When news broke last week that the Jenny Craig diet and weight loss business is closing its USA-based operations after nearly four decades of providing in-person coaching, and has cancelled subscription prepared meal delivery services, thousands of customers were left scrambling upon realizing that the food they rely on will not be delivered much longer. As many news outlets were busy connecting the closure of Jenny Craig to the surge in popularity e-commerce purchase platforms and weight loss drugs such as Ozempic, Wegovy, and Mounjaro, Ed Cederquist, chief executive officer of Naples, Florida-headquartered BistroMD, offered another theory.
He commented: “While Jenny Craig offers prepared meals, the core of its business model were physical brick and mortar stores. Old-fashioned diet centers like Jenny Craig possibly found it difficult to compete when there are many easy at-home health and wellness solutions like BistroMD.”
For nearly 20 years, bistroMD has been providing healthy and nutritious ready-to-eat, gourmet meals to people across the contiguous United States on a subscription delivery model. While drugs like Ozempic, Wegovy, and Mounjaro work to stimulate insulin production, bistroMD works to target insulin resistance. Created by a medical doctor with board certifications in family and functional medicine, the BistroMD range of frozen and other products offers a non-pharmaceutical, science-backed approach to healthy eating, weight loss, and weight management.
“While these new weight loss drugs could be a contributing factor to Jenny Craig’s closure, aside from the drugs, there is an overall shift in consumer sentiment,” according to Cederquist. “People are rejecting diet culture and instead they are looking for holistic and sustainable health and wellness solutions that complement their already busy lifestyles. People want to be healthy, not just lose weight. Even those who are supplementing their weight loss with a prescription still need to eat healthy and nutritious food.”
To help meet the needs of Jenny Craig customers who find themselves suddenly without expected healthy prepared meals, BistroMD is offering them 40% off their first week of its products. The extensive range of doctor-designed, chef-prepared meals covers breakfast, lunch and dinner occasions with menu pleasers that include Steak and Egg Scramble and California-style Beef Sliders to Honey Mustard Chicken with Herb Roasted Potatoes.
