The Protein Lie
- anwerjan
- Jun 3
- 36 min read
How Britain’s Fitness Industry Sells Confectionery as Health Food
National Health Restoration Series — Article 15
A Grenade Carb Killa bar is manufactured by Mondelez International [13]. Mondelez also manufactures Cadbury Dairy Milk, Oreo, Toblerone and Milka [16]. The triple-layered bar that sits in the "healthy living" aisle of every major British supermarket, marketed to gym-goers, mothers, teenagers and increasingly to children, is produced by the same multinational confectionery conglomerate, on broadly the same industrial logic, using the same emulsifiers, the same palm-derived fats, the same flavourings and the same chocolate-coating processes used to make the chocolate bars sold ten feet away [13,16,20]. The only meaningful differences are the substitution of sugar with maltitol, sucralose and xylitol, the addition of milk protein concentrate and soy protein isolate produced by industrial solvent extraction, and a retail price up to three times higher per gram [256,264]. The "high protein" claim on the front of the pack does not change what the product is. It only changes who buys it, and what they think they are buying.
This is the fifteenth article in the Restoring Britain’s Health series. The previous fourteen have examined what Britain puts into its chicken, its waterways, its tap water, its beer, its bread, its meat, its chocolate, its breakfast cereals, its energy drinks, its milk, its eggs, its baby food, its honey and, in the forthcoming Article 14, its supermarket aisles. This article documents what the same regulatory and industrial system has built where there was previously nothing at all: a multibillion-pound category of ultra-processed confectionery sold to the British public as nutrition.
Part One: The UK Protein Supplement Market
The UK protein and sports nutrition category has undergone one of the fastest demographic and commercial expansions of any food category in modern British retail. The UK protein supplements market is projected to reach approximately USD 362 million by 2030, growing at a compound annual growth rate of 6.9 percent from 2024 [10]. The broader UK dietary supplements market, of which protein and amino acid products form one of the fastest-growing segments, was valued at USD 4.79 billion in 2024 and is projected to reach USD 9.65 billion by 2033, with the protein and amino acids sub-category alone forecast to grow at 11.3 percent annually [11]. Mintel data show that 56 percent of UK consumers now actively seek out protein-rich foods and beverages, and the global count of high-protein products quadrupled between 2013 and 2023, from 289 to 1,230, with the United Kingdom emerging as one of three lead markets globally [2,3].
The category is no longer the preserve of bodybuilders. Mintel’s 2024 UK sports nutrition analysis identifies Grenade, Warrior and Huel as among the top performers in mainstream retail, with Myprotein sales through mainstream retail more than doubling in 2023/24 alone [6]. Optimum Nutrition, owned by the Irish dairy commodity processor Glanbia, achieved double-digit volume growth in the UK in 2024, driven specifically by ready-to-drink formats and clear whey innovations explicitly designed to appeal to mainstream consumers beyond competitive athletes [5]. Iceland has expanded its in-store Myprotein range. Müller has co-launched HFSS-compliant high-protein yogurts and desserts with Myprotein. Aldi and The Gym Kitchen have added to their high-protein ranges [6]. The shift from specialist gym retail into mainstream supermarkets, pharmacies, petrol stations, convenience stores and Amazon is the structural change that has made the category inescapable.
The demographic shift is equally dramatic. Women are now the largest growth segment in dietary supplements consumption in the UK [11]. Older adults are being explicitly targeted with sarcopenia and muscle-preservation messaging [114,118]. The number of UK adolescents using protein supplements has grown significantly, with one recent study reporting that 29.4 percent of high school boys aged 16-18 regularly used protein powder, alongside 16.7 percent using creatine [239]. Glanbia and its competitors have publicly identified Gen Z, currently 12.7 million people in the UK, as the demographic transforming the protein category, citing social-media-driven preference for single-serve products with prominent protein labelling [5].
The Myprotein parent company THG plc reports its Nutrition division generating £303.6 million in revenue in the first half of 2025 alone, with the brand newly rolling out into mainstream offline retail and expecting around 45 million units to be sold through offline and licensing channels in 2025 [187]. Grenade was acquired by Mondelez International in 2021 in a deal reportedly worth around £200 million, representing a 40-times multiple on the company’s 2019 profits [17,20]. Glanbia’s Optimum Nutrition is now a single brand generating over USD 1 billion in annual revenue [178].
