Populations are shrinking. Appetites are shrinking too, thanks to GLP-1 drugs. Food Professor Dr. Sylvain Charlebois lays out what happens when an entire industry built on more people eating more food suddenly has neither.

Charlebois walks through the workaround already forming: smaller portions marketed as premium, priced the same as what they replaced. A four-ounce steak sized for someone on a weight loss drug, sold at what a full steak used to cost, is one version of where this goes if the industry defaults to old habits instead of rethinking who it's actually feeding.

There's a harder question underneath it. When the person filling a cart with craft dinner to stretch a grocery budget gets left behind by an industry chasing a shrinking, wealthier customer, what does that split look like at checkout. Charlebois doesn't let the industry off easy on this one.

Topics: GLP-1 drugs, grocery prices, food industry, calorie economy, demand chain management

Originally aired on 2026-07-15