The Daily - The Sunday Read: ‘Ozempic Could Crush the Junk Food Industry. But It Is Fighting Back.’

Episode Date: December 29, 2024

For decades, Big Food has been marketing products to people who can’t seem to stop eating, and now, suddenly, they can. The active ingredient in new drugs like Ozempic, Wegovy and Zepbound mimics a natural hormone that slows digestion and signals fullness to the brain.Around seven million Americans take these drugs, but estimates from Morgan Stanley suggest that number could increase to 24 million within the next decade. More than 100 million American adults are obese, and the drugs may eventually be rolled out to people who don’t have diabetes or obesity, as they seem to tame addictions beyond food — appearing to make cocaine, alcohol and cigarettes more resistible. Research is at an early stage, but the drugs may also cut the risk of stroke, heart and kidney disease, Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s.Major food companies are scrambling to research the impact of the drugs on their brands — and figure out how to adjust. But for Mattson, which has invented products for the nation’s biggest food conglomerates for nearly 50 years, the Ozempic threat could be a boon. Unlock full access to New York Times podcasts and explore everything from politics to pop culture. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

Hi, my name's Thomas Webber, and I'm a contributor to the New York Times magazine. Ozempic, Wagovi, Moundjaro, Zepbound, they're some of the brand names for weight loss drugs called GLP-1 agonists. In a nutshell, GLP-1s reduce people's appetites. We know they mimic the hormone that signals fullness to the brain. But a couple of scientists I spoke to speculated that GLP-1 drugs may also regulate the amount of dopamine that the brain releases. And so when it does that, the drugs make foods that have been engineered to trigger the dopamine hit less appealing. But researchers have also discovered something interesting about GLP-1s. They change the kinds of foods that people are interested in eating.

So instead of packaged, processed foods, many users tend to gravitate towards fresh fruits and vegetables. So for this week's Sunday Read, which you'll hear in a moment, I wrote about how drugs like Ozempic have the potential to disrupt, even upend, the packaged food industry. Early one morning last August, my reporting brought me to a glassy, airy office building in the Bay Area, to the headquarters of a company called Matson. Matson basically invents packaged foods and pitches them to the biggest food and drink companies in the world. I passed display cases

of prototypes from years past. Deep-fried chocolate Twinkies, Le Choy packaged Asian dinners, DiGiorno pizza, Hungry Man's steakhouse meals, Marie Callender's frozen entrees. There were scientists in white coats all around, and one of the projects they were working on was finding products that Ozempic users would actually crave. There was a cube's high-protein brownie bite, a citrusy chicken strip that was similar in form to a mozzarella stick, and a taco with an ondiv leaf instead of a taco shell which, I'll admit, was rather unsatisfying to me. Around 40% of Americans are obese, a huge market that might potentially be weaned off packaged food

to some degree. And there's also a lot of research being done on these drugs as potential treatments for all sorts of diseases and conditions like stroke and heart disease, liver disease, Parkinson's, and Alzheimer's. The American packaged food industry, an over $1 trillion a year industry, is aware of the ramifications of this. And so, what I really wanted to know is in this looming arms race between big pharma and big food, which one is going to prevail in conquering our appetites? So here's my article, read by Simon Vance.

Our producer is Jack DiSidoro, and our music was written and performed by Aaron Esposito. Trinian Taylor, a 52-year-old car dealer, pushed his cart through the aisles of a supermarket as I pretended not to follow him. It was a bright August day in Northern California, and I had come to the store to meet Emily Auerbach, a relationship manager at Matatsum, a food innovation firm that creates products for the country's largest food and beverage companies, McDonald's and White Castle, PepsiCo and Hostess. Auerbach was trying to understand the shopping behaviour of Ozempic users, and Taylor was

one of her case studies. She instructed me to stay as close as I could without influencing his route around the store. In her experience of shop-alongs, too much space or taking photos would be a red flag for the supermarket higher-ups who might figure out we were not here to shop. They'd be like, you need to exit, she said. Arbak watched in silence as Taylor, who was earning $150 in exchange for being tailed, propelled his cart through snack aisles scattered with products from Matson's clients. He took us straight past the Doritos and the Hostess Ho-Hos without a side glance at the Oreos or the Cheetos. We rushed past the Pop-Tarts and the Hershey's Kisses, the Lucky Charms and the Lays. They all barely registered.