This is no longer a niche. It is a category larger than the entire UK ice cream market, growing faster than any indulgent food category, and structurally invisible to the British public health establishment.
Part Two: What Is Actually in a Protein Bar
A Grenade Carb Killa Cookies and Cream bar weighs 60 grams. Its full ingredient list, as printed on the pack, reads as follows [259,264]:
Protein Blend (Calcium Caseinate, Milk Protein Isolate, Whey Protein Isolate), Milk Chocolate with Sweetener (Sweetener: Maltitol; Cocoa Butter, Whole Milk Powder, Cocoa Mass, Emulsifier: Soy Lecithin; Natural Flavouring) 18 percent, Bovine Collagen Hydrolysate, Humectant: Glycerol, Bulking Agent: Polydextrose, Soy Protein, Cocoa Butter, Soy Oil, Fat-Reduced Cocoa Powder, Palm Fat, Sweeteners: Xylitol, Sucralose, Skimmed Milk Powder, Cream Powder, Salt, Tapioca Starch, Emulsifier: Soy Lecithin, Flavourings.
A single 60g bar contains 214 kcal, 23.2g protein, 13.5g carbohydrate (of which 1.4g is declared as "sugars" and 10.6g as polyols), 6.7g fibre and 7.9g fat including 4.2g saturated fat [264]. The product warning, in smaller print on the rear of the pack, reads: "Excessive consumption may have a laxative effect (due to polyols)."
The Barebells Cookies and Cream bar follows essentially the same template [218,219]: a protein blend of calcium caseinate, whey protein concentrate and whey protein isolate; the bulking agent polydextrose; the humectant glycerol; maltitol as primary sweetener; bovine collagen hydrolysate; soy protein isolate; cocoa butter and sunflower oil; followed by tapioca starch, soy lecithin and sucralose. Every Barebells bar in the range carries an explicit usage instruction: "Excessive consumption may cause a laxative effect (due to maltitol)" [219].
In ingredient terms, these products are confectionery formulations in which sucrose has been substituted with maltitol, in which 20 to 23 grams per bar of protein has been added through milk protein concentrate, whey isolate and soy protein isolate, and in which the texture is achieved by glycerol and polydextrose. They are not in any biochemical or culinary sense closer to whole food than a Cadbury Dairy Milk bar. A 45g Dairy Milk contains around 240 kcal, 4g protein and 24g sugar [as standard UK label data]. A 60g Grenade Carb Killa contains 214 kcal, 23g protein, 1.4g sugar but 10.6g of sugar alcohols. The total energy is broadly similar. The protein content is higher. The sugar has been swapped for a different class of sweetener carrying, as the next section will show, a distinct and emerging set of health concerns. The retail price is roughly £2.49 per 60g Grenade bar [256], compared with around £1.00 for a 45g Dairy Milk: a 233 percent price premium per gram, paid in exchange for a substitution of sweeteners and the addition of dairy commodity protein powder.
The Grenade Carb Killa is the best-selling protein bar in Britain [13,257]. It is owned by the company that owns Cadbury. The bar is shelved next to the protein bars of Mondelez competitors in the same "healthy living" or "active living" aisles where they once never appeared. It is purchased weekly by people who would not consider buying a Dairy Milk for the same purpose.
Part Three: Sugar Alcohols and Gut Health
The category’s defining substitution is the replacement of sucrose with sugar alcohols, primarily maltitol, with secondary use of sorbitol, erythritol and xylitol. These compounds, called polyols, are slowly and incompletely absorbed in the small intestine [214]. The unabsorbed fraction passes into the colon where it draws water into the bowel by osmosis and is fermented by gut bacteria. The result, at dose, is bloating, abdominal cramps, flatulence and diarrhoea.
