How the snack industry is responding to Ozempic
The only semi-indulgent thing you see in Cindy’s refrigerator is half of the Italian chicken sandwich she had for lunch but couldn’t finish. The rest of the fridge is basically healthy, boring proteins.
“So yeah, I have my protein shakes that are always in my fridge,” said Cindy, who declined to give her last name because of medical privacy concerns. “Cottage cheese, Greek yogurt.”
Cindy, a 43-year-old dental hygienist, is one of the roughly 12% of Americans that have taken a GLP-1 drug, the class of wildly popular obesity medications like Ozempic that help suppress appetite.
Cindy started on the GLP-1 Wegovy in March of last year, when she weighed about 225 pounds. She’s lost 70 pounds since then.
She’s mostly kept unhealthy foods out of her house for years. But being on a GLP-1 has cut down her cravings considerably, even for coffee and alcohol.
“I don’t mindlessly eat anymore,” she said. “If I do want something that might be not a good food, I might have a bite of cake, and that’s it. I don’t need more of it. I don’t need another slice.”
GLP-1s make you feel full very quickly and for a long time. Being on a GLP-1 has trimmed Cindy’s food budget by about $200 a month.
That’s a problem for the food and beverage industry. A recent Morgan Stanley analysis predicts GLP-1s will reduce the consumption of sodas, baked goods and salty snacks by up to 3% in the next decade.
Snack makers are trying to adapt. Nestle, maker of KitKats candy and Häagen-Dazs ice cream, is planning a GLP-1-friendly frozen-food line called Vital Pursuits, with protein-infused pasta and sandwiches.
At the Mattson food laboratory just south of San Francisco, a team of lab-coat-wearing food scientists are chopping onions and measuring spices in an industrial-size kitchen.
Mattson is a food research and development company that helps big food brands create new products. It’s where White Castle’s frozen jalapeno cheese sliders and Annie’s pizza-flavored cheesy rice with hidden vegetables were born.
Senior food scientist Amanda Sinrod is throwing a more GLP-1-friendly snack on the grill: a chicken strip.
“So think of a packaging like a cheese stick, but instead it’s chicken, which has a higher protein content and produces a little more versatility as a grab-and-go snack,” she says.
Grilled chicken strips packaged like string cheese is one of the snacks Mattson developed after surveying GLP-1 users about how their tastes have changed.
“You have to understand that a consumer who might have been able to eat a 4-ounce portion of snack is now looking for a 1½-ounce portion,” says Barb Stuckey, Mattson’s chief innovation and marketing officer.
Stuckey says snack companies can still make money on smaller portions if they package and market them right — think of all those snack packs for nuts and cheeses you see at the grocery store.
But smaller portions are the easy part. The hard part is losing those reliable pretzel and potato chip eaters.
“We do hear people saying, ‘I’m still missing the crunchy,’ says Stuckey. “But the crunchy they want to get from apples or they want to get from cucumbers or carrots. I mean, that’s like a sea change.”
Mattson has developed what it calls “snack concepts” tailored for GLP-1 users.
For instance, a freeze-dried chicken-and-tomato soup less than half the size of a Cup Noodles aimed at helping with nausea, a common side effect. Powdered drink mixes infused with protein and fiber, nutrients GLP-1 users often miss.
And of course, the portable grilled chicken strips packaged like string cheese. Which tasted like — you guessed it — chicken.
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