Odd Lots - This Is How the Food Industry Is Preparing For a Post-Ozempic World

Episode Date: June 10, 2024

The rise of GLP-1 drugs, like Ozempic, is a potentially existential threat to the makers of salty, sugary, high-calorie snack foods. But it's obvious that the gigantic food industry will search out ways to adapt. So what types of new products will they sell? How will they be flavored? How will they be packaged and marketed? On this episode of the podcast, we speak with Barb Stuckey. She is the chief innovation and marketing officer at Mattson, a San Francisco Bay Area company that helps food producers find the next big flavor. Her team recently undertook a big study of Ozempic users to get a better understanding of how it changed their diets. She speaks to us about what they learned, what new types of products are in development, and how food manufacturers find the next big thing.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On April 4th, 2023, around 2 in the morning, a man was found stabbed multiple times on a sidewalk in downtown San Francisco. Hey, who did this to you? What happened next turned the story into a political firestorm. Reports have identified the victim as Bob Lee, the founder of Cash App. From Bloomberg Podcasts, this is Foundering, the Killing of Bob Lee, beginning April 16. studios. Podcasts Radio News. Oh, and welcome to another episode of the Ovalauts podcast. I'm Joe Weizenthal. And I'm Tracy Allaway. Tracy, we like to talk about snacks and drinks and stuff on the show. And, you know, it's kind of just something we're interested. But I actually think that, like,

there's like a deeper fundamental reason by why we keep coming around to this topic. Wait, it's not just because we like snacks. I mean, that is the deep, deep, deep reason. But the other reason is I kind of think, I've been thinking about this lately, that like, the proliferation of different types of snack foods and beverages and energy drinks, which multiply like crazy on store aisles, it's like the ultimate story of like capitalist success and like the consumer economy, that we just keep getting this like endless permutations of like great flavors and different ways to consume these flavors. It's like the pinnacle of the consumption economy. Okay. Well, I would say, I guess capitalism, well, capitalism has to have some upsides, and I guess Alode-flavored Cheetos are one of them. That's fair. I do think what's interesting to me about this moment in snacks is there seems to be sort of two things going on, like two mega trends. The very early beginnings of two megatrends. So one is the idea of what's going to happen to snack food.

in a GLP1 fueled world. And we touched on this a little bit last year when we spoke to James Van Keelan and he was talking about his OZemphic and GLP1 investment thesis. And I really like speaking to him because it wasn't just like all the companies that are making these drugs are going to see their share prices absolutely surge. It was also, there are going to be the second order knock-on effects on some consumer companies. And you could see that playing out a little bit last year. You can certainly see it playing out now. I think almost every major, you know, food and beverage company that reported in the most recent quarter had a GLP1 or Ozempic related question. And then I guess the other mega trend is just this idea of companies

having to become more and more creative to also drive consumption. So you have to have more flavors in order to grow your market share to keep people engaged and interested and posting pictures of your food on TikTok or Instagram or whatever. Totally. And you just see this play out. I don't know. This is why I go back, you know, I think about those sort of famous or infamous and maybe apocryphal things where it's like some Soviet leader came to the U.S. and saw a grocery store. It's like, okay, capitalism is the answer. Maybe there was something. But it really does feel like we're sort of at this moment where these maybe almost two megatrends are in competition with each other, right? Because there is this seemingly raised to provide more flavor and more

variety and more versions and special versions and stuff like that. And then the sort of looming threat to the sort of traditional way of doing business from the GLP-1's like Ozempic. So there is never too much snack food and there is never too much conversation about snack food. Well, the other thing that I just remembered, I totally agree, you can never have enough snack food. But the other thing was the conversation we had with Ryan Harlan, where he was talking about the technology that's now going into producing these snack foods and also AI nowadays. So this idea that you can basically model a virtual manufacturing line for a new flavor. You can use AI maybe to come up with new flavors. So it seems like all of snack foods is getting more sophisticated.

