This week, grocery analysts Kantar signalled a potential link between the use of weight loss medication and a fall in grocery volumes. Charlotte Hardie believes that the drugs’ adoption could have profound implications for retailers
As millions of people around the globe are shrinking daily owing to weight loss jabs, food and drink businesses need to consider the extent to which their sales will shrink too. The impact of this new wave of drugs is profound. Not just on people’s health, but consumer society as a whole.
This week, Kantar drew a line between the upsurge in weight loss medications and a decline in grocery sales – a 0.4% drop in volume for the four weeks to mid-June – the first year-on-year volume decline this year. In the same week, it was announced that GPs will be able to prescribe weight loss jabs on the NHS. There are already an estimated 1.5 million people using the medication in the UK alone today.
If you’ve ever observed anyone on weight loss medication, the link between this and a potential impact on food and drink sales will come as no surprise.
The effects are extraordinary. Overnight, users go from enjoying an indulgent 3,000-calorie-a-day life of excess to surviving on 400 calories per day (in the case of one person I know) without blinking. Gone is temptation. Gone are old habits. Gone is the weight. Sometimes to the tune of an astounding 0.5kg to 1kg day.
That huge calorie deficit is no longer ringing through grocers’ tills, and this equates to an eye-watering amount of money if you multiply that by 1.5 million-plus people.
Overnight, users go from enjoying an indulgent 3,000-calorie-a-day life of excess to surviving on 400 calories per day without blinking
When Justin King was chief executive of Sainsbury’s amid the financial crash of 2009, he spoke at Retail Week Live about the impact of each customer reducing their weekly spend by only £5. The impact was sizeable. And that was only £5 per week. The impact of this medication on the food and drink industry is potentially seismic. Moreover, it seems that these drugs are here to stay. This isn’t something the industry can ride out during a short-term spending downturn.
These drugs have the potential to change everything. There are already stories of caterers at music festivals offering ‘Ozempic’ portions for those not able to stomach normal adult sizes. Restaurants will need to rethink their menus or face huge amounts of food waste or no business at all. Who’s going to bother dining out if you’re eating an eighth of everything you’ve paid for?
It’s not just the seriously overweight that are using it. For those wanting to lose that elusive half stone and can access the drug online, it’s the perfect solution. These medicines will become increasingly easy to access, increasingly commonplace, and increasingly less taboo.
And it’s not even just about weight loss. Yes, there are potential side effects as with any drug. But there are promises of how they could reduce the risk of developing other diseases, such as type 2 diabetes, some cancers and even neurocognitive disorders. They have even been shown to help with addiction.
Who’s going to bother dining out if you’re eating an eighth of everything you’ve paid for?
As uptake increases, retailers need to think fast and look at the data. What will peak usage look like? What will it mean for food production and packaging sizes? Will there be new product launch opportunities? Consumers’ taste for alcohol depletes on these drugs. Will it hit higher margin products such as wine? Or will people swap beer, which is too filling, for spirits? These seem like granular questions, but not when you consider the volumes sold through retail grocers every single day.
The sudden surge of these seemingly wonder drugs has confused the future of consumption. Much of this is positive, potentially, for health and for the planet. Put simply, society consumes too much.
There is much that is unknown, but perhaps the most immediate question that UK grocers could ask themselves is what this year’s Christmas might look like. After a quick and admittedly very rudimentary google of statistics, the average person consumes around 6,000 calories per day on Christmas Day. If an estimated 1.5 million are using weight loss medicines today, what will that number look like in six months’ time? If I were a grocer, I’d be doing the maths on that.
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