. 

In early January, Meals & Wine revealed a narrative about how meals corporations are releasing all-new merchandise or reimagining the advertising and marketing of previous ones to attraction to extra GLP-1 customers who could also be in search of particular diet wants like high-protein, high-fiber meals. In that story, we talked about one tiny however vital analysis paper by Cornell College that confirmed that households with a minimum of one GLP-1 consumer are considerably lowering their grocery spending. However what, particularly, are they spending much less on?  

Within the paper, revealed on December 27, 2024, the researchers famous that they reached this conclusion after inspecting information from Numerator. Numerator hyperlinks survey responses from 150,000 households on GLP-1 medicine adoption and timing to meals purchases to offer a consultant panel of households in the USA. Importantly, its survey additionally took under consideration “off-label customers,” aka these people who find themselves not seen in insurance coverage claims information as their drugs are bought out of pocket, giving a extra “complete understanding of adoption tendencies.”

After taking a look at transaction information, the workforce used a “difference-in-differences” framework to match GLP-1 adopters and non-adopters and located that, on common, adopters diminished their grocery spending by 5.5% within the first six months, whereas higher-income households had a “notably bigger discount, averaging 8.6%.” 

The researchers then took it one step additional by analyzing 40 product classes to see the place GLP-1 customers are spending extra and fewer. They discovered that the most important reductions have been within the ultra-processed classes, together with “snack meals, sweets, and different calorie-dense gadgets,” together with different items typically related to “impulse purchases,” like chips and sweets.  

However the reductions in spending did not cease there. In accordance with the evaluation, GLP-1 customers additionally confirmed a decline in “food-away-from-home expenditures.” The researchers discovered that customers declined their spending at limited-service eating places, together with quick meals chains and low outlets, with the “most pronounced” reductions throughout breakfast and dinner instances. 

Nevertheless, GLP-1 customers did present will increase in spending in some grocery retailer areas. Particularly, the evaluation reveals that “nutrient-dense choices, similar to yogurt, recent produce, and diet bars,” have been the “least affected” by the modifications in buying. As Meals & Wine reported, that is seemingly why so many manufacturers are going all-in on their protein-rich meals.

Maybe most significantly, the analysis confirmed that this will not be a passing fad. It analyzed buying information 12 months into GLP-1 customers’ journeys and located that whereas the magnitude of reductions plateaus at round six months, it stays “damaging and statistically vital” a full yr later.

“Our findings spotlight the potential for GLP-1 drugs to considerably reshape shopper meals demand,” the workforce wrote, including that it is “a development with more and more vital implications for the meals trade as adoption continues to develop.”

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