The threshold doses are well-established in the toxicological literature. Human tolerance studies indicate a laxative effect when maltitol is ingested at daily doses equal to or above 30-50 grams per day, with mild stomach and bowel symptoms occurring at around 40 grams [198,203,204]. Sorbitol induces gastrointestinal symptoms in a dose-dependent manner from 5-20 grams per day, with doses above 20 grams reliably causing diarrhoea [202]. The estimated 50 percent laxative effective dose is 0.4 grams per kilogram body weight for men and 1.0 grams per kilogram for women for sorbitol, and 0.8 grams per kilogram for maltitol [200,201]. For an average 70-kilogram adult, that places the maltitol threshold at around 56 grams, well within the dosing range of a person eating two Carb Killa bars in a day. A single 60g Grenade Carb Killa contains 10.6 grams of polyols. Three bars, the kind of consumption pattern encouraged by gym subscriptions and high-protein influencer regimes, deliver around 32 grams: above the threshold for gastrointestinal symptoms in the toxicological literature.
This is why UK food law requires the warning "excessive consumption may have a laxative effect" on any product containing more than 10 grams of polyols per 100 grams [251]. Every Carb Killa, every Barebells bar, every Misfits bar carries this warning, almost always on the rear of the pack in significantly smaller type than the front-of-pack "high protein" claim.
For people with irritable bowel syndrome, the harm is more acute. Polyols are the "P" in the FODMAP acronym (Fermentable Oligosaccharides, Disaccharides, Monosaccharides and Polyols), the family of poorly-absorbed short-chain carbohydrates known to trigger IBS symptoms [210,211,214]. Protein bars are specifically flagged by NHS-aligned dietetic services and FODMAP guidance as one of the principal hidden sources of polyols in the modern British diet [207,210]. A category sold to enhance physical performance and recovery routinely triggers severe gastrointestinal symptoms in the estimated 10 to 15 percent of the UK adult population with IBS.
But the cardiovascular dimension is the most serious development. In February 2023, a research team led by Dr Stanley Hazen at the Cleveland Clinic published in Nature Medicine the first major study linking erythritol consumption to cardiovascular events [32,38,39]. In a discovery cohort of 1,157 patients, elevated circulating erythritol levels were associated with a more than two-fold increased risk of major adverse cardiovascular events, defined as death, non-fatal heart attack or non-fatal stroke, over three years of follow-up [31,32,35]. The finding was replicated in two independent validation cohorts of around 3,000 patients in the United States and Europe [32]. In August 2024 a follow-up clinical intervention study by the same group demonstrated the underlying mechanism: erythritol made platelets more active, raising the risk of clot formation [40]. Sugar (glucose) did not produce this effect.
In June 2024, the same group published a parallel paper in the European Heart Journal documenting that xylitol carries the same prothrombotic and cardiovascular risk profile [41,42,44,46]. In a cohort of more than 3,000 patients, those in the highest tertile of plasma xylitol were significantly more likely to experience a cardiovascular event over the following three years [42,46]. The clinical intervention study showed that every measure of clotting ability significantly increased immediately following ingestion of a xylitol-sweetened drink, but not a glucose-sweetened drink [42,46].
Both erythritol and xylitol are now used in the protein bar category. Grenade Carb Killa bars contain xylitol. Barebells Soft bars contain xylitol [222]. Many lower-sugar protein crisps, protein cookies, protein ice creams and protein-fortified yogurts use erythritol as a primary sweetener. A category that markets itself on the elimination of sugar relies on compounds that the emerging cardiovascular literature is increasingly implicating in heart attack and stroke risk: outcomes for which sugar itself, despite its many problems, has never been shown to produce direct platelet-mediated effects.
Part Four: Artificial and Intense Sweeteners
Sugar alcohols are not the only substitution at work. Almost without exception, UK protein bars layer intense sweeteners (sucralose, aspartame, acesulfame potassium, neotame, stevia glycosides) on top of the polyols to achieve the desired sweetness profile.
In July 2023, the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer reclassified aspartame as Group 2B, "possibly carcinogenic to humans" [49,51,58]. The classification was based on limited evidence for cancer in humans, specifically for hepatocellular carcinoma, from three large prospective studies of artificially-sweetened beverage consumption [50,53]. On the same day, the Joint FAO/WHO Expert Committee on Food Additives reaffirmed the existing acceptable daily intake of 40 milligrams per kilogram body weight [51,58]. The two findings together establish that there is enough evidence to flag aspartame as a possible carcinogen, but not enough to mandate a lowering of the regulatory limit. The UK Food Standards Agency has not initiated any review of aspartame in light of the IARC classification.
