Chocolate sales are experiencing a surprising surge among users of GLP-1 weight-loss drugs in the US, outpacing the general population, Swiss chocolatier Lindt & Spruengli has revealed.
This finding challenges previous expectations that these medications would diminish demand for confectionery.
An internal study by the company, drawing on February data from market researcher Circana, indicated that 15 per cent of US households utilise GLP-1s, such as Ozempic and Mounjaro. These households account for a notable 17.5 per cent of all chocolate sales.
Lindt, famed for its chocolate Easter bunnies, also reported that premium chocolate sales among GLP-1 users in the US rose by nearly 17 per cent in 2025. This compares to a 6.5 per cent increase observed among non-GLP-1 users.
Analysts at Berenberg had expected the introduction of oral GLP-1 weight-loss drugs to have an adverse effect on the food industry, particularly confectionery, over the next few years. They anticipated a drag on sales volumes of 0.9 percentage point for Lindt in 2027.
GLP-1 pills are predicted to expand the use of the drugs to patients beyond the users of injectables, including more men and younger patients, as the oral drugs are projected to provide less drastic weight loss than their injectable counterparts.
Last week it was revealed Ozempic, Mounjaro and other GLP-1 drugs for diabetes can prevent new substance use disorders and alleviate existing addictions, according to findings from a large study of U.S. military veterans.
The protective effect was seen across a wide variety of addictive and habit-forming substances, including cocaine, opioids, alcohol, nicotine and cannabis, adding further evidence to a phenomenon previously flagged in smaller studies.
“That breadth was quite a surprise,” said Dr. Ziyad Al-Aly of the VA Saint Louis Health Care System in Missouri, who led the study published in The BMJ. “In addiction medicine, there’s not a single drug that works across all these substances.”
His team used a U.S. Veterans Affairs database to identify patients with type 2 diabetes treated with drugs from two different classes of medicines: GLP-1s such as Eli Lilly’s LLY.N Trulicity or Mounjaro, and Novo Nordisk’s NOVOb.CO Victoza or Ozempic; and SGLT-2 inhibitors such as Jardiance from Boehringer Ingelheim and Farxiga from AstraZeneca AZN.L. They then compared them in simulated randomized trials.
For the most part, study participants were not taking the higher-dose GLP-1 drugs used to treat obesity.
The 124,001 participants without a history of substance abuse who were taking GLP-1 drugs had 14% lower odds of developing a new substance use disorder over the following three years than the 400,816 similar patients prescribed SGLT-2 inhibitors.
