The proliferation of weight-loss drugs like Ozempic is having an unintended side-effect on snack makers — a reduction in sales, according to a report.
Walmart said customers who have been taking the popular meds to slim down are cutting back on high-fat and salty treats because the weight-loss drugs help to suppress appetites.
“We definitely do see a slight change compared to the total population, we do see a slight pullback in overall basket,” John Furner, the CEO of Walmart’s US operation, told Bloomberg.
Walmart, which sells weight-loss drugs at its pharmacies, is able to study changes in sales patterns using anonymized data on shopper populations, according to the outlet.
With those data sets, the Bentonville, Ark.-based can see how many customers are on diabetes-turned-weight-loss drugs like Ozempic, Wegovy, and Mounjaro and compare their shopping habits to those not taking the medications.
Furner said people on weight-loss drugs are purchasing “less units, slightly less calories,” but said that it’s too soon to conclude what effect the meds are having on Walmart’s overall sales.
Representatives for Walmart did not immediately respond to The Post’s request for comment.
One woman who takes Mounjaro said the reduction in appetite has cut her grocery bill by as much as 20%.
“I still have a fully stocked kitchen, there’s chips and pretzels in there. I don’t find it tempting,” Carolyn MacBain-Waldo told the Wall Street Journal.
Another Mounjaro user said she doesn’t think about food all the time anymore and eats far fewer snacks.
“The other day I had a single jelly bean, which is unheard of for me,” Karyn Carlton, 47, told The Journal, adding that she also recently ordered a kids’ meal from a fast-food restaurant and felt satiated.
The drug, which stimulates the body to produce insulin and lowers blood sugar, has historically been used to treat Type 2 diabetes but was popularized after patients discovered their slimming effects, and particularly exploded when it was revealed celebrities like Khloe Kardashian and Chelsea Handler admitted to using it.
Their use has filtered to middle America and is only expected to grow, despite disturbing case studies where the medications paralyzed some users’ stomachs and even burned off one woman’s genitals.
Morgan Stanley estimated that 7% of the US population, or 24 million people, will be taking hunger-suppressing weight-loss drugs by 2035 — cutting their daily calorie consumption by as much as 30%, according to the firm, which surveyed over 300 patients.
For a person on an FDA-recommended 2,000-calorie daily diet, that could mean eliminating a one-ounce bag of salted potato chips, a bottle of soda, and more each day.
“The food, beverage, and restaurant industries could see softer demand, particularly for unhealthier foods and high-fat, sweet, and salty options,” said Morgan Stanley’s tobacco and packaged food analyst Pamela Kaufman.
Kaufman said major food companies like Conagra Brands, Mondelez, and Campbell Soup could see a 3% hit to their bottom lines by 2035.
Kellogg’s Brands, which is behind popular snack foods like Cheez-Its and Pringles, has reportedly been studying the potential impact popular weight-loss drugs could have on consumer behaviors.
“Like everything that potentially impacts our business, we’ll look at it, study it and, if necessary, mitigate,” Kellogg’s chief Steve Cahillane told Bloomberg.
Cahillane called it “very, very early days” for the drugs, but said the company, which also makes Rice Krispie Treats, was “by no means complacent,” suggesting Kellogg’s would make changes to its products if overweight Americans on weight-loss medications continued limiting their calorie intake.
The Post has sought comment from Kellogg’s.
Despite being “early days,” US sales for GLP-1-containing drugs have experienced a whopping 300% increase in prescription volume from 2020 to 2022, according to Trilliant Health.
Of those prescriptions, Ozempic was the most-prescribed GLP-1, and national spending on semaglutide — the peptide name for Ozempic and Wegovy — now exceeds $10 billion, Trilliant Health said.