While the world's biggest brewer was watching the data carefully, it was too limited to draw conclusions. Picture: REUTERS/Kim Hong-Ji
By Emma Rumney, Jacob Gronholt-Pedersen
Global brewers ABInBev and Carlsberg this week played down concerns among some investors that demand for weight-loss drugs may lead to a sharp drop in beer drinking.
Huge demand for new treatments such as Novo Nordisk's Wegovy has prompted questions about the implications for a range of industries, including brewers, and sparked share sell offs in companies involved in everything from food to healthcare.
Surveys of current users offer some anecdotal evidence that the drugs dull their appetite for more than just food, with drinks and even tobacco potentially affected. Some respondents have reported reducing or cutting out alcohol altogether.
But AB InBev Chief Executive Michel Doukeris likened the concerns to others, such as how cannabis could disrupt various sectors, which he said were often short-lived.
"Two years down the road and that conversation is gone," he said in an interview after AB InBev's results, adding that forecasts showed beer drinking would rise.
While the world's biggest brewer was watching the data carefully, it was too limited to draw conclusions, he added.
Carlsberg's new chief executive Jacob Aarup-Andersen said that the world's third largest brewer had seen no "significant change" so far as a result of the use of weight-loss drugs, and that retailers had not mentioned any impact.
"It's early days and we can be proven wrong, but we are relaxed about it," he told Reuters after a trading update.
Both CEOs said their portfolios include low-calorie and low-carbohydrate beers, while they also have significant businesses in markets where obesity is less of an issue than in those where demand for weight-loss drugs is exploding.
A bottle of AB InBev's Budweiser has around 116 calories,while one can of its zero-alcohol version has just 46.
The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends a healthy adult should consume between 2,000 and 2,400 calories per day.
The WHO says alcohol consumption is a causal factor in more than 200 diseases, injuries and other health conditions.
As a result, brewers face more immediate threats than weight loss drugs from regulators and lawmakers which are aimed at limiting consumption, such as higher taxes and health warnings.