In May 2023, two months before the aspartame ruling, the WHO issued a separate guideline on non-sugar sweeteners as a class, advising against their use for weight control or for reducing the risk of non-communicable diseases [59,60,66]. The guideline is based on a systematic review of available evidence which found that the use of non-sugar sweeteners (including aspartame, sucralose, acesulfame potassium, saccharin, stevia and others) confers no long-term benefit in reducing body fat in adults or children, and is associated with potential undesirable effects including an increased risk of type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease and mortality [59,60]. The recommendation was assessed as conditional, but its public health framing was direct: "Replacing free sugars with NSS does not help with weight control in the long term" [59,60].
The emerging mechanistic literature gives this guidance teeth. In a 2022 randomised controlled trial published in Cell, Suez and colleagues showed that sucralose and saccharin, administered at doses below the European Food Safety Authority’s acceptable daily intake, significantly altered the human gut microbiome and impaired glycaemic responses in healthy adults [77,78,82]. Stool from human participants was transferred into gnotobiotic mice, and the metabolic effects transferred with the microbiome, demonstrating microbiome-mediated causation [77,82]. This was not an animal-only finding. It was a human RCT showing that the same sweeteners now layered into every supermarket protein bar can alter glucose tolerance through microbiome disruption at realistic dietary doses.
Then in May 2023 came the sucralose-6-acetate paper. Schiffman and colleagues, publishing in the Journal of Toxicology and Environmental Health, demonstrated that sucralose-6-acetate, a compound produced in the gut when sucralose is consumed and present in trace amounts in commercial sucralose itself, is genotoxic [69,70,71,76]. The compound effectively broke up DNA in cells that were exposed to it [71,74]. The European Food Safety Authority sets a threshold of toxicological concern for all genotoxic substances of 0.15 micrograms per person per day. The Schiffman team estimated that the trace amounts of sucralose-6-acetate in a single daily sucralose-sweetened drink exceed that threshold, before any additional formation in the gut is accounted for [70,71,76]. Further in-vitro testing demonstrated that both sucralose and sucralose-6-acetate increased the permeability of gut epithelial tissues, what is colloquially called "leaky gut," and increased the expression of genes related to oxidative stress, inflammation and carcinogenicity [69,71,76].
These findings remain contested by industry groups, and the EFSA has not yet revised its position on sucralose [69]. But the broader pattern is the one this series has documented across every category. The bread article showed how the Chorleywood Process eliminated fermentation. The breakfast cereal article showed how extrusion replaced traditional cooking. The chocolate and confectionery article showed how the food industry routinely reformulates around sugar reduction taxes by substituting one class of chemistry for another. The protein bar category is the purest expression of that pattern: an entire category built, in less than fifteen years, on a substitution playbook of sweetener chemistries that are now individually accumulating the kind of evidence base that should give regulators pause.
Part Five: Soy Protein Isolate and the Hexane Question
A second feature of the typical protein bar ingredient list is soy protein isolate, often listed simply as "soy protein" or "soy crisps." Most consumers, including most personal trainers and nutritionists, do not know how this ingredient is actually manufactured.
Soy protein isolate is produced by a multi-stage industrial process beginning with the hexane extraction of oil from defatted soybean flakes [96,103]. Hexane is a petroleum-derived solvent, a hydrocarbon byproduct of gasoline refining [99,100]. It is classified as a neurotoxin by the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and as a hazardous air pollutant by the United States Environmental Protection Agency [97,98,100]. After hexane extraction of the oil, the residual defatted meal is subjected to alkali extraction at pH 7 to 10, followed by acid precipitation at the protein’s isoelectric point, centrifugation to remove insoluble fibre, and spray-drying to produce a powder of more than 90 percent protein content [96,103].
