Big Food vs. Big Pharma: Companies bet on snacking just as weight loss drugs boom [View all]

[highplainsdem]

There are't enough smilies to convey how angry this headline and article make me.

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/10/01/kellanova-bets-on-snacking-as-ozempic-wegovy-take-off.html

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But food companies’ major bets on snacking come as investors fear the looming danger of Big Pharma’s blockbuster obesity and diabetes drugs Wegovy and Ozempic. Many investors have high hopes for the pharmaceuticals’ future, but their success could mean slower sales for the companies that produce Oreos, Doritos and Hershey’s Kisses.

Big Food’s bet on snacking began roughly a decade ago, and it’s only accelerated as the rest of the grocery aisles see sales stagnate, particularly as prices rise. The U.S. market for savory snacks is expected to grow 6% annually from 2022 through 2027, and sweet snacks’ sales are expected to rise 4.6% annually during that time, according to HSBC. Roughly three-quarters of consumers plan to snack every day, according to Accenture data.

Millennials and Generation Z consumers are fueling the trend. Younger generations snack more often than older consumers, said Kelsey Olsen, food and drink analyst for market research firm Mintel. Millennials and Gen-Z consumers tend to eat smaller meals that are closer together, creating more occasions to grab a snack.

At the same time, Novo Nordisk’s Ozempic and Wegovy have taken off, fueled by prescriptions to help patients lose weight. The drugs, known as GLP-1 agonists, suppress appetites by mimicking a gut hormone. Some patients even report developing aversions to foods with higher sugar and fat content — a category that includes many big snack brands.

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What a horrendous waste of money ALL of this is, with the food industry trying to get Americans to eat more and more unhealthy food, for their profit, while the drug companies profit from expensive new drugs to try to deal with the obesity and diabetes that result from consuming those junk foods.

BOTH are bad for people. Those drugs have plenty of side effects and should only be used if absolutely necessary.

It's possible to eat healthy and keep your weight down.

Big Food is worrying about sales stagnating in grocery aisles. They SHOULD stagnate, because most of what's sold in those aisles is crap. So are all the snacks and sweets piled up at checkouts to tempt you to buy them while you're waiting in line.

I posted a reply just this morning in a thread about the military not meeting recruitment goals, and that reply

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100218318768#post4

linked to an article at Military.com on a program to bring overweight recruits' weight down to a healthy level before basic training starts, with basic training resulting in more weight loss. Ir's a program needed now because so many Americans are obese.

I haven't researched that program yet, but I think it's a safe bet that unhealthy snacks aren't part of it.

And expensive drugs for weight loss probably aren't either. They're probably relying on oldfashioned willpower and discipline, with recruits eating a reasonable amount of healthy foods and getting the physical exercise our bodies require to stay healthy.

And they probably keep those recruits away from unhealthy foods most of the time. But every time those recruits leave a base, they have to go no farther than the nearest convenience store or grocery store or drugstore to see lots of foods they shouldn't eat. And the commissary probably offers them, too.

Big Food and Big Pharma are betting on people continuing to make bad choices. Unhealthy choices. What would work best for both of them is people continuing to eat too much junk food, too often, so they need lots of expensive prescription drugs to try to deal with all the health problems that result.

Don't fall for it.