GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic set to shake the global food industry

Use of drugs containing glucagon-like peptide 1 (GLP-1), such as Ozempic, are on the rise. If they have the staying power in the market that some predict, they could change the way we eat. Pressures on the food industry could be cut down: they have the potential to reduce food waste and drastically lower on the total amount of food people buy. 

How are GLP-1 drugs affecting eating habits? Could the drugs' popularity expand to Europe? And how will the food industry respond to the drastically altered consumer needs that these drugs could bring about?

What is the potential impact of GLP-1 drugs on the food industry?​

GLP-1 drugs have the potential to cut calories consumed in the US by around 10%, according to Jack Bobo, director of the Food Systems Institute at the University of Nottingham,This could drastically reduce the amount of food purchased, and therefore food waste, in the process, he said during a panel at the Future Food-Tech event in London earlier this month.

GLP-1 users are eating significantly less, and spending 6-9% less, than non GLP-1 users, according to Sonia Huppert, global innovation marketing lead at IFF. “It is changing what they want to eat, and what they are able to eat,” she said.

Because people are eating less, she suggested, they are missing out on key nutrients such as protein, and this needs to be compensated.

“The whole world is not yet ready for it, because it’s coming very fast,” said Rania Abou Samra, global head of product and technology development and head of R&D US at Nestlé.

“These patients and consumers are tackling situations where they're unable to eat the food that is available for them, they're unable to eat the food that they used to eat, because of the effect of the drug,” she said.

But it's not all good for the consumer. Education on the drug is sorely needed, she warns. “They get on the drug and they're not given enough information as to how can they tackle the side effects, how they can minimise the negative effects on their bodies, [such as] loss of muscle mass at an extremely fast pace, and what they need to eat to overcome these.” Consumers need education, she stressed, on what they need to eat when they are on the drug.

The food industry is part of this solution and is working hard to bring options​ to the market to minimise these negative effects.

Will the GLP-1 phenomenon reach Europe?​

While the phenomenon may have initially been focused around the US, it has the potential to go global.

“Europe is just behind US [on obesity] and people wanting to lose weight. There is still the potential to turn back the trend of getting more and more people overweight. However, this will require a lot of education of consumers and government policy on health,” IFF’s Huppert suggested.

Demand for GLP-1 drugs “is starting in the US, but it could definitely expand,” she told FoodNavigator after the panel.

“You could definitely, through the fact that obesity is rising and consumers are struggling to lose weight or to maintain it, expect that this type of medication is going to attract [them].”

If the cost is going down, she added, it will attract more consumers. There is also the potential for variants that limit side effects.

GLP-1 drugs have shown potential not just for treating obesity and diabetes​, pointed out Aaron Anselmo, CSO at VitaKey, but other conditions like cardiovascular disease and kidney disease as well.

“As time goes on, more people are going to be on these drugs, more people are going to be on new versions of these drugs, all over the planet,” he said.

What do consumers on the drug need?​

As GLP-1 drugs increase in prevalence, the food industry is responding by aiming to give consumers what they need to mitigate the side effects.

Consumers suffer from a range of side effects when on the drugs, suggested Nestlé’s Samara. They suffer from dehydration due to not drinking enough, as well as gut health issues, micronutrient deficiencies, hair loss and skin sagging.

Beyond these side effects, even consumers’ taste perception changes, she suggested. For example, “they’re unable to tolerate heavy, milky products.” ‘Fully dairy’ products may cause consumers ‘a lot of nausea.’

One of the major requirements of consumers on the drug is protein, to prevent the decline in muscle mass. According to Anselmo, VitaKey is developing a slow-release protein, which releases over the course of 12 hours, to mitigate this issue. The protein, he said, is digested over a longer period of time "which translates to more protein for longer with reduced stomach discomfort."

Furthermore, the industry must react to the ways consumers respond to the drug. Consumers are not all the same, pointed out IFF’s Huppert. Differences between consumers and differences between the form of GLP-1 medication that they’re on could affect the end result. Responding to this could be challenging, she suggested.

Some consumers are having side effects but not losing weight, she told us, while others are losing weight without the side effects. Adaptation to individual consumers is therefore paramount.

In order to address the challenges posed by this, the food industry must provide a wide variety of products that can suit individual needs, she suggested.

Personalised nutrition​ could be a solution, providing consumers “advice based on [their] own body as well as type of life, because [what] you need if you exercise or if you don't exercise . . . is not the same. All this is something that need to be taken into account.”

Once consumers come off the drug, Nestlé’s Samara pointed out, they often regain all the weight they have lost. This is an issue because of cost. Health insurance companies in the US do not have the funds to keep people on these drugs indefinitely, for example.

The food sector must respond to this by providing nutrient-dense foods that provide consumers with the satiety which will enable them to keep the weight off, she suggested.

Are there other ways of achieving similar benefits?​

GLP-1 drugs require a prescription, pointed out VitaKey’s Anselmo. However, there are potentially more accessible ways for consumers to achieve similar benefits.

For example, adding satiety modulators into meals. VitaKey identifies the key parts of food that induces the ‘most and also highest quality’ secretion of the actual GLP-1 hormone (not the synthetic one used for the drug) in the body, and packages those in real foods "using VitaKey’s transformative Precision Delivery technology." With these, people can “feel fuller, but with less food,” he suggested.

Satiety modulators, Anselmo told FoodNavigator, make consumers feel fuller using natural nutrients rather than synthetic molecules.