Clumsily, close on his heels, our bacchanai stumbled right into what has become, under the influence of the revolutionary new diet drug, Taylor's Happy Place, the produce section. He inspected the goods. "'I'm on all of these,' he told us. I eat a lot of pineapple, a lot of pineapple, cucumber, ginger. Oh, a lot of ginger. Taylor, who lives in Haywood, California, used to nurse a sugar addiction, he said,

but he can no longer stomach hostess treats. A few days earlier, his daughter fed him some candy. I just couldn't, he said. It was so sweet it choked me. His midnight snack used to be cereal, but now he stirs at night with strange urges, salads, chicken. He has sworn off canned sodas and fruit juices, and infuses his water with lemon and cucumber. He dropped a heavy bag of lemons into the cart and sauntered over to the leafy vegetables. I love Swiss chard, he said.

I eat a lot of kale." For decades, Big Food has been marketing products to people who can't stop eating. And now, suddenly, they can. The active ingredient in Ozempic, as in Wigovie, Zepbound, and several other similar new drugs, mimics a natural hormone called glucagon-like peptide-1, GLP-1, that slows digestion and signals fullness to the brain. Around seven million Americans now take a GLP-1 drug, and Morgan Stanley estimates that by 2035 the number of US users could expand to 24 million.

That's more than double the number of vegetarians and vegans in America, with ample room to balloon from there. More than 100 million American adults are obese, and the drugs may eventually be rolled out to people without diabetes or obesity as they seem to tame addictions beyond food, appearing to make cocaine, alcohol, and cigarettes more resistible. Research is at an early stage, but they may also cut the risk of everything from stroke and heart and kidney disease to Alzheimer's and Parkinson's. The prospect of tens of millions of people cutting their caloric intake down to roughly 1,000 per day,

which is half the minimum amount recommended for men, is unsettling the industry. Late last year, Lars Frogart-Jurgensen, the chief executive of Novo Nordisk, which makes Ozempik and Wigovie, told Bloomberg that food industry executives had been calling him. They are scared about it, he said. Around the same time, Walmart's chief executive in the United States, John Ferner, said that

customers on GLP-1s were putting less food into their carts. Sales are down in sweet baked goods and snacks and the industry is weathering a downturn. By one market research firm's estimate, food and drink innovation in 2024 reached an all-time nadir with fewer new products coming to market than ever before. Azembic users like Taylor aren't just eating less, they're eating differently. GLP-1 drugs seem not only to shrink appetite, but to rewrite people's desires. They attack what Amy Bentley, a food historian and professor at New York University, calls the industrial palate.

The set of preferences created by reclimatization, often starting with baby food, to the tastes and textures of artificial flavours and preservatives. Patients on GLP-1 drugs have reported losing interest in ultra-processed foods, products that are made with ingredients you wouldn't find in an ordinary kitchen, colourings, bleaching agents, artificial sweeteners and modified starches. Some users realise that many packaged snacks they once loved now taste repugnant. McGovey destroyed my taste buds, a Redditor wrote on a support group adding,

and I love it. The day before I followed Taylor around the supermarket, I sat in on a focus group facilitated by Matson's Consumer Insights team, listening to people describe how the weight-loss drugs have transformed their cravings. Larry Wins, a 69-year-old from Pittsburgh, Kansas, who joined via video call, described being emptied of desire for what he used to love. Before Wigovie, said Wins, who is now 35 pounds lighter than he was in the spring, his whole life was fast foods. Now my first place I hit when I get to the store is produce, he said.

My favorite is Mount Rainier cherries and apples, peaches, pears. Most of the other participants felt like that. Almost everyone's cravings for ultra-processed foods had been replaced with a lust for fresh and unpackaged alternatives. A 32-year-old scientist who works in a university chemistry department spoke about discovering, for the first time, the true flavor of food.