and some of it is, of course, in response to good old-fashioned consumer demand, give the customer what they want. But part of it also, I have to think, might be in response to competition from GLP1 and OZempic and the idea that, well, if we're going to eat less food overall, then maybe the way to keep customers is to make sure that food is really, really interesting and good. I'm glad you brought up the Ryan Harlan episode because, right, that was about the sort of supply side innovations that allow companies like, say, Freet-O-Lay to try more limited run lines and move things faster and get a, you know, you have a theoretical test flavor. You can make a chip faster. Anyway, so that raises the question, where does the flavor come in the first place when there

is a new chili lime or a new durian flavored Tistito? Are we going to Flavor Town? We're going to Flavor Town. I hadn't thought we're not, who's the chef that we're not talking to that chef? But we do have the perfect guest because it's someone who is in the business of great flavors. We're going to be speaking with Barb Stucky. She's the chief innovation and marketing officer at Madsen, which is a Silicon Valley-based food and beverage innovation company. She has written a lot about what makes great flavors, and she has studied a lot about this moment in flavor history. So Barb, thank you so much for coming on Outlots.

Well, thank you for having me. What do you do? The chief innovation and marketing officer at Madsen, what do you do in the flavor world? Oh, what don't we do in the favorite flavor world? So the company's been around for about 47 years, and over the course of those decades, we have worked in pretty much every food and beverage category that exists, with the exception maybe of beer. Okay. But we work on everything from baby food to alcoholic beverages, to frozen entrees, to confections, to dietary supplements. And we also do work in the restaurant channel. So we work mainly for national and global restaurant chains, but we help them identify new menu categories and new menu items. So we are really all over 100% share of stomach is how we like to say. like stomach share. I've never heard that. I've never heard that one before, but that makes

sense. So one thing I was wondering is the basic premise of this conversation. I mentioned GLP1 drugs earlier, and this is something that has come up in various forms on the podcast and also on various earnings calls, as I mentioned. Is this something that's on your radar as a chief innovation officer in the food industry? Yes, absolutely. It's very much on our radar. And I'll tell you how this happened. So, you know, we work in food and beverage. We are not in the pharmaceutical industry. So we started getting some questions from our clients who range from some of the largest global CPG companies to small founder-funded startups. And they were asking questions about these new drugs and what's going to happen and should I be worried about this.

And this was about middle of 2023. So in the fourth quarter of 2020, we decided that because of our position in the industry where we do work across companies and we work across categories, that we were going to educate ourselves. And we were going to make ourselves as smart as we can about this topic. And we were going to then put forth the learnings that we gained and share them with the industry. So we just did that in a webinar format. It worked like this. So we handled it as we would do a client project. So we started reading secondary research that was out there.

There was a great report from Morgan Stanley that enabled some of our learnings. And then we have a consumer panel at Mattson. So these are just consumers who have been willing to give us their feedback on new ideas and products. And we surveyed the panel to see if anyone in our panel was on OZMPIC or some of the other medicines. We call them AOMs, anti-obesity medications. And we found out that there was about 125 people who were either on the drugs or had been on the drugs.

So all of a sudden now we've got a patient population that we can talk to to understand more. So we started doing that. We put a survey in front of those consumers and got to learn a little bit about what they were experiencing and how things were changing for them. We also talked to medical practitioners. So we talked to doctors. We talked to nurse practitioners. We talked to people who were prescribing the AOMs.

And then we did a lot of work with our proprietary AI models to talk to AI personas to see what was resonating with them. And that was super interesting as well. And then the last thing we did, which I can tell you more about, is we created some new food and beverage concepts, some new ideas. They ranged from beverages to snacks, to meals. And we tested those ideas with our patient panel of humans, I should say. We did test them with humans, not our AI, which we can do.

