Cahier n°2
How GLP-1 Drugs Are Shifting Power over Food Demand
How GLP-1 Drugs Are Shifting Power over Food Demand
Résumé
This Conceptual Paper No. 1 published by the Observatory of Food Grammars introduces the concept of Pharmaco-Food Economy, defined as an economic regime in which an increasing share of food demand is shaped by pharmacological innovations capable of modifying the biological determinants of food consumption. Drawing on the rapid diffusion of GLP-1 receptor agonists, the paper proposes an analytical framework for understanding the ongoing transformation of food demand, industrial strategies, retailer dynamics and emerging food sovereignty issues. This publication is intended as a conceptual working paper. It does not claim to establish a definitive theory but rather to provide a framework for discussion, future empirical testing and further conceptual development.
Summary
For a century, the food industry has influenced demand through price, formulation, advertising and distribution. None of these levers reached the biological engine of hunger. GLP-1 analogues, first designed against diabetes and then against obesity, cross that boundary: they act directly on appetite and on the reward circuits. They reduce the quantities consumed, recalibrate the perception of taste, distort the structure of the grocery basket, and shift part of spending from the home toward foodservice and from the large format toward the single portion. This notebook proposes to name this unprecedented regime the pharmaco-food economy: a configuration in which demand is no longer determined by social, economic and cultural factors alone, but shaped upstream by a patented molecule produced by a small number of players. The text sets out its mechanisms, maps the winners and losers, positions retailers as the first holders of the data that documents the shift, and draws from it a question of sovereignty: securing supply is no longer enough; one must now understand the mastery of the biological determinants of demand. The concept extends two established notions, Abraham's pharmaceuticalisation of society and Scrinis's nutritionism, and shifts them onto the terrain of the food economy and geoeconomics. This notebook is a first formalisation of a concept meant to be discussed, enriched and tested against the evolution of food systems.