Celery tastes like celery, she told the group, and carrot tastes like carrot. Strawberry tastes like strawberry. Since taking Wagovie, she said, I just started to realize that they taste wonderful by themselves. Kathleen Kenny, a 54-year-old who runs a sword-fighting school in Kansas City, Missouri, said at the focus group that she has always been heavy. I was the child of people who lived through the depression, she told me later, a clean your plate kind of family. With the help of a sequence of different weight loss drugs, Kenny has lost more than 100 pounds. And it has been easy, she said, because the treatments have

transformed her experience of flavor and mouthfeel. A ho-ho no longer seems like food. It tastes plasticky, she said, or feels plasticky in my mouth. Freed from her addiction, Kenny believes that she can now taste the true ho-ho. She can perceive what hostess treats loaded with sugar actually are. Jennifer Pagano, Matson's Director of Insights and Artificial Intelligence, was leading the focus group. It sounds like, you know, I'm hearing from all of you it's the simple pleasures of food, food in its natural state, she said. Interesting. Major food companies

are scrambling to research the impact of the drugs on their brands and figure out how to adjust. The whole field is still a little stunned, Ashley Gearhart, a food addiction researcher and psychology professor at the University of Michigan, told me over the phone. But for Matson, which for nearly 50 years has invented products for the nation's biggest food conglomerates, the Ozempic threat could be a boon. I first walked into Matson's glassy facility by the San Francisco airport

on a beautiful Bay Area morning this summer. Barb Stuckey, the company's chief innovation and marketing officer who describes herself as a hyper-taster and whose tongue can detect changes in barometric pressure, greeted me in the hall carrying an armful of milk cartons. I followed her through the lab, past scientists experimenting with gummies and blitzing high-protein smoothies and carrot soup out back to the trophy wall. On the shelves were rows of packages and bottles for products that Matson had either dreamed

up or helped scale and shepherd to market. There were deep-fried chocolate Hostess Twinkies. Not something I would put in my body, Stuckey said. Hungry-man frozen meals and a raise of frozen entrees, ice creams, and condiments from America's largest brands. We invent the future of food, one product at a time," read a sign on the wall. Big food is practiced at spotting perverse openings for new products in our faddish drives for self-improvement.

In 1978, for example, Heinz bought Weight Watchers, added products like Cheesecake, and made a tidy profit. That acquisition heralded a trend of health-conscious rebranding that peaked in the 1980s and 90s. Nestle started Lean Cuisine, and Chef America began selling Lean Pockets alongside its Hot Pockets. The difference between the two was roughly 30 calories. And Chef America began selling lean pockets alongside its hot pockets. The difference between the two was roughly 30 calories.

Conagra brands introduced Healthy Choice, a diet-conscious frozen-entree brand. McDonald's made McLean Deluxe hamburgers. Nabisco came out with Snack Will's fat-free cookies. The public's obsession with weight loss has led to the industry's concocting some very weird substances. In 1996, PepsiCo released potato chips fried in an indigestible fat substitute called Olestra that miraculously had zero calories. One problem, Olestra impeded the absorption of essential vitamins. Another, it caused fecal incontinence. The substance is now used to paint decks and lubricate power tools.

By the time the owner of Carl's Jr. and Cinnabon got around to buying the rights to the Atkins diet in 2010, interest in fad diets was starting to wane, and big food pivoted. The industry increasingly pushed foods enhanced with protein and fiber, or with herbs and minerals and antioxidants and vitamins, a trend that continues today, despite scant evidence that eating ultra-processed products infused with individual nutrients makes people healthier. There is little the industry hasn't tried to keep health-conscious consumers eating. Companies conceal clouds of nostalgic aromas into packaging to trigger Proustian reverie. When they discovered that noisier chips induced people to eat more of them, snack engineers

turned up the crunch. Food technologists found a way to amplify the intensity of artificial sweeteners to hundreds of times beyond sugar's natural flavor. The structure of salt crystals can be altered to accelerate the speed at which they absorb into chemical pathways that signal saltiness, allowing the brain to perceive the flavor more intensely. In the chemo-sensory world, says Dan Wesson,

the director of the Florida Chemical Senses Institute, referring to the science of how chemicals provoke sensations, almost anything is possible. Dullness has its uses too. Companies make products like potato chips, popcorn, and mac and cheese meals bland on purpose to bypass sensory-specific satiety, the feeling when strongly flavored foods become less desirable as they are eaten. Big food plumbed behavioral research for clues to how the brain's reward system reacts to sugar and salt, using it to keep products tickling the bliss point, the height of delight.

But there is no equivalent bliss point for fat. Fortunately for the industry, people tend to want as much fat as they can get. Scientists can engineer fats to melt at precisely the right temperature in the mouth, sparking the release of dopamine while creating an impression of vanishing caloric density. A cheeto, disintegrating innocently on the tongue, tells us it contains fewer calories than it does. The more they get away from the actual food and into the convenience of the packaging,

the better they do, Robert Moscoe, a food industry analyst who works at the investment bank TD Cowan, told me. But many chemicals used in industrial processing can taste unpleasant, metallic, or bitter. Flavour companies like the US-based International Flavours and Fragrances create masking compounds to cover up those off-notes. But those chemicals, it turns out, can taste weird too. The industry's solution is masking compounds that cover up the tastes of the original masking compounds. I feel like I'm constantly defending big food, Stuckey told me when I brought up the industry's history.

And perhaps she is right to be. Eating is more convenient now, and it can be cheap. Poor harvests don't have nearly the same impact that they might have in the past. Breakthroughs in processing that made possible products like dehydrated chicken soups, frozen French fries and Jell-O instant puddings helped reduce domestic burdens on, for the most part, women, many of whom then entered the workforce. In 1947, at a time when food processing was in its early days, Americans were spending nearly a quarter of their disposable incomes on food.

Last year that figure was only 11%. And inflation was running high. The trade-off is obesity. Coloric consumption per capita in the United States has plateaued since 2000, while Americans have slightly intensified their physical activity. At the same time, the obesity rate has swelled by more than a third. Probably the culprit is the food. Ultra-processed products, the consumption of which has increased over the last 25 years, are often highly refined and rich in starch and sugar. We digest them

quickly in the stomach and small intestine before they get to the colon, which is home to the gut microbiome. As emerging research shows, when we eat unprocessed or minimally processed foods, our gut bacteria consume as much as 22% of the energy. With ultra-processed products, our bodies soak up all 100% of the calories. Right now, the industry's adaptation to a Zempik is in its infancy. A few companies have tested the waters. Nestle, for example, has started a line of frozen meals targeted at people taking GLP-1s called Vital Pursuit.

Frozen pizzas, sandwich melts and chicken balls with a sharper focus on smaller portions. But reliable data about how GLP-1s reshape people's likes and dislikes is yet to come. While Azempek is threatening to turn off the industrial palette, Matson believes that industrial foods may just need to be tweaked. Though many ultra-processed foods and drinks turn off a lot of GLP-1 users, some are breaking through. On GLP-1 forums, people celebrate Fairlife, a line of sweet protein shakes owned by Coca-Cola, and Matson has already dreamed up an arsenal of other potential winners. In a glass-walled conference room, Matson scientists prepared for me some of its foods

tailored to GLP-1 users that are currently being conceptualized. Amanda Synrod, a senior food scientist in a white lab coat, placed a plate of soft brown cubes on the table. She explained that she had enriched each nourish-fit brownie bite with two grams of whey protein for maintaining lean muscle mass during rapid weight loss. A peanut butter swirl would push that protein level even higher. Whey protein can have a grainy texture and chalky off notes, but the nourish-fits were defectless smooth and sweet, with remote echoes of cocoa.

Approximately one-third sugar and about 15% fat, the bite-sized portions were self-limiting, Sinrod said. Servings could be packaged individually. Then there was a chicken stick, wrapped in see-through plastic, that looked like a riff on string cheese. A supercharged mozzarella stick, Sinrod said. It had 13 grams of protein and its grill lines were real. For now, to scale up, the quadrilage or char marks might be faked using caramel coloring. It was a grown-up rendition of a classic kid's snack, Sinrod said, that an adult could throw in a purse.

It tasted felicitously of citrus. GLP1 users report craving fresh, acidic flavors. A small cardboard tub of salty, freeze-dried chicken soup was followed by no-carb tacos, also chicken, with an endive leaf taking the role of the tortilla. Taco Bell could go for this, said Stucky, who was sitting on the other side of the table and watching me eat. To wash it down, a translucent, protein-shaken psychedelic purple with lashings of sweetener and lingering medicinal notes of berry.

There were other snacks, too, that were at an even more embryonic stage, including Burgers, a blend of frozen vegetables and seasonings to jazz-up turkey meat, a two-ounce portion of yogurt that you could squeeze from a pouch like baby puree, Strawberry Sensation, Mango Magic, Blueberry Bliss, each six grams of protein, and something called Satiety Gum in four flavors, crisp green apple, watermelon fresh mint, cinnamon red hot mama, and minty fresh metabolism. Meyer's Zempig optimized banquet was fine. It was fine, but compared with ripe Rainier cherries, I feared Larry Wins might have found it a little dull. The mild flavor profiles and engineered

textures of Matson's inventions were similar to existing packaged foods like Betty Crocker cake mixes and Tyson grilled and ready chicken strips. Were products like this enough, I wondered, to break through Azempik's defenses and excite people whose relationship to food has been turned on its head. GLP-1 drugs change far more than our metabolic processes. There are GLP-1 receptors in the hypothalamus, the area that regulates hunger and signals fullness, and in the brain's dopamine reward system, the primitive so-called reptilian desire circuitry involved with addictive behaviors. It seems that GLP-1s, by regulating

the release of dopamine, may make the flavor profiles of ultra-processed products, many of which have been optimized to stimulate the brain's reward system, less appealing. Does Ozempic shatter the illusion that junk tastes good by turning down the dopamine hit? Data is lacking. The drugs, said Gerhard, the Michigan Food Addiction Researcher, are still a black box. Matson is betting on convenience winning out. Although Larry Wins is now buying mainly fruits and vegetables, he still turns to healthy

choice frozen meals in a pinch. That's no surprise to Bob Nolan, a senior vice president at ConAgra Brands, the line's owner and a Matson client. As people eat less, he wages, the value of convenience will grow. You're probably not going to want to be in the kitchen prepping an elaborate meal to just have a few bites, Nolan told me. Eating fewer calories makes it harder to obtain the nutrients we need, said Arbakh, the Matson relationship manager. So selling products pumped full of protein and fiber makes sense.

Given Big Food's track record, it's likely that the companies will succeed at finding products Ozempic users crave. But what if they're too successful? I asked Nicole Avina, a professor of neuroscience at Mount Sinai who studies sugar addiction, if she believed it could be possible for food companies to engineer, intentionally or not, compounds that would make GLP-1 drugs less effective. Avena told me it was plausible. The food industry, she pointed out, has cabinets of formidable reward-triggering compounds

with which to experiment. Companies could end up counteracting the drugs to some degree in their efforts to make foods more rewarding," she said. I asked Matson's chief executive, Justin Schimick, an easygoing Urssine, Minnesota, native with a PhD in food science, if he worried about that possibility. Schimick's first job, before he drove his motorcycle from the Midwest to California, was working for General Mills on Lucky Charms. Foams are his forte. He helped invent the chemical formulas that make marshmallows change color or reveal hidden images upon their

contact with milk. But making GLP-1 products for Schimek is also personal. He has struggled with his weight since childhood. Near the beginning of this year he started taking a GLP-1 drug. His food noise, the droning monotone of want that torments many who end up on the drugs, has since vanished, along with more than 50 pounds. He no longer craves sugary lattes. Schimek, who is in talks with the biggest of the big food companies about designing GLP-1 optimized products, said he was not anxious about big foods trying to overwhelm the brains of GLP-1 users with hyper-rewarding compounds. "'Taste and pleasure are very important,' said Shimok, who seemed to be choosing his

words carefully, but not the only thing. There is an honest desire in the industry," he added, to support people in their weight loss journeys. Schimek wouldn't say which companies he is speaking to about GLP-1 products. "'We are professional secret keepers,' he said." Stuckey had her team think about companies that might be a natural fit for their optimized creations for GLP-1 users. As I was

finishing up my Ozempic-inspired lunch, they started throwing around ideas. Could the nourish fit Brownie become a high protein cake mix sold by Betty Crocker, the General Mills brand? Or Hostess, Stuckey said, could easily start a GLP-1 line. Nobody would know it was from Hostess. Because GLP-1 side effects include gastrointestinal issues, how about reaching out to General Mills, the owner of Fiber One, Stuckey said, and offering to help it design products targeted to GLP-1 users?

A 40-something restaurant owner from Pennsylvania had explained to his fellow participants in the Mats & Focus group that since starting on Wigovie, he now has to force himself to eat. Beef jerky is one thing that's just about bearable, but his fiber levels are way down. So Stucky suggested a jerky infused with a fiber source. Maybe inulin? Maybe psyllium husk? That is a really disgusting idea, she said. But we're good at making things taste good.