经济学人 | 为什么减肥药是食品公司最大的威胁？

Weight-loss drugs are no match for the might of big food

减肥药难敌食品巨头之威势

The world is as addicted to fattening foods as it is to fossil fuels

全球消费者沉迷致胖食品，一如依赖化石燃料

To get a sense of why periodic panics about the impact of weight-loss programmes on the food industry should be taken with a pinch of salt, sugar, butter and whatever else you fancy putting in your mixing bowl, go back 20 years to 2003.

对于担心各种减肥法会影响食品行业的周期性恐慌，得细细咂摸，明辨其味。欲知缘故，让我们回到20年前的2003年。

That was the year when Robert Atkins, the eponymous father of a popular diet, slipped on a sheet of ice in New York and died. The low-carb king was at the peak of his powers. One of his books, “Diet Revolution”, briefly outsold even “Harry Potter”.

那一年，发明了以自己名字命名的流行饮食瘦身法的罗伯特·阿特金斯在纽约一处结冰的路面上滑倒，之后不治身亡。这位低碳饮食之王彼时正值影响力巅峰。他所著的《饮食革命》的销量甚至一度超过《哈利·波特》。

His message, not of abstinence but of indulgence in the finer things of life such as steak, bacon, eggs and cream, spread joy through the livestock pits of Chicago, and alarm through bakeries and confectioneries. Wheat prices fell. Unilever, an Anglo-Dutch food giant, blamed the Atkins diet for shrinking sales.

他宣扬的信息不是节制饮食，而是纵情享受牛排、熏肉、鸡蛋和奶油等更精良的食物，这给芝加哥的牲畜饲养场带去了喜悦，让面包店和糖果店惶惶不安。小麦价格下跌。英荷食品巨头联合利华把销售萎缩归咎于阿特金斯饮食法。

Yet by late 2003 the craze had gone the way of its founder, snuffed out by a blend of boredom, bad breath and bad publicity. As one newspaper summed it up: “Atkins is toast.”

然而到2003年末，这股热潮迎来了和其创始人一样的结局，人们受够了这个饮食法带来的无聊乏味、口臭熏天和负面报道，它很快销声匿迹。一家报纸盖棺论定：“阿特金斯完蛋了。”

Every decade brings something new to avoid. In the 1970s it was calories; in the 1980s, salt; in the 1990s, fat; in the 2000s, carbs; in the 2010s gluten and dairy. But this time is different, isn’t it?

每个年代都会出现要避免摄入的新东西。上世纪70年代是卡路里，80年代是盐，90年代是脂肪，2000年代是碳水，2010年代是麸质和乳制品。但这次不一样，对吧？

The latest killjoys threatening the food, beverage and restaurant industries are not another dietary fad, but injectable medicines, such as Wegovy, approved in 2021 as an anti-obesity drug, and Ozempic and Mounjaro, anti-diabetes drugs used off-label for weight loss.

威胁食品、饮料和餐饮业的最新扫把星不是另一种饮食时尚，而是注射药物，例如2021年获批的减肥药威哥维，以及超出说明书规定用于减肥的抗糖尿病药物诺和泰和蒙扎罗。

Besides stimulating insulin production, the so-called GLP-1 medicines reproduce a feeling of fullness and suppress appetite in a way that has a similar effect in the food and drink aisles as dietary restraint, except people are less likely to cheat.

除了刺激胰岛素分泌外，这些GLP-1药物还能让人产生饱腹感，抑制食欲，这对食品和饮料行业的影响与节制饮食类似，只是这次减肥的人们不大可能作弊。

Investors in Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly, which make the drugs, are delighted. Those in the soft-drinks and snacking businesses, less so. In recent weeks the share prices of Coca-Cola and PepsiCo, as well as of retailers like Walmart and Costco, have swooned .

这些药物的制造商诺和诺德和礼来的投资者喜不自胜。软饮料和零食业的投资者就不那么开心了。最近几周，可口可乐、百事，还有沃尔玛、开市客等零售商的股价大跌。

Pundits were swift to link a big sell-off on October 6th to comments by a Walmart executive in America who revealed that, according to anonymised data, those who bought weight-loss drugs also purchased less food. It sounded like an echo of the Unilever scare from two decades ago. In all likelihood, it is a red herring.

10月6日股市出现大幅抛售，专家马上把这与沃尔玛的一名高管在美国发布的言论联系起来，他说无记名数据显示消费者在购买减肥药的同时会减少购买食品。听起来很像是二十年前联合利华那声惊呼的回声。但这十有八九是在混淆视听。

The $1trn-plus food industry, stalwarts of which have been around for generations, will not sit idly by and let someone else decide their fate. On October 10th Ramon Laguarta, PepsiCo’s boss, was the latest to play down the impact, saying that anti-obesity drugs were on the firm’s radar but were not expected to affect any of the long-term trends boosting its snacks business, such as urbanisation, busy lives and a growing middle class.

食品行业的价值超过万亿美元，其中的中坚公司已传承几代人，他们绝不会无所作为，任由他人决定自己的命运。最新出来淡化所受影响的是百事的老板拉蒙·拉瓜尔塔。10月10日，他表示公司正关注减肥药的发展，但预计它们影响不了促进其零食业务发展的任何长期趋势，如城市化、忙碌生活，以及日益壮大的中产阶级。

The firm could, of course, “pivot” if necessary, he added. Other processed-food companies have noted that trends such as smaller pack sizes and healthier foods already align with GLP-1-style eating habits.

当然，必要时公司也可以“转向”，他补充道。其他加工食品公司则指出，更小的单位包装和更健康的食品等趋势已经与GLP-1式饮食习惯相契合。

And big food could use its influence to subtly raise concerns about the cost and safety of the new drugs. With such deeply entrenched incumbents , weaning the world off fattening foods is unlikely to be much easier than ending its addiction to fossil fuels.

此外，大型食品公司可以利用自身影响力微妙地就新型减肥药物的成本和安全性提出质疑。老牌食品公司如此树大根深，要摆脱致肥食品不比戒掉化石燃料的瘾容易多少。