but we didn't do. So we have so much data, so much to share. So let's start with some of that. Before we get to the new concepts, what did the 100 or so people in your panel who are on the AOMs tell you about their experience and how it changed their relationship with food and beverages? Yeah, it's a great question. And just to clarify, our sample size ended up being about 75. Okay. So 75 people did those patients, so some of them dropped off. But what we heard from, patients is that most of them, the vast majority of them, were extremely satisfied or positive with their experience on the drugs. And this is interesting because many of them reported having side effects. It just goes to show that it's so hard to lose weight through typical

strategies, you know, a combination of diet and exercise. Some of our panelists had even had previous weight loss surgery, for example, but other interventions. And they were also just really pleased with these drugs as giving them success that they were unable to have or unable to sustain using other methods. So that was really interesting to us. So it does seem that these things are, these drugs are working incredibly well for people. Not everyone. A lot of the side effects, are continual and a small number of people do have them, but they can be really unpleasant in terms of GI. One of the ways that these drugs work is that it's hormonal, but they also happen to slow

your gastric emptying, meaning the food stays in your stomach longer, and so you feel full longer, which also happens when you have weight loss surgery. your stomach is actually reduced in size. But with these drugs, it's not reduced in size, but it feels that way because the food stays in there longer. And so people really, really can not overeat. They told us really horrific stories of overeating and getting sick because it was just nauseating. Also, there are problems at the other end of the GI tract, too. A lot of people reported constipation or diarrhea, other things like that.

So these are not without their challenges and not without their side effects. But for the vast majority of people, they were extremely happy and were losing significant amounts of weight. The other thing is that we did notice in our survey that a lot of people were having some pretty significant changes in their food and beverage behavior. And that was ultimately our goal for this. this study. So what did you see in terms of food preference? Because when I go on a diet and I restrict calories, I usually end up, this is terrible. This is not how you should diet, but I usually end up like replacing healthy meals with like Oreo cookies. And I just eat like three Oreo

cookies instead of having a larger meal. Does that hold out for OZemPEC people as well or people who are on OZempic and the other AOMs? Do they still eat junk food, just maybe less of it? or do we see a change in their food preferences? You know, it definitely depends on the person, but more people than not did say that all of a sudden they were not craving things like sugary sodas or salty snacks or animal proteins. So especially for some reason, beef.

People were really turned off by the idea of beef. And so they were, they were, instead sort of veering in the direction of fruits and vegetables, things that were lighter in flavor and lighter on the stomach. So, you know, they were really trying to satisfy those cravings. We even, we did some one-on-one video interviews. And I remember distinctly this woman talking about how, you know, I used to crave chips and now I crave cucumbers and carrots. And, and, and, and, and, and, and, said, the flavor of a crisp cucumber is just so tantalizing. And I'm thinking to myself, wow, tantalizing cucumber. I mean, that is a significant change in cravings and, you know,

and the resulting caloric intake. So it does seem to be doing something akin to teaching people how to eat healthy, which is crazy that a drug can do this. But that seems to be the case with a lot of people. That's pretty incredible. But it also has an interesting implication because I think like sort of one cynical expectation is that, okay, people don't want to eat salty chips as much anymore. So then the food industry is going to respond by, oh, well, we're just going to put even more salt in the chips and it will make it even more tantalizing. And it'll make it even harder for people to resist. but it sounds like from your research that that will just make the end products even more repellent

to people. I think you're absolutely right. Yes. We heard people really, really just turning their nose up at certain foods that they used to love. And it's really odd, but I do think that's what would happen. So, you know, a lot of them were, they were cutting from their diet in the neighborhood at a thousand calories a day. That's crazy. Like for most people, that's half of the calories or a third of the calories that you're consuming. So,

you know, that results in you having to make decisions about what is going to be my calorie consumption based on the fact that it is so much less. I'm really going to make those calories count. And so, you know, that just gets at the fact that, you know, I think you said at the beginning, like people want interesting food, people want delicious food. In the case of the folks that we heard from, just a lot less of it. Well, where does that leave, say, a potato chip maker?

Right. Because it seems like if people aren't craving salty food anymore, it seems unlikely that a maker of potato chips is going to suddenly substitute their offerings with something like cucumbers? Absolutely. You're totally right. I cannot imagine that happening. Of course, it takes a different distribution channel and different buyers in the grocery store. And yeah, that's not going to happen.

