Are Food Companies Designing Products to Fight Weight Loss Drugs?
A new frontier in the battle between Big Food and Big Pharma raises uncomfortable questions about consumer choice
There’s something darkly ironic happening in America’s kitchens right now. Just as millions of people are turning to medications like Ozempic and Wegovy to curb their appetites and lose weight, whispers are emerging from the food industry about a new priority: creating products that people on these drugs will still want to eat.
Let’s call it what it is—GLP-1 resistant food.
The concept sounds almost absurd at first. We’re talking about an industry that might be engineering products specifically to overcome the appetite-suppressing effects of medications designed to help people eat less. But when you consider what’s at stake financially, it starts making a perverse kind of sense.
The Stakes Are Enormous
The numbers tell the story. GLP-1 drugs like semaglutide (Ozempic/Wegovy) and tirzepatide (Mounjaro/Zepbound) are projected to become some of the biggest pharmaceutical products in history. Goldman Sachs estimates the market could hit $100 billion by 2030. Morgan Stanley goes even further, projecting these drugs could reach 9% of the U.S. population within a decade.
For food companies, this represents an existential threat. When people on GLP-1s report eating 30-40% less food, that’s not just a statistic—that’s billions in lost revenue. Early data is already showing measurable impacts on certain food categories, particularly snack foods and ultra-processed items.
So what’s a food company to do? Adapt or die, apparently.
What Makes Food “GLP-1 Resistant”?
The pharmaceutical mechanism is straightforward enough. GLP-1 receptor agonists work by mimicking a hormone that regulates appetite and blood sugar. They slow gastric emptying, increase feelings of fullness, and reduce cravings—particularly for high-fat, high-sugar foods.
But here’s where it gets interesting. Not all foods are equally affected. Industry insiders have started identifying characteristics that might maintain appeal even for people on these medications:
High protein content seems to remain attractive. People on GLP-1s still need nutrition, and protein-forward products might satisfy both hunger and nutritional requirements without triggering the same aversion responses.
Texture and mouthfeel apparently matter more than ever. When chemical cravings diminish, the sensory experience becomes paramount. Foods that provide satisfying crunch, creaminess, or other textural elements might maintain appeal.
Smaller portions with premium positioning could be the play. If people are eating less, why not charge more per bite and focus on quality over quantity?
Functional benefits beyond just calories—think added fiber, vitamins, or other health halos—might justify purchase even with reduced consumption.
Some companies are reportedly exploring formulations that are easier to digest for people experiencing the slower gastric emptying that GLP-1s cause. Others are investigating flavor profiles that remain appealing when the neurological reward circuits around food are dampened.
The Ethical Minefield
And here’s where we need to pause and ask some uncomfortable questions.
Is it ethical for food companies to intentionally engineer products designed to circumvent the effects of medications prescribed to combat obesity and metabolic disease?
On one hand, you could argue this is just capitalism doing what capitalism does—adapting to changing consumer needs. People on GLP-1s still need to eat. They deserve food that tastes good and satisfies them. Creating products that appeal to this demographic isn’t inherently sinister. It’s just business.
But there’s another way to look at it.
These medications are prescribed precisely because people have struggled with overconsumption of hyperpalatable, ultra-processed foods. The obesity epidemic didn’t happen in a vacuum—it happened in an environment where food scientists spent decades optimizing products to maximize consumption. The phrase “bet you can’t eat just one” wasn’t just clever marketing; it was the whole business model.
Now, as a medical intervention starts helping people break free from those engineered cravings, the same industry is potentially working to overcome that intervention. It’s like a pharmaceutical company developing a treatment for alcohol addiction while brewers simultaneously work on beers that recovering alcoholics will still crave.
The power dynamic here is troubling. People taking these medications are making a conscious choice—often a difficult one involving significant cost and potential side effects—to change their relationship with food. Should companies be actively working to undermine that choice?
Follow the Money
Let’s be blunt about the financial incentives at play.
Major food corporations have spent decades building business models predicated on volume. Their entire infrastructure—from supply chains to marketing budgets to shareholder expectations—depends on people eating more, not less. The prospect of a significant portion of the population suddenly eating 30-40% less food represents a catastrophic threat to their bottom line.
We’ve seen this playbook before. When consumers started demanding healthier options, food companies responded with “better for you” product lines—often just slightly tweaked versions of the same ultra-processed formulations with added marketing. When people started counting calories, they introduced 100-calorie snack packs—which studies showed often led to people eating multiple packs.
The GLP-1 response could follow similar patterns. Create products marketed as “perfect for your wellness journey” or “optimized for your lifestyle” while the underlying objective remains the same: maintain consumption and market share.
The Transparency Problem
Here’s what makes this particularly troubling: we don’t actually know the extent of what’s happening behind closed doors.
Food formulations are proprietary. The specific research and development priorities of major food corporations aren’t matters of public record. Unless companies voluntarily disclose that they’re developing “GLP-1 resistant” products, we might never know for certain.
What we do know is that major food companies are publicly acknowledging the GLP-1 threat in earnings calls and investor presentations. We know they’re studying the impact on consumption patterns. We know they’re exploring new product development to address changing consumer needs.
The question isn’t whether they’re responding to the GLP-1 trend—it’s how they’re responding, and whether that response prioritizes consumer health or corporate revenue.
Where Do We Draw the Line?
This brings us to the fundamental tension: should we even regulate this kind of innovation?
Food companies have a right to develop new products. Consumers have a right to choose what they eat. The market has a way of sorting out what works and what doesn’t. Government intervention in food formulation has a mixed track record at best.
But we also have decades of evidence showing that when left entirely to market forces, food companies will optimize for profit over public health. The obesity epidemic, the diabetes crisis, the cardiovascular disease burden—these aren’t just individual failures of willpower. They’re the predictable outcomes of an industrial food system designed to maximize consumption of calorie-dense, nutrient-poor products.
If food companies are indeed developing products specifically designed to overcome the effects of obesity medications, shouldn’t we at least require transparency about it? Shouldn’t consumers have the right to know if the “protein bar optimized for your health journey” was actually engineered to circumvent their appetite-suppressing medication?
The Bigger Picture
This isn’t really about GLP-1s specifically. It’s about the larger question of who controls our food environment and in whose interest it operates.
For decades, we’ve treated obesity as primarily a personal responsibility issue. Eat less, move more, exercise willpower. The GLP-1 revolution has exposed the limits of that framework. These medications work precisely because they address biological mechanisms that the modern food environment has learned to exploit. They level the playing field between human neurology and industrial food science.
If food companies now work to tilt that playing field back in their favor, we’re essentially watching a real-time battle between medical intervention and commercial interest play out on our dinner plates.
The ethical question isn’t complicated: when a person makes a medical decision to address their health, should corporations be actively working to undermine that decision for profit?
The answer should be obvious. But in an economy where food companies are publicly traded entities with fiduciary duties to maximize shareholder value, the answer that’s obvious from a public health standpoint might be impossible from a corporate governance standpoint.
What Happens Next?
We’re in the early stages of this trend. The GLP-1 market is still growing. Food companies are still figuring out their response. And consumers are still learning how these medications change their relationship with food.
What we do in this moment matters. Do we demand transparency about food formulation and marketing to people on these medications? Do we regulate certain types of product development? Do we trust the market to sort it out? Do we just shrug and accept that this is how capitalism works?
The food industry has spent a century getting very, very good at making us want to eat. They’ve employed neuroscientists, psychologists, and flavor chemists. They’ve invested billions in research and development. They’ve optimized every variable from texture to packaging to create products that are nearly irresistible.
Now, as medicine offers a way to resist, they’re potentially optimizing in the other direction. Not to make food healthier, but to make it harder to resist even with pharmaceutical help.
That’s not innovation. That’s escalation.
And we should probably talk about whether it’s a war we want food companies fighting.
What do you think? Are food companies crossing an ethical line by potentially developing GLP-1 resistant products, or are they simply adapting to changing consumer needs? Share your thoughts in the comments below.