When I was a little girl, I remember seeing an interview with an old man on the television, the man was asked which technological discovery during the twentieth century had been the most significant of his life. The man’s answer came as a surprise: Wellington Boots. However, considering that before the invention of Wellington boots people did not have access to waterproof shoes and footwear quality was generally quite poor, his reply may not be so surprising. Being able to keep your feet warm and dry with some Wellington boots would have been a big increase in your quality of life.
The fact is that it is very easy to take for granted how much innovation of everyday items and tasks affects our lives. Take for example the shopping trolley. It is the invention that had the biggest impact on people’s consumer habits in the twentieth century. The shopping trolley was first introduced on the 4th of June 1937 by Sylvan Goldman, who ran the supermarket Humpty Dumpty based in Oklahoma. He was considering how he could get customers to buy larger quantities of goods at his stores. At first, it proved difficult to get people to utilize this new invention. The shopping trollies were considered too similar to prams. To combat this Goldman decided to hire actors to push trollies around his stores to show customers how useful they could be. After this, the usage of shopping trollies quickly caught on and spread around the United States during the wartimes and thereafter over the whole world.
The trolly revolutionized shopping. Before that, people used to have to walk up to the shopping counter and ask for their items. A staff member would then bag the requested goods. When the shopping trolly was introduced, supermarkets where people would collect their items themselves and then bring them to the cashier became prominent. This led to a consolidation of stores and a reduction in the workforce. In Iceland, this change came about when Hagkaup was founded in 1959, but that is a story most are familiar with. This also brought about significant changes in people’s consumer habits. People started doing less frequent, larger shops. This caused people to need large fridges and freezers at home. That then led to the need to own a car to be able to transport the wares home. When most people owned cars, there arose a need for more parking spaces, and stores began moving from city centers to the outskirts to acquire enough room and cheaper rent. This causal chain could undoubtedly be traced even further. But here I will let it rest.
The story of the shopping trolly is meant to remind us of how small inventions, even if they seem insignificant, can have extensive effects. This is important since the story is likely repeating itself with the new diabetes and weight loss drug Ozempic (or GLP-1) produced by the Danish company Nova Nordisk. Sales of the drug have been successful, and the company’s shares have gone up more than 440% in only 5 years. There has been a marked improvement in the quality of life for people facing problems with diabetes or food addiction. It seems, however, that the extent of the effects will be much more substantial, profound, and prominent in many areas of the economy.
It is estimated that more than 10 million prescriptions of Ozempic have been given out in the United States, and it is not just people struggling with obesity and diabetes that are seeking out the drug. In the grand scheme of things, maybe 10 million is not such a high number. It corresponds to about 3% of the American population. There are other drugs that have the same effect as Ozempic: new drugs and competition are constantly entering the market. Thus, that 3% could easily be closer to 5% if both Ozempic and the weight loss drug Wegovy are considered. Furthermore, according to research done by Morgan Stanley, it‘s expected that 7% of the American population will be utilizing drugs to augment their body weight by 2035. As a consequence, the use of these drugs will negatively impact sales at grocery stores. This has already begun happening, as in an interview conducted by Bloomberg with the CEO of Walmart John Furner. He said Ozempic has led to a decrease in the number of sales in his stores. Additionally, there could be more extensive economic effects due to the drug. Ozempic seems to help people better control various forms of addiction, such as tobacco, alcohol, or video game dependence. A survey that was done on 100.000 people in November last year by Numerator showed that drugs such as GLP-1 lead people to spend less money on food and alcohol but rather more on unalcoholic drinks. Possibly this arises from weight loss causing people to reconsider their consumer habits. This way Ozempic could lead people to generally move away from unhealthy habits and increase the sales of health-oriented products. Then slimmer people will start to put more of an emphasis on fashion, clothing, and various lifestyle services.
When all is considered, possibly we tend to underestimate the effect obesity and bad consumer habits have on the quality of life for so many people. If Ozempic can help people break that cycle of bad habits, then consumer patterns must change considerably. This will then lead to the growth of some companies and the decline of others. It will prove very interesting to try and trace the effect Ozempic will have on the American stock market. These effects will very likely soon become apparent. I expect they will be more substantial and deep-rooted than most expect, just as when the shopping trolly first entered stores.
Books are primarily for reading, not chewing, but with Balto around, they can certainly serve dual purposes as literary snacks.