But what, you know, we're in the innovation business. And so what you could see potentially happening is that these makers of chips, for example, would create portion sizes that are much smaller, perhaps instead of increasing, the sodium, they reduce the sodium. Perhaps they do chips that have some vegetables blended into their tortilla chip dough, something like that, to give it a little bit more fiber, to help with the GI stuff, to give it a little more nutrient density. So, you know, this could be an opportunity for the food and beverage industry to really reset things and reset expectations. You know, if you think back to the size of a snack bag 30 years ago or the size of a hamburger 30 years ago or the size of a bagel, you know, they were all so much smaller.

So this is an opportunity for us to go back to those sizes as expectations and really help the entire country eat better. I don't know if that's going to happen. Maybe it's a little pie in the sky, but these are the kinds of things we were trying to educate. the industry about because there are some new opportunities. I'm June Grosso, inviting you to join me for the Bloomberg Law podcast. Every weekday, we help you make sense of the legal stories that shape the nation and the world. Listen for complete analysis of the biggest court cases, the latest actions from Congress and regulators, and the legal moves driving the markets.

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with me, June Grasso. Subscribe today wherever you get your podcast. So you mentioned coming up with some new food concepts or flavor concepts and actually serving them to your non-AI panelists. What are you cooking up there? And what resonated with people? Okay. Well, I have 22 products that we came up with and tested.

Not all of them scored well. For example, the one that we created that was about trying to tame nausea with ginger. That one bombed. Okay. Totally. Well, good to bomb early before a nationwide launch, I guess. So, yeah. Yes, that is so true.

That's why we do these kinds of tests. Yeah. So essentially what we were doing is writing these concepts for the AOM user. So one of the top score, I'll give you two or three. of the top scoring idea. So one of them was a brownie cube. So this idea was a ready-to-eat-eat-browny. It's about the size of a nickel, but in cube shape.

And it's baked with extra protein added. It's got a little bit of fiber in it from the cocoa. And it's basically kind of a one-bite indulgence. And that really resonated, I think, again, because when your gastric emptying is slowing down. You really just don't have room to eat a whole brownie. I suppose a nickel-sized or bite-sized brownie kind of preserves customer choice in some ways. So if you're on an AOM of some sort and you're not that hungry, you can have one bite of the brownie. But if you are not on AOMs and you are very hungry, you can...

You can have 10 brownies. You'll probably just eat like a bag full of them, right? Well, yes. And you know what? That brings up a really, important point, which was that all the things that rose to the top of our test were things that the whole family could enjoy. And that was an important criteria for the, you know, mostly women. It's mostly women on these because they didn't want to buy things and bring them into the household that would just for them, that their kids wouldn't eat, their husband wouldn't eat, their partners wouldn't eat. So we saw other things like these chicken strips that are

grilled chicken breast that are cut into strips and then individually wrapped. And so you could imagine, you know, you're trying to get your protein, but you don't want to eat a whole chicken breast because that's just way too much. So that was our number two scoring concept. And it just makes so much sense because if you can't eat a whole chicken breast, you really probably don't want to cook one and then cut it up yourself. So this was a refrigerated product that you could you could take it out of the refrigerator and snack on it cold or heat it up and put it in a tortilla. So things like that, you know, those represent some different format options, different packaging options, portion sizes. And then, you know, we have a whole other list of stuff that seem to

resonate some more than others. So it sounds like a lot of the innovation that you've worked on or that we could see coming, as you mentioned, sort of has to do with maybe foods that we're familiar with, but that in rethinking the distribution. And I have to say, I would snack on a grilled chicken strip. I would be down for that and having like a big bag of those in my house. That actually sounds like a I would snack on that. You mentioned that the ginger infused food sort of bombed.

Were there any breakthroughs in terms of flavors or somehow recreating the sensation? of a cucumber or a carrot where the breakthrough is not in the shape or distribution of an existing thing, but in like some brand new type of flavor that really worked on the OZempic users, the AOM users? Yeah, you know, we tested a protein beverage. So this was a line of clear beverages with protein added. And that's a highly technical, very difficult challenge.

