Atkins Repositioned to Court Millions of Lapsed GLP-1 Users

Atkins sales fell 20.9% during 2026, and owner Simply Good Foods now wants the brand to live off the GLP-1 economy's leftovers. The company is repositioning Atkins as the food option for consumers who have stopped taking GLP-1 medications and are trying to keep the weight off.

CEO Joseph Scalzo, who returned to the company in January, told analysts on Tuesday that Atkins has a long history of helping consumers maintain their weight through nutrition — a history he frames as a fresh opportunity to serve lapsed GLP-1 users. Simply Good wrote down the value of its Atkins and Owyn brands before the fourth quarter, citing recent fiscal performance and updated revenue projections. The brand needed a new story. This is the one it picked.

How big is the lapsed-GLP-1 pool?

By 2035, as many as 55 million Americans — roughly 15% of the population — are expected to be on GLP-1 medications, according to Morgan Stanley. That's nearly double today's total.

The catch is retention. Most consumers are not staying on the medications long-term, with many stopping use within a year. And when GLP-1s are discontinued, weight gain is common: up to two-thirds of the lost weight comes back within one year, according to a 2025 study by the National Institutes of Health. For a brand built on weight maintenance, that's not a market problem. That's a market.

There's a nutritional wrinkle too. Consumers still need proper nutrients and vitamins to maintain muscle mass and support their health after they stop the drugs. Simply Good argues that Atkins' low-carb, high-protein shakes, confections, bars and other offerings are ideally positioned to fill that gap.

Scalzo told analysts that Atkins changes a person's metabolism by providing "consumers the right balance of carbs, protein and fiber" to burn fat.

What does this change for the brand?

In practice, a marketing overhaul. Scalzo said the company recently redesigned the Atkins website to deliver more science-based content and education, and expanded investment across streaming, digital, social and influencers. Recent innovations, such as Atkins' whipped bars, are designed for people focused on weight management and healthy nutrition.

In September, the company launched a campaign that "promoses to help lapsed GLP-1 users keep the weight off and speaks directly to the anxiety many consumers feel about maintaining weight loss success over time," Scalzo noted. Anxiety, in this case, being a durable consumer sentiment with a shelf life longer than most protein bars.

The pivot arrives at an awkward moment for the parent company. Simply Good has struggled following a series of missteps that hurt its business and made it harder to capitalize on trends. The company has narrowed its focus to specific priorities, moved to overhaul its marketing approach and is investing cost savings back into its brands.

On the fourth-quarter earnings call, Scalzo reiterated that the brands "were not performing to their potential … and our financial results were falling short of our expectations."

The numbers back him up. Atkins was a major reason Simply Good posted net sales of $1.4 billion during its 2026 fiscal year — a drop of 6.5% from the prior period.

The bet, in plain terms

Simply Good is wagering that a brand losing a fifth of its sales can find a second life among the millions of Americans cycling off weight-loss drugs each year. If even a fraction of those lapsed users convert to high-protein, low-carb packaged foods, the addressable audience grows every year through 2035. If they don't, Atkins will have traded a fading diet trend for a pharmacological one — and the write-downs will have company.