Nosh Live 2024 Replay: Gaining Sales, Dropping Pounds

Rybelsus. Wegovy. Ozempic. Whatever brand name it may come under, GLP-1s are rapidly changing the game in CPG as food manufacturers have scrambled to better understand how the rising popularity of these weight loss drugs will impact consumer buying habits.

In this presentation from Nosh Live 2024, NielsenIQ VP of Total Wellness Sherry Frey helps demystify the trend in the way that data firms know best: through metrics and numbers. Frey explores the expansion of GLP-1 drugs by consumer demographics – including a rising number of lower-income users – and examines what we’re learning about how the buying habits of users change the longer they’ve been on their prescription.

We are also seeing more consumers go on and off the drugs, Frey said, and many who stay on for longer not only return to old food shopping patterns after a temporary slowdown, but actually increase their grocery spending.

“When you compare [GLP-1 users] on a 52-week timeframe you can be like ‘oh their volume is down,’” Frey said. “But when you compare them to what they were buying two years ago their volume is actually up.”