The hexane is not declared on the label. Under existing US and EU regulatory frameworks, hexane is classified as a processing aid rather than an ingredient, on the grounds that the goal of the process is to recover the solvent and that residues in the finished product are minimal [98]. The recovery is never complete. Independent testing has repeatedly detected trace hexane residues in highly processed soy ingredients, particularly in soy protein isolate, textured vegetable protein and soy protein concentrate [97,100]. The United States Food and Drug Administration does not monitor hexane in foods, nor does it require companies to test for it [98]. The same regulatory position applies in the United Kingdom and the European Union. United States Department of Agriculture certified organic standards prohibit hexane in the processing of organic foods, which is the only practical way for a UK consumer to avoid hexane-extracted soy protein [97,99,102].
The product is then sold to bar manufacturers, who use it as soy crisps (puffed soy protein isolate, sometimes combined with tapioca starch) or as a direct protein addition. It appears in Grenade Carb Killa bars [259], Barebells bars [216,217,218], Myprotein bars and the vast majority of UK plant-based protein products.
This matters for two reasons. The first is the worker health record. Long-term occupational exposure to hexane causes peripheral neuropathy, a condition of numbness, tingling and progressive muscle weakness in the extremities that can lead to paralysis in severe cases [97,100]. While consumer dietary residues are unlikely to reach occupational exposure levels, the deeper point is that consumers are not told the process exists at all. The second reason is the broader question that this series has returned to repeatedly: the gap between what is on the label and what is in the food. The bread article documented the use of undeclared enzymes as processing aids under the Chorleywood Process. The chicken article documented water and additive injection that does not appear at the front of the pack. The honey article documented the JRC investigation into syrup adulteration that no UK label currently flags. The protein bar category extends the pattern. The hexane is in the supply chain. It is not in the consumer’s information.
Soy protein isolate is also categorised as an ultra-processed ingredient under the NOVA classification system specifically because it is an industrial formulation of a substance extracted from food using methods not found in any domestic kitchen [192,195,196]. This is not a fringe view. It is the working consensus of the most widely-applied food classification system in modern nutritional epidemiology.
Part Six: Whey, Milk Protein Concentrate and the Dairy Byproduct Economy
The single most consumed ingredient in the UK protein bar category is not whey. It is the cheese industry. Whey protein is, in its origin, a liquid byproduct of cheese manufacturing, produced when milk is coagulated and separates into curds (which become cheese) and whey (which was historically discarded or used as animal feed) [172]. Glanbia is now the world’s largest producer of whey protein isolate and the second largest producer of American-style cheddar cheese [175,176]. Whey is, in Glanbia’s own description, the protein extracted from the liquid byproduct of the cheese business [172]. The byproduct economy of one industrial dairy stream now sustains a second, parallel, multibillion-pound consumer category.
This is the upstream link to the milk article in this series. The same homogenised, intensively-bred, hormone-residue-bearing, antibiotic-residue-bearing industrial dairy stream that produces the supermarket milk on which this series has previously reported is the upstream source of the whey and milk protein concentrate that underpins every supermarket protein bar. There is no separate "premium" dairy supply for the protein category. Glanbia, Arla, Fonterra and Carbery are the same companies that supply the major retailers. The whey and milk protein concentrate is processed by ultrafiltration, ion exchange or microfiltration, depending on the grade, then spray-dried into the bulk powder that arrives in bar and shake manufacturing facilities [170,171,172].
This same supply chain has known contamination events. In August 2013, Fonterra, the New Zealand-headquartered global dairy giant, initiated a worldwide recall of 38 tonnes of whey protein concentrate (WPC80) on the basis of testing suggesting contamination with Clostridium botulinum [146,152]. Approximately 1,000 tonnes of consumer product, including infant formula, sports drinks and protein-fortified beverages, was recalled across seven countries [146,151]. Subsequent testing established that the bacterial strain was Clostridium sporogenes, a non-toxic relative, rather than the botulism-producing strain [145,146]. The recall was, in the end, a false alarm. But the New Zealand government inquiry found serious deficiencies in Fonterra’s traceability systems, which took 16 days to identify all the affected product [152]. The 38 tonnes of contaminated WPC80 had, within months of manufacture, made its way into thousands of tonnes of products in markets across the world [152].
The recall confirmed, in operational terms, what consumers in 2026 still do not know: that whey protein moves through a global commodity supply chain in which a single contamination event at a single plant can propagate into infant formula, sports drinks, protein bars and shakes across multiple continents within a matter of weeks. UK own-label protein products from Aldi, Lidl, Tesco and Sainsbury’s are produced under contract manufacturing arrangements that source from the same upstream pool of whey commodity protein. The sourcing is opaque to the consumer. The labelling will declare "whey protein concentrate (milk)" without identifying the country of origin, the dairy processor or the chain of custody.
Part Seven: Heavy Metal Contamination in Protein Powders
The most systematic published evidence of contamination in the protein supplement category comes not from UK regulators but from US-based consumer testing organisations. There is no equivalent UK regulatory programme.
In 2018 the Clean Label Project, a US non-profit, contracted independent analytical laboratory Ellipse Analytics to test 134 protein powder products purchased from US retail and online channels for heavy metals, bisphenol A and other contaminants. The results: 40 percent of products tested had elevated levels of heavy metals; 55 percent had measurable levels of BPA, with 28 products containing twice the regulatory limit and one product containing more than 25 times the allowed level in a single serving; certified organic products were on average twice as likely to contain elevated heavy metals as non-organic products; and plant-based powders carried on average twice the lead per serving of other formats [92].
The Clean Label Project repeated and expanded the study in 2023-2024, testing 160 protein powder products from 70 brands across 36,000 individual data points [86,87,91]. The 2024 results: 47 percent of products tested exceeded at least one federal or state regulatory limit including California’s Proposition 65, and 21 percent exceeded twice California’s Proposition 65 levels [86]. Plant-based protein powders contained five times more cadmium than whey-based equivalents [86,91]. Chocolate-flavoured protein powders contained 110 times more cadmium than vanilla-flavoured powders [86]. Organic protein powders contained three times more lead and twice the cadmium of non-organic equivalents [87,93].
These two findings echo and reinforce the conclusions of two previous articles in this series. The chocolate and confectionery article documented heavy metal contamination, particularly lead and cadmium, in cocoa-based products, with the heavy metals deriving from cocoa-growing soils that are, in many origin countries, contaminated by lead-bearing fuel residues, smelting operations and naturally lead-rich soils. The Clean Label Project finding that chocolate-flavoured protein powders carry 110 times the cadmium of vanilla versions is the same cocoa contamination problem, transferred into a category sold as nutrition. The baby food and infant formula article documented heavy metals in infant nutrition and the US Congressional Subcommittee findings on inorganic arsenic, lead and cadmium in commercial baby food. The plant-based protein powder finding (5 times more cadmium than whey, derived from soil uptake by rice, pea and hemp crops) is the same heavy metal exposure pathway operating in the adult and child supplement category.
In January 2026 Consumer Reports published a separate testing programme on 23 protein powder products, finding that about 70 percent contained over 120 percent of Consumer Reports’ level of concern for lead (0.5 micrograms per day), and that two plant-based protein powders contained sufficient lead that Consumer Reports advised against consumption [88]. Naked Nutrition’s Mass Gainer powder contained 7.7 micrograms of lead per serving, approximately 1,570 percent of Consumer Reports’ level of concern for lead [88]. The protein content of all tested products met or exceeded label claims. The contamination was independent of the labelled functional benefit.
The United Kingdom has no equivalent systematic testing regime. The Food Standards Agency’s position on heavy metals in supplements is that general food law and the contaminants regulation apply, and that manufacturers are responsible for ensuring their products meet established limits. There is no mandatory pre-market contaminant testing of protein supplements in the United Kingdom. There is no UK equivalent of the Clean Label Project’s annualised, independently-funded category-wide testing programme. UK consumers are buying protein powders, bars and shakes manufactured from the same global supply chains, in the same flavours, with the same plant protein blends, as the products that have repeatedly tested above multiple regulatory limits in the United States. The expectation is that UK products are clean. There is no UK data, of any kind, that confirms it.
Compare this to baby food, where heavy metal contamination is monitored (however inadequately) by the FSA and the EU contaminants regulation specifies maximum lead, cadmium and arsenic levels for infant nutrition. Compare it to the regulation of mineral water, where contaminant testing is mandatory and product-specific. The protein supplement category, sold to athletes, to teenagers, to older adults and to children, sits in a contaminant testing vacuum.
Part Eight: Ultra-Processing and the NOVA Classification
The defining feature of the protein bar and protein shake category, beyond any individual ingredient concern, is that these products meet every criterion of the NOVA Group 4 classification of ultra-processed foods. NOVA, developed by the Brazilian epidemiologist Carlos Monteiro and now the most widely-used food processing classification system in modern nutritional epidemiology, defines Group 4 ultra-processed foods as industrial formulations made predominantly from substances extracted from foods (oils, fats, sugars, starches, proteins), derived from food constituents (hydrogenated fats, modified starches), or synthesised in laboratories from food substrates, combined with cosmetic additives (flavours, colours, emulsifiers, sweeteners, sequestrants, humectants) and processing aids not used in domestic cooking [190,192,195,196].
A Grenade Carb Killa bar is the textbook example. Whey protein isolate, milk protein concentrate, soy protein isolate, calcium caseinate and bovine collagen hydrolysate are all substances extracted from foods. Maltitol, polydextrose, glycerol and tapioca starch are derived from food constituents. Sucralose and xylitol are laboratory-synthesised. Soy lecithin, palm fat and "natural and artificial flavourings" are cosmetic additives. The hexane that extracts the soy oil is a processing aid. There is, in the strict NOVA sense, almost no minimally-processed food in the product.
This classification matters because the evidence base on the harms of ultra-processed food consumption has accumulated faster in the last five years than perhaps any other area of nutritional epidemiology. In February 2024 the BMJ published the umbrella review by Lane et al. examining 45 individual epidemiological meta-analyses of UPF exposure and adverse health outcomes [107,109]. The review found highly suggestive (class II) evidence that greater exposure to ultra-processed foods was directly associated with higher risks of all-cause mortality (risk ratio 1.21), heart-disease mortality (hazard ratio 1.66), type 2 diabetes, depression and adverse mental health outcomes [107]. A 2025 systematic review and dose-response meta-analysis of 207,291 participants found a 21 percent increase in all-cause mortality, a 50 percent increase in cardiovascular mortality, and a 66 percent increase in heart-cause mortality associated with higher UPF consumption [106,111].
The category response from the protein supplement industry has been silence. There is no public position from any major UK protein bar manufacturer addressing the NOVA Group 4 classification of their products, despite the products meeting every published criterion. The marketing instead doubles down on the front-of-pack protein claim. "High protein" appears on the principal field of vision. "Ultra-processed" does not appear anywhere on the pack. There is no requirement that it should. This is the same regulatory architecture documented in the breakfast cereal article, where the front-of-pack health framing of products containing 25 percent or more sugar is permitted because the products meet vitamin and mineral fortification thresholds. The category is using protein as the new fortification claim. The product behind it is no closer to whole food than the breakfast cereals to which the same playbook was applied in the previous generation.
Part Nine: Manufactured Demand: How Much Protein Do People Actually Need
The UK government’s Reference Nutrient Intake (RNI) for protein is 0.75 grams per kilogram of body weight per day for adults [112,114,116,119]. This works out at approximately 56 grams per day for a 75kg man and 45 grams per day for a 60kg woman [116]. The RNI is set as the minimum to prevent deficiency. It was established in 1991 and has not been changed.
The average UK adult already consumes substantially more protein than this. National Diet and Nutrition Survey data show that adults aged 19-64 in the UK consume an average of 76.0 grams of protein per day, and adults aged 65 and over consume 67.0 grams per day [122,129,130]. This is more than sufficient and exceeds the RNI by a significant margin in both age groups [122,129]. The three biggest contributors to UK protein intake are meat and meat products (34 percent), cereals and cereal products (24 percent), and milk and milk products (13 percent) [122,129]. Chicken and turkey alone account for 16 percent of all protein intake in the UK [129].
There is no UK protein deficiency problem. There is, in some sub-populations (notably some older adults), an argument for redistributing existing intake more evenly across the day, on the basis that muscle protein synthesis in older adults responds better to per-meal doses of 25-30 grams [117,120,124]. This is the legitimate clinