In This Story
While some food executives are concerned with the growing popularity of Ozempic and other appetite suppressing drugs known as GLP-1s driving food sales down, yogurt is seeing a surge.
A Danone executive said the bump in sales is actually in part thanks to GLP-1 medication users.
“We have a very large range of protein yogurts, which are flying off the shelf,” Juergen Esser, Danone’s deputy chief executive officer in charge of finance, told Fortune in an interview. “I think those products are attractive to both consumers who are under the treatment of GLP-1 or who just wish to manage their weight or wellbeing.”
The French yogurt giant saw it sales jump 4% year over year to about 6.8 billion Euros ($7.3 billion) in the first quarter of 2024.
Other yogurt companies are also seeing gains.
The Greek-yogurt brand Fage saw its sales in the first three months of the year jump 16% to about $172 million.
Skyrocketing sales for weight loss drugs known as GLP-1s, first made popular via the diabetes treatment Ozempic, have had ripple effects across the global economy and companies are starting to adapt.
Morgan Stanley analysts anticipate the global market for these drugs will reach $105 billion by 2030. The investment bank also expects the adoption of GLP-1s to reach about 31.5 million people in the United States, about 9% of the nation’s population, by 2035.
Food executives have even called the heads of Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly for advice on the growing use of the appetite-suppressing medications.
Eli Lilly CEO David Ricks said in an interview with the Wall Street Journal that his advice to these companies is that they need to adapt to a world that has fewer obese people.
Ricks said he has talked to Walmart and other big food stores and told them that they should make adjustments if they’re afraid of losing sales.
“If they’re worried about salty snack foods high in fat, saturated fat, or selling less? I’d say, ‘Well, why don’t you make healthier ones?’” Ricks said.
Some companies are already starting to heed that advice.
In May, Nestle announced it was launching a new line of frozen food products targeting GLP-1 users.
The brand, Vital Pursuit, is set to launch later this year and will consist of 12 new items including pizza, sandwiches, pastas, and bowls.