That sounds tough. I've done it myself. Yeah, that one is a high degree of difficulty. Let's just say that. But we tested this line of three, and I think one of our flavors was cucumber or a cucumber lime. And that actually resonated pretty well. The idea being that if you think about protein drinks on the market, they're usually chocolate, strawberry, really thick. They're very satiating. And the idea of the idea, of using the clear protein in these lighter cucumber flavors and, you know, other light citrus flavors was that you would appeal to the more hydrating, refreshing kind of experience, but still get some protein. So, yeah, I think that that is actually something that would resonate just because of the flavor, because it's not chocolate or, you know, even though number one scoring product was brownies. So you said something else that made me think that the most, the best, the best scoring products really were very familiar.

And I think that that just gets at consumer behavior around food because we'd like to say consumers want a foot in the familiar. And taking one step out of the familiar to do to buy something really innovative is okay. but to take that second step out of the familiar is really disorienting. And so, you know, if you're on a weight loss regimen and your body is doing things differently, it makes sense that the familiar stuff would score really up. Just building on this point, I'd love to hear from you what the sort of evolution of a new food product or flavor actually is. like from start to finish, do people come up with ideas for completely brand new foreign things and build them out from there? Or is it more taking something that already exists and trying to improve on it in some way?

Could you maybe walk us through that process? The answer is yes, all of the above. So we have worked on things as novel, as creating a roast and ground hog. coffee without coffee beans. And that product is now in the market. And wait, what's it made out of? I have to ask. Well, you can buy it and, you know, you can look at the ingredient statement.

So I guess I can say it here. We actually tested, well, dozens and dozens of upcycled ingredients that were basically products that were either sent to animal feed or were really just waste. So think about things like seeds and pits and... Husks. Yeah, exactly, exactly. So where we ended up was date seeds. You know, when you get a date, unless you buy the pitted pine, they have these seeds.

And so what we did was we roasted the seeds. We ground them. We brewed them. and then some other secret sauce that we can't talk about. But it turns out that they work incredibly well as a replacement for coffee beans. So, you know, that I have to give credit to the company atomo. I'm going to give them a shout out. We just did some very early proof of concept and development work for them,

but they have turned it into a business. And it is incredible. So that's the kind of novel thing that we might get. an assignment to do. And then, you know, the other things that we're getting a lot of these days is I want to do X, except that I want to make it healthier. I want to have more protein in it. I want to use clean label ingredients. And so we're, I would say, reinventing favorites across a lot of categories. So, you know, think things like indulgent cookies or crackers or desserts. or, you know, even meals where we're replacing a lot of the not so good ingredients with just

more kitchen type of familiar ingredients. So we talked about this on a previous episode about snacks. And, you know, some snack food trends come and go, but some stick around. And so, for example, you know, when I was a kid, you could get cool ranch chips. You can still get cool ranch chips. A hot thing these days is chili lime flavor. seem to be everywhere. You wrote a book called Taste, surprising stories in science about why food tastes good. So when I bring up Cool Ranch or chili lime, what is it about some of these flavors?

What do they have in common that you can say that is like, yes, these flavors stand the test of time and we'll be eating chili limes chips in 20 years, sitting aside people who are on AOMs, chili lime flavors? Like, what do they have in common when you look at the code? of a great flavor. Well, I would say two words. One is complexity. Hmm. And the other is layered.

So let's just take, we'll take cool ranch and pull that apart. Think about it from the basic tastes. Yeah. And human beings are only capable of experiencing five basic tastes on their tongue. So there's sweet, sour, bitter, salt, and umami. And then everything else that you get is, you're, either a texture or an aroma. So the thing about whole ranch or just ranch in general is that it's incredibly salty and savory. And those two things together, salty and savory, and they kind of

come together, usually in nature. When you combine them with the sourness of the buttermilk and the creaminess of the buttermilk, you now have a whole lot going on. You've got creamy, you've got sour, you've got savory, you've got salt. And that complexity and then the other things that are layered in, so now I'm talking about complexity and layering on top of complexity. So things like garlic and onion, which are also important elements to a really interesting ranch profile. So, you know, I think that really makes up a lot of.

of those classic flavors. So if we do the same thing for a chili line, most of the chili lime seasonings, like something like a tahin, if you're familiar with that. Yeah, a big fan. It's not just chili and lime, but it's chili lime and salt. And so, you know, again, let's go back and sort of break it apart. So you've got the salt, which is one of the basic tastes. And you've got the chili, which is actually a texture, that that, that, heat, but the slight heat that you get is working on the same nerve that detects pain. So that is a texture. So you're getting pain from the chili.

