Cherry or tabasco? Perfumers test weight-loss drug users’ appetite for food-inspired scents

By Alexander Marrow and Denis Balibouse LONDON/VERSOIX, Switzerland, Oct 19 (Reuters) From cherry and banoffee pie to tabasco and sesame, the list of food aromas popping up in luxury fragrances keeps growing. Now some perfume makers are starting to ask if weight-loss drugs might be reshaping what consumers want in a scent. So-called gourmand fragrances like Thierry Mugler s pioneering cotton candy-inspired Angel and Nina Ricci s toffee apple scent Nina have been around for decades. More recent growth in the segment has been attributed to the ​pandemic-era boom in online retail — when familiar food associations helped sales of perfumes that cannot be smelled before purchase — and the growing prominence of Gen Z consumers. But as ‌scent makers experiment with more novel flavour aromas, Reuters conversations with eight fragrance manufacturers and top perfume brands revealed how they are assessing GLP-1 users responses to these food-linked smells. Givaudan and IFF, two of the world s la