A Boring Dystopia @lemmy.world lettruthout @lemmy.world 9mo ago

Ozempic Threatens Profits at Food and Beverage Makers Worldwide

www.bloomberg.com Ozempic Threatens Profits at Food and Beverage Makers Worldwide

A new class of weight-loss drugs has rattled global equity markets, sending shares of everything from food and beverage companies to medical-device makers tumbling. As earnings season kicks into high gear, firms are expected to reveal if consumer behaviors are being altered by the likes of Ozempic.

So far, fear has driven investors to sell consumer-exposed stocks. A basket of such companies — including Oreo cookies maker Mondelez International Inc. and Modelo beer producer Constellation Brand Inc. — is down nearly 9% since early August with losses roughly double those of the S&P 500 Index, while makers of things like insulin pumps have wiped out close to a third of their value over the same stretch amid concerns that fewer people will need their products.

43 comments

Is junk food finally becoming the new tobacco? We can only hope. Maybe in my lifetime it will become unusual to see people having Oreos and Mountain Dew, just like it's rare to see people out smoking in public anymore.
- 2055: fruit is a gateway food to such vices as cookies and pie.
  
  I’m only half serious, but fruit is trending toward being as unhealthy as other snack foods.
  
  Fruit has fiber, antioxidants, vitamins and no fat or cholesterol. To me the fixation on sugar is misguided - vegetable starches are exactly the same thing. A potato is basically 25% sugar for example since potato starch is simply a chain of glucose molecules.
  
  Some of them have vitamins and other nutrients but as far as sugar goes you’re spot on
  
  ....what? Are you saying fruit is somehow becoming less healthy?
- But what will I do on my Oreos and Mountain Dew break?
  
  I tell my boss I eat Oreos and mountain dew just to get that extra 15 minute break, but honestly I just sit there
- I doubt it. if only because the dividing line is much more vague than with tobacco. There's a whole range of products that's somewhere between healthy and unhealthy.
- Maybe. I do stay in my home a lot.
People being more healthy and living longer also threatens the profits of health care providers and funeral homes. The government should do something about that. Maybe ban exercise, or implement a mandatory daily cheese infusion. Would that make the capitalists happy?
- Depends on the kind of cheese tbh.
  
  Yeah, I wonder if the makers of KRAFT EASY CHEESE CHEDDAR IN CAN have considered an IV attachment.
- Yep, living longer? After useful labor age, while collecting social security, medicare and pensions? I can't imagine republican politicians really wanting that.
Man... The media are really pushing this shit hard lately.
This has been in financial news for a few weeks. I personally don't think the weight loss drug has anything to do with it. What I think happened is these companies jacked the price up on their "food". People already know it's bad for you, and raising price just led people to make better, more health conscious decisions rather than pay $6 for a bag of chips. I know anecdotally that I have done exactly that, and when I do get chips or crackers nowadays, it's the store brand. Fuck Mondelez, Frito-Lay and coca cola. I'm not paying higher price for stuff I already know I shouldn't be eating.
- Yhe they just decided to blame the drug for their fuck up. Lol
- Trader Joe's Ridge Cut potato chips are the best potato chips on planet earth.
Everything about this article is definitely absurdly horrible. “Earnings season” is a reasonable concept, I guess, but somehow I don’t feel good at all about such financial abstractions that people take very seriously. The concept that these companies depended on excessive or compulsive consumption to make money and people are cutting down not because they obtained a clue or motivation, but due to an injectable drug, is pretty pathetic for humankind.
- We have this cultural fixation that "mind over matter" and willpower alone can do anything, but the reality is that we are just animals with a slight bit of clever self-awareness on top. I feel like judging humankind as pathetic is misplaced here, when the reality we don't want to admit is that modern processed foods are as unnatural to our reward systems and present hazardous habit-forming as some drugs. There are a lot of people in situations with food that they can't easily get out of on their own and we should maybe consider whether there is such a thing as a food product too addictive to allow for sale to the public
  
  My concern is that they're replacing a group of unnatural products with a pharmaceutical, without addressing the underlying causes. Most people regain weight after ending use of the drug. This is quite an expensive medication, as well. Also check out the list of side effects.
  
  While it's reasonable, I don't think the public would accept broad restrictions on basic food composition.
Stock Investor: My portfolio feels threatened by the possible future underperformance of Oreo.

Normal person with a rational outlook on life: Guys, we did it! Stop trying so hard!

If profits are flat, learn to accept that cookies are a sometimes food

And for the venture capitalists who won't let us keep nice things - you took away Kaybee Toys and Toys R Us. If you take away Oreos, I can't guarantee your safety. /s
Fuck em
Isn't Ozempic really expensive? I doubt most overweight people are taking it and plenty of non-overweight people eat endless junk food.
How prolific is a diet pill if it has brought down sales by 9%? Or are these relatively few people really having that much of an impact?
- Or are these relatively few people really having that much of an impact?
  
  I'm imagining a world where 99% of grocery shoppers ignore the cookie aisle while the last 1% fill their carts with Oreos every visit, like Whales in pay to win mobile games.
- There's a shortage of it. They cant produce enough of it right now. So pretty prolific. Also it's an injection.
  
  But there's online services that will let you get it for weight loss for like $200 a month and practically no push back because they are operating in a weird online pharmacy grey market. The Verge just did a big article about it. But that worked so well that company isn't doing it anymore because they caused a shortage and can't supply themselves.
So these junk food profiteers got caught with their hands in the cookie jar?

Cry me a river, assholes. Take some responsibility for the damage your products do to public health.
Jesus do the masters of the universe really want a recession bad. Just constantly telling their media companies to report in a definite economic downturn coming any day now.

I guess the COVID recession just wasn't on the right timetable for them? Or they were too busy trying not to die that they couldn't maximize their recession profiteering?
I discussed this with my wife at least two or three months ago. I'm glad to see Bloomberg continues to feed investors the stalest data possible.
- Oh, I forgot when your wife and I talked about this. Say hi to her for me!
  
  Meaning, that this has been on the news for months. Also, it's not a dig on you, it's a dig on Bloomberg. Instructional investors already have puts in place. Late articles like this just fuck the individual investors.
  
  EDIT: *institutional
Archive link: https://archive.ph/axq9A
Stock photo is a Woolies
- and funnily woolies stocks are taking a bit of a dive too

43 comments