You're getting salt from the salt and you're getting sour from the line. And that is a lot of complexity going on. Now you also have to layer on that there's some aroma, that sort of smoky, maybe dusty aroma. from the chilies and the lime has got its limey citrusness and those are aromas. So those two flavors that you called out, those are really, really complex. And they're very much layered. And the way that you experience them happens over time. A lot of short daily news podcasts focus on just one story.

But right now, you probably need more. On Up First from NPR, we bring you three of the world's top headlines every day in under 15 minutes because no one's story can capture all that's happening in this big, crazy world of ours on any given morning. Listen now to the upfirst podcast from NPR. Joe, I'm so hungry. I know. I knew this what I knew this right. I haven't eaten yet either. So now I'm going to devour my lunch. This is exactly what happened when we spoke with Ryan Harlan as well. Okay, well, I'm curious what you think makes a flavor or a food suddenly go viral. And we've seen various examples of this in recent years.

I think especially during the pandemic, everyone was stuck at home looking maybe for new recipes to do and you would see something that looked really good on TikTok and so you would try to do it. But is it about a particularly innovative flavor or is it maybe, you know, doing something slightly new with food that you're already familiar with? I think it's probably both. I mean, that example of, you know, sitting at home during the pandemic and looking for new recipes, I think that is epitomized by the feta pasta phenomenon. And I'm sure if your listeners were on TikTok or if anyone remembers, the TikTok feta pasta was just this enormous phenomenon. And that was in 2020. If you fast forward, what's so fascinating about that is that Feta is now everywhere.

If you think about in 2019 and before, Feta pasta had one roll, and that was on a Greek salad, and that's where you would find Feta and nowhere else in the U.S. Nowadays, not only can you find Feta everywhere, but you can go to the frozen food section of your grocery store and you can buy feta pasta. that's clearly just developed and positioned to mimic that recipe that was done online. And then I guess the second answer to that question is, what was really unique about the way that the, I believe she was Finnish, the Finnish woman cooked that,

that she took a whole block of feta and just put it in the plate and put raw tomatoes in with it and threw it in the oven. And it just, it seemed very novel because you put in a, entire block of cheese in. And it seemed really easy. And so, you know, those two things in combination are pretty powerful. How quickly can that happen? So you're at a consumer package goods company and your marketing team, or maybe you at Madsen, or someone says, you know what, Feta's going viral and we need a Feta play or whatever it is. These days, how quickly can you go from FETA is viral to

let's have a frozen feta pasta bake in the freezer aisle? Well, it's a good question, and it depends on a lot of things, mainly the size of the company. I would say the smaller companies are a little more nimble, and they can move a little faster. So that has something to do with it. The other thing that makes it much easier to do is if you own your own manufacturing, so for companies that have their own manufacturing lines, they would be able to move much faster. than someone using a contract manufacturer. So there's a lot of things that go into it.

But I would say for a large CPG, it could take anywhere from six months to a year and a half, depending on how complex it is and depending on how many varieties you're launching and developing. And then, you know, for the small companies, there was a phenomenon on TikTok for a while with pancake cereal. So somebody made teeny little pancakes in a pan, threw them in a bowl, poured milk over it, and was eating pancakes like cereal.

It's kind of a brilliant idea. And there was a company called, I think it's Belgian boys, Belgian boys, who picked up on it right away. Oh yeah, I said, I did a search for pancake cereal

and the first one is Belgian boys bite-sized pancake cereal. Yeah, there you go. So those guys were brilliant because they're already in the like the Belgian waffle kind of space. And so they blew my mind. But how quickly they got that. How quickly did they turn that around? I don't know. We did not work on it.

But I remember seeing the thing on TikTok. And then maybe a couple of months later they were at a major industry conference demonstrating it, you know, serving it. So that was pretty amazing. Who owns the intellectual copyright for something like, you know, the feta pasta bake or bite-sized pancakes? Because it seems like you do see these things proliferate very quickly and eventually they become so big that no one can really remember where they first came from. And then eventually you have companies that sort of formalize them into actual products. Yeah, I think those are the ones that end up owning, and, you know, air quotes, owning the idea. It is very hard, if not impossible, to patent a formula or a recipe.

