What happens to food shopping when you're a GLP-1 agonista?

The drugs wear off, right? And everyone gets fat again? Well, no, not exactly.

• GLP-1 agonistas do shop less, but not by much

• early success, and then falling off the wagon (or is it?), with some meals especially

• actually, shopping smarter, not harder

• the category mix-shift of foodstuffs is pretty profound, and the winners (gum?) and losers (beer?) of food shopping tell the story

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What happens to shopping when you’re on Ozempic?

Take a break from tariffs to enjoy some fun charts on what happens to shopping habits when you’re on Ozempic.

The short answer is that people tend to spend less on food . . . at least, initially, but spending tends to recover ~12 months after starting.

That doesn’t mean the treatments are ineffective, however. Even though levels recover, there’s decent evidence that GLP-1 users spend differently (and healthier) than before.

You love to see it.

The data comes from two reports surfaced by Dan Frommer, both of which rely on transaction data to track consumer changes by GLP-1 agonist users. One is from Circana, and the other is a collaboration between Cornell and Numerator, but because the results are directionally similar, I’ll toggle back n’ forth.

People do shop less . . . but not by much

The first thing to notice is that people who use agonists (a) spent more on food to begin with; and (b) really do spend less on food, once they get started on treatment.

Circana

A year after beginning treatment, household food spend for the weight-losers decreases:¹

• 1.1% for packaged goods;

• 0.01% for food service, and

• increases 0.6% for non-food items

Again, household spending decreases off a higher baseline: agonist households were spending 8% to 24% more on these categories than the usual household (and they still spend more than the usual household).

OK, great, so food spend decreases, but not by much. That’s kind of surprising, given the actual weight-loss gains that have been documented all over the place.

Everything starts out great

So, what’s happening?

Well, mean-reversion and substitution, that’s what (and perhaps some diminishing treatment effects over time).

You see, when people first start taking agonists, the decline in food-spending is much more pronounced: