The dairy sector can benefit from the rise of GLP-1 drugs as users, eating less food, start to examine the protein they consume, Valio’s innovation chief has said.
GLP-1 medication suppresses appetite and interest for protein-rich products is growing among users keen to ensure they do not miss out on an important nutrient.
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Dairy manufacturers have signalled demand for their products is increasing and the growing popularity of the drugs – as well as rising overall consumer interest in protein – were hot topics among delegates at the Arena Dairy Innovation Strategies conference in Amsterdam today (25 March).
Dr. Kevin Deegan, the vice president for innovation at Finland-based food group Valio, suggested GLP-1 drugs were a “new driver” for how consumers “perceive” protein.
“I don’t see, in the near future at least, any end to this growth in protein but probably a nuance change is going to happen with this,” Dr. Deegan said on a panel at the event.
“We’re now maybe finally starting to talk a little bit more about protein quality, so not about quantity. GLP-1-type medication reduces your appetite. You’re going to eat less. You want to get more bang for your bite. Consumers are going to start to pay more attention to the type of protein that they’re getting.
“Dairy is in a really good space for that because dairy protein is already perceived by consumers as being natural and as being very good quality. Also, dairy products, the vessels for getting the protein, are also very accessible, very tasty and very good quality.”
Dr. Deegan, who has led the innovation function at Valio, Finland’s largest dairy group, for four years, also told the audience the industry needed to be aware of how GLP-1 drugs affect consumer interest in sweeter foods.
“It doesn’t affect how you perceive sweetness because that’s an interaction that happens between the sweet molecule and the taste receptors on your tongue. What it does do is it reduces the motivation that you’re going to get from it as part of a wider appetite change,” he said.
“That’s going to have a very practical consequence for our industry as well. If you’re in product development and you’re thinking about the near future of dairy, sweetness is going to be very much on the table. With portion sizes, which are decreasing and the need for bigger portion sizes decreasing, there’s going to be less desire for sweet.”
Alongside the Valio executive on the panel was Mike Bagshaw, the owner and founder of International Taste Solutions, a UK-based business supplying flavours to food and drinks companies.
He argued flavour suppliers could help manufacturers improve the taste profile of the protein-packed products being chosen by GLP-1 users.
“You still need flavours. You still need the products that taste good,” Bagshaw said. “From our perspective, where we really come in on flavour is once you get into nutrient-dense vitamins, minerals. Those things can have a taste. Masking is getting more and more important because, with the little appetite that they have, GLP users go ‘Oh, this isn’t great.’ And then the experimentation with flavours. You need exciting flavours.”
Nevertheless, as the dairy and wider food industry monitors how GLP-1 drugs affect purchasing and eating habits, research has been published that indicates some users revert back to previous consumption patterns.
A US paper by Cornell University, for example, shows households ending their GLP-1 intake “revert to their pre-adoption grocery spending and shift toward slightly less healthy grocery baskets compared to their original baseline”. The researchers said spending on confectionery and chocolates rose by 6.7% “relative to pre-adoption levels in the medium run”.
Speaking to Just Food at the Arena Dairy Innovation Strategies conference, Dr. Deegan said the development of pill formats will lead to more people using GLP-1 medication but questioned whether there will be “sustainable behavioural changes” among consumers.
“It does seem that the behavioural change is not as sustainable as the physical and physiological changes. This is not the first time that we’ve had this issue. It was the same with Atkins,” he said.
“It’s like a band aid maybe. It’s a crutch that we’re using to get the results without having to put the work in. Inputting the work into it would then require a behavioural change to happen.
“It’s interesting. On the other hand, currently, the vast majority of these GLP-1 medications are by injection and also by prescription – obviously, depending on markets – and the vast majority of users are using it because of diabetes or obesity. The kind of voluntary usage of GLP-1 is still quite low but now it will be available in pill form.
“I can’t say if that is a sustainable change. Will it make it easier? Yes, definitely. Will it increase the aesthetic or voluntary usage? Very much so. Will it lead to sustainable behavioural changes in people? I don’t think so. The food industry is not driving this. The pharmaceutical industry is driving it and we were reacting to it. I don’t doubt the ability of the food industry or the dairy industry to – we usually have the solution.”