So that almost never happens. So the best thing that you can do is put a really powerful brand on your product and make sure that your brand is associated with that thing. The other thing that you can do is you can trademark the name if it's not too descriptive. And you can patent what is known as a manufacturing process, so you can get a process patent. But in the food world, it's just so easy for people to knock these things off. I can tell you because we've done it before. So, you know, it doesn't necessarily pay off to do that.

The best thing you can do is just really market it well, make sure it tastes delicious, get lots of distribution and sell it for a fair price. Joe, there goes my idea of making money from a corn rib grilled cheese sandwich dusted with fiery Cheetos. Yeah, you could still, if you had the right brand, the Oddlots brand and the distribution, maybe you could do it. But yes, I agree, something bigger. All right. So a company comes to you, Barb, and they're like, you know what, we need something new. We want to, we need a breakthrough snack, chili lime, it's fine, but it's sort of getting mature, whatever.

I guess two questions is like, how do you identify the next big thing? And actually just, what is the next big thing? Well, you have to be on it. You have to be watching the next big thing everywhere and all the time. So we look to higher end restaurants for inspiration. That's where we get a lot of them. We also look to TikTok. It's interesting that things are starting there and not just food, but the way that you're making food, the appliances that you're using, you know, there's a couple of appliances that have really taken off on TikTok, like the ninja creamy that allows you to make high protein ice cream. So that's something that we're using on our trend lunch menu this year. So you really do have to look everywhere. And then what we have to our advantage is that

we are working with some 40, 50 food and beverage companies every day. And in our work for them, we're always doing consumer research. So we're constantly talking to consumers about what they like, what they don't like, what's resonating, what are they cooking at home, what are they eating out, where are they shopping. So we have a lot of institutionalized knowledge. And, you know, that is our IP and that's part of what we bring to our clients. But it's a never ending search for the next thing. If I had to say one thing or one flavor right now, I would say that tropical flavors are just on fire. And tropical can mean everything from mango and pineapple to ube and... Oh, there's ube and everything now. Yeah, there's ube and everything.

Yeah, exactly. So we're closely watching. watching Southeast Asian flavors. So Filipino flavors like Kalamansi, which is a bitter citrus, that comes on the heels of Yuzu, which is a Japanese kind of lime citrus. So you have to go far and wide, and it's really easy to do these days. I mean, if you think about just opening TikTok, and, you know, it's not a national audience of users. It's a global audience of users. So you're seeing what people are posting in Korea and elsewhere. That's the other thing we're very bullish on is Korean food. So I just have one request,

speaking of Southeast Asian flavors, and I'm seeing it more, but pondon in particular is one of my favorite flavors in the world. Panned and flavored bread is the best. And so as a consumer, I just request, please tell your clients to create more pondon infused sweets because that is probably my favorite flavor in the world. So I'm just passing that on. I'm passing that. I will pass that along to all clients. Okay. Thank you. Thank you very much. Barb Stucky, it was so great chatting with you. Really appreciate you coming on odd luck. Oh, it was my pleasure. It was super fun. Thank you for having me. Yeah, thank you so much. Thanks so much, Barb. I got to go eat something now. Yeah. Tracy, I'd never heard of a Kalamansi before, but it looks like a lime that looks like an orange inside. It looks amazing. Have you ever had one of these?

