Weight-loss drugs and chocolate: what the sales data actually shows

Then one of the world’s biggest chocolatiers opened its books, and the numbers said the opposite of everything the forecasts promised.

The data that flipped the narrative

In March 2026, Lindt & Sprüngli released figures that ran straight against the doom story. Drawing on Circana purchasing data, the company found that while around 15% of US households now use GLP-1 medications, those same households accounted for roughly 17.5% of chocolate sales. Premium chocolate sales among GLP-1 users rose by nearly 17% in 2025, against about 6.5% among non-users.

That is not what a category collapse looks like. Analysts had pencilled in a drag on Lindt’s volumes for 2027. Instead, the people supposedly killing chocolate were buying more of it, just not the way they used to.

Less, but better

Lindt’s chief executive framed it bluntly: shoppers who’ve cut the pasta, pizza and chips are still chasing a moment of pleasure. They’re trading up to fewer, better treats rather than grazing on autopilot.

This is the shift every food founder needs to register. Indulgence isn’t dying, it’s being rationed. Smaller portions. Higher quality. A clearer story about why this particular treat earns its place. The consumer is still buying pleasure. They just want it to feel deliberate.

Where founders will get this wrong

And here’s where it gets dangerous. The obvious move is to chase the trend on your packaging, smaller bars, “mindful” formats, language that nods to appetite, satiety or weight management. That last step is where I watch good products walk straight into a compliance wall.

In Australia, appetite, satiety and weight management claims are health claims under Standard 1.2.7 of the Food Standards Code. They are not marketing flourishes you write because they feel true. A health claim has to rest on either a pre-approved food–health relationship or one you’ve self-substantiated and notified to FSANZ. No relationship, no claim.

The NPSC problem nobody mentions

Then there’s the part that quietly ends most of these ideas before they start. Any food carrying a health claim must first meet the Nutrient Profiling Scoring Criterion (NPSC). A premium chocolate, high in sugar and saturated fat, almost certainly won’t. So the “small indulgence that helps with appetite” angle isn’t a claim you need to substantiate. It’s a claim you’re not allowed to make in the first place.

Push further, and it gets worse. Language implying your product suppresses appetite or delivers a weight-loss effect, especially anything trading on the back of GLP-1 drugs, risks being read as a therapeutic claim. That moves you out of FSANZ’s lane and into the TGA’s, a regulator with a very different tolerance for risk. And the ACCC sits over the top of all of it: imply a benefit you can’t back, and you’re exposed under the Australian Consumer Law for misleading conduct.

The opportunity is real. The wording is the trap.

The strategic-indulgence wave is a genuine commercial opening, and Australian founders should move on it. Smaller formats, premium positioning, a sharper reason to buy, all fair game. The danger was never the product. It’s the few words you put on the front of the pack to sell it.

And here’s what most brands miss: these problems don’t start at launch. They start at formulation, in your marketing language, in the packaging brief, long before anyone thinks to check the Food Standards Code. By the time a retailer flags it, or the pack is already printed, the mistake is an expensive one.

If you want a clearer picture of where food brands commonly go wrong, we’ve put together a free guide on the six biggest labelling and health claim mistakes we see in practice, and how to avoid them before they become costly problems. Download the free guide here.