The meat stick, long associated with truck stops and road trips, has undergone a rebranding. Fueled by a national obsession with protein and the rise of weight-loss medications, meat snacks have become a rare bright spot in the food industry, evolving into a $5.5 billion juggernaut.
While organic growth across the broader packaged food sector has stalled following the post-COVID volume fade, meat snacks are surging. Sales in the category grew 6.6% in 2025 alone, outpacing the broader savory snacks market, according to Bank of America Global Research. The driver of this boom is a fundamental shift in the American diet: the desperate hunt for protein.
Some 71% of U.S. consumers were actively seeking to increase their protein intake, according to the International Food Information Council 2024 Food & Health Survey. However, the current explosion in the category is inextricably linked to the “Ozempic effect.” The widespread adoption of GLP-1 medications like Wegovy has altered consumption habits, driving intense interest in portion-controlled, nutrient-dense snacks that provide satiety without high carbohydrate counts.
“GLP-1s are not a fad,” Wells Fargo agricultural economist Michael Swanson told Fortune in a recent interview, adding that he’s seen many fad diets come and go. “They’re going to be here, and they’re going to be ever more pervasive, because we’re going to get new modes of action that work better with different people, kind of like the statins, or cholesterol control drugs. And so that’s actually going to change how we eat in a big, big way, favoring some, hurting others. The push for proteins, that’s a very huge thing that’s popped up in the last few years.”
