Jenny Craig’s eCommerce Revival Comes as D2C Supercharges Weight Loss Industry

Jenny Craig is poised for a digital comeback as the rise of direct-to-consumer (D2C) enables weight loss brands to find an audience in more targeted ways than ever.

As Wellful, an omnichannel health and diet food company behind competing brand Nutrisystem, announced Wednesday (July 5), it has acquired Jenny Craig’s assets and expects to revive the brand this fall as a D2C brand, delivering foods and providing personalized guidance.

“The Jenny Craig brand is a wonderful addition to Wellful’s collection of proven health and wellness brands,” Wellful CEO Brandon Adcock said in a statement. “Over the last 40 years, Jenny Craig has been committed to helping people lose weight and live healthier lives, and this acquisition not only reaffirms, but strengthens, that commitment.”

The news comes months after Jenny Craig initially closed up shop and filed for bankruptcy. At the time, Nutrisystem used the occasion to discuss the weight loss industry’s shift away from traditional retailers toward D2C.

“Today’s consumers want products delivered quickly and easily to their door, especially when it comes to helping achieve their health and wellness goals,” Nutrisystem President Stephen Mikulak said in a statement in the spring. “… The world is moving online, and for years, we have been evolving to support that shift.”

Certainly, there is growing demand for D2C meal delivery. Research from PYMNTS’ study “Connected Dining: Ready-to-Eat Meals Are Eating Restaurants’ Lunch,” revealed that about 1 in 10 consumers has ready-to-eat meals delivered to their house each month.

Plus, according to data from PYMNTS’ study “12 Months of the ConnectedEconomy: 33,000 Consumers on Digital’s Role in Their Everyday Lives,” nearly 1 in 3 consumers purchased meal kit subscriptions online, as of last November.

Additionally, diet foods allow the D2C channel to do exactly what it is best for — find devoted followers for niche products that may not fare as well through traditional retail channels. After all, not all consumers are on a diet, and even among those who are, the dietary space is now so fragmented that it is difficult for any one player to reach a wide enough audience to perform well via traditional retail channels.

Yet the market opportunity is there. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) research found that between 2015 and 2018, 17% of consumers were on diets, up significantly from the decade prior, and in the time since then, several diets have gained in popularity.

The D2C diet industry has seen the rise of meal plan companies such as Noom, of diet-specific foods such as Magic Spoon and more. Even Weight Watchers (or WW), a dinosaur in the diet industry, has a D2C shop on its site, selling everything from “low point snacks” to bathroom scales to recipe books.

Operating in the eCommerce space, D2C diet brands can leverage consumer data to get highly targeted in their marketing rather than relying on catching consumers’ eyes on the shelf at the grocery store.