I don't think I have. Hold on. I'm looking it up. Look at it. It looks like the cover of like the Freakonomics book where it's like not the... Oh yeah. Look at that. Doesn't that look good? That looks amazing. I don't think I have had that. No, I need, I definitely need to try a Kalamasi. Yeah, lots of ideas of foods to try from that conversation. I thought The Ozempic, study was absolutely fascinating because my assumption had kind of been, well, if you're on Ozempic and you're just not that hungry anymore, that companies need to try harder with like new and exotic flavors to lure you in, which means more sugar, more salt maybe, but per Barb's research, it seems like people don't want to eat that kind of stuff anymore. No, it's interesting too that the innovation, it sounds like we'll be on preparation.

packaging and distribution. Yeah, and portion size it sounds like. So the idea of and the idea also that the maybe packaging in such a way that the person in the family who is on a GLP1 can just have one of them

but everyone else could have more. So, you know, like a grilled prepared chicken strip. Yeah, I could see like grabbing one out of the refrigerator and using that as a snack but also you could have like, you know, someone else could grab five or someone else could put a bunch on a salad or something like that, or the sort of sad-sounding brownie cube.

Which I know really depressed you. Some of this does sound slightly dystopian to me. So nickel-sized brownie bites and like coffee made out of not coffee, although I can understand maybe why some people don't want to drink coffee. You know, in terms of individually wrapped chicken, this is something I remember they have in Hong Kong. If you go into a 7-Eleven or any of the convenies over there, they have plastic wrapped, I think it must have been boiled or roast chicken that you could just snack on. It never looked particularly appetizing to me, but it does exist. Yeah, I would definitely eat it. It sounds very utilitarian.

It does seem like that maybe utilitarian is the way to put it. Also, this idea that already if someone is on one of these drugs, they're going to be eating in a new way. or whatever. And so the idea of like, keep some aspect of it that's familiar was an interesting idea. And so something that people are familiar with, but maybe in a new way or a new portion, or should mention the idea of like a clear protein drink instead of a gloppy, like, chocolate one. Really interesting stuff there. Yeah. And I was thinking just going back to the original GLP-1 discussion that we had with James Van Geelan, and he was talking about these second order effects. I mean, it does seem like if you run a

restaurant or something. In some respects, you can start tailoring your menu to an increased proportion of the population that maybe doesn't want to eat really salty or heavy or sweet foods. But I have to think if you are a chipmaker, not that kind of chip maker, a potato chipmaker, or I don't know, someone who makes like soda or whatever, there must be, maybe not soda because I guess you could make a Celsius type energy drink that feels light and invigorating. But, Certainly, if you're a junk food maker, this must be difficult for you, right? You are not going to be able to push a button and suddenly come up with a suite of healthy light options that satisfy the new GLP1 population. Totally.

Like, if you get a bunch of people going around saying, like, I really am just craving a slice of cucumber. Cucumbars, yeah. Which, for what it's worth, I've been there. Every once in a while, I just like a nice, like, crisp piece of cucumber with some salt on it. Oh, good stick of celery. Yeah, it's not bad. Or, like, I, you know, I endorse that, too. But it does not sound like a great opportunity if you're, like, in the business of, like, making ruffles or something like that.

Well, the other thing I was thinking is I've seen some negative commentary around food packages stemming from the weight loss drugs. So this idea that they're just not going to sell as much food. And, okay, yeah, perhaps on aggregate. But on the other hand, it sounds like there might be opportunities if you're getting smaller portions. For more packaging. Or more packaging for things like vegetable sticks or apple slices or whatever. It sounds like maybe there's an opportunity there. Well, if nothing else, I feel like after this conversation, I suspect we're going to start, you know,

when we're going to the grocery store, notice things or pay closer attention to like, oh, is this being portion sized or is this package sized in a way that looks tailored for someone on one of these drugs? Yeah, absolutely. All right. A new grocery shopping game. Something to look forward. Should we leave it there? Let's leave it there. This has been another episode of the Odd Lots podcast.

I'm Tracy Allaway. You can follow me at Tracy Allaway. And I'm Joe Wisenthal. You can follow me at The Stallwart. Follow our guest, Barb Stucky. She's at Barb Stucky. Follow our producers, Carmen Rodriguez, at Carmen Armin, Dashobin at Dashop at Dashop at Kill Brooks.

Thank you to our producer, Moses, Ondom. For more Odd Lots, go to Bloomberg.com where we post transcripts. We have a blog and a newsletter. And you can chat about all of these topics 24-7 in our Discord with fellow listeners, Discord.g.g. slash oddlots. And if you enjoy all thoughts, if you like it when we dig into the world of snack foods,

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