We may be mislabelling the Ozempic story.
GLP-1 medicines are a healthcare story. But they are also a demand story.
A new paper in Journal of Marketing Research uses transaction data to put numbers on the GLP-1 effect: food spending falls about 5.3% within six months of treatment starting.
In low-margin FMCG, 5.3% is not trivial.
FMCG fought for ‘share of stomach’. Prices, wages and taste used to shape demand. Now it can be shaped by a prescription.
That should make Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly and Company boringly important to people who have never cared about pharma.
Because when appetite shifts at scale, there are second-order effects that land in Tesco supermarkets, snack brands and forecasting models.
Not a moral panic. Not a culture war. Just a new variable.
The next disruption in FMCG might not come from a competitor. It might come from a prescription.
