Sales down as focus shifts to weight management

It’s been a little more than a year since GlaxoSmithKline Consumer Healthcare announced the return of Alli (orlistat 60 mg capsules) to most stores in the United States and Puerto Rico. Today, the over-the-counter diet aid has reclaimed much of its lost dollar base and its No. 2 spot on the list of best-selling diet aids across total U.S. multi-outlets with $30.8 million in sales for the 52 weeks ended April 17.

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Also performing well on the charts is Wellnx Life Science’s Nature’s Science, which generated $10.4 million on 117.1% growth in that period.



However, sales across the majority of top products driving the diet-aid tablets business are down, contributing to an 11.2% drop in sales to $343.4 million. And that may be because Americans are turning more toward weight-management solutions than weight-control solutions.



“Consumers are looking for guidance on how to control their weight; they are looking for products that work and work together as part of a simple yet effective plan,” Paul Gagliano, EVP sales at SlimFast, told Drug Store News earlier this year. “Retailers can capitalize by merchandising products together and communicating to the consumer how the products work together as part of a plan.”



This past fall, SlimFast launched 15 new items as part of the SlimFast Advanced Nutrition line, including ready-to-drinks, powders, bars, 100-calorie snacks and a capsule to round out the complete SlimFast plan. And the RTDs are performing exceptionally well — generating $91.1 million since launch.



Another weight-management solution that is trending at mass retail is Nutrisystem. “Retail expansion is an area of opportunity,” Michael Monahan, Nutrisystem CFO, recently told analysts. “For 2016, revenue from our retail channel is now projected to grow year over year to $36 million,” he said, thanks in large part to a roll-back promotion with Walmart that drove significant trial.



Nutrisystem in May conducted a test in the freezer aisle of around 400 Walmart locations in the Northeast, offering a single day kit that includes breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks at $12 versus the shelf-stable, five-day kit merchandised in the diet-aid section now. “We will have four SKUs available for this test,” reported Dawn Zier, Nutrisystem president and CEO. “It’ll be in a different place right now than the pharmacy aisle, ... which is where our competitors are as well, but this would give us space in the freezer aisle — another section in the store.”