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I suspect that Conagra will soon change its Hungry Man dinner message:
Aware that GLP-1 drugs have diminished appetites and minimized cravings, Conagra’s Omaha test kitchen is deciding how to pivot away from large portions of sugary and salty foods.
The problem, though, is what to replace them with.
Impact of Weight Loss Drugs
During a WSJ visit to Conagra’s test kitchen, journalists observed a behavioral scientist pondering a plastic tray of eggs, sausage, and potatoes. Pouring cheese sauce over it, the food maker’s employees discussed what would make the dinner appealing to the millions of eaters who are no longer hungry. Their first step, they said, was making the food visually tempting. Next, while they needed to downsize, the amount of protein had to increase. (To a Duncan Hines brownie, for more protein, Conagra said consumers could add peanut butter and cottage cheese.)
Conagra, General Mills, and Mars were surely aware that JPMorgan predicted food and beverage annual revenue could plunge by a whopping $30 billion to $55 billion by 2030 because of the GLPs.
Our Bottom Line: Externalities
Defined as the impact of an activity or contract on a third unrelated party, an externality can be positive or negative. The perfect example of a positive externality is the ripple impact of vaccines. When one person gets vaccinated, she prevents countless strangers from getting sick. As for the negatives, air pollution has the opposite spillover when the byproduct of a factory is the dirty air that activates a distant person’s asthma.
For weight loss drugs, the list of externalities is unending. In a recent econlife, we reported that airplanes, with lighter people, could spend less on fuel. Saving as much as $577 million annually, they could reduce fares. Similarly, increasingly thinner brides have transformed the timing, size, and alteration of gown orders.
As for food manufacturers, the scramble is on to cater to a less hungry cohort. At the same time, we can expect a new menu of externalities.
My sources and more: Thanks to WSJ for inspiring today’s post and to this past WSJ article. From there, we checked on Cornell’s research and the IFF (International Flavors and Fragrances) website.
Please note that several of today’s sentences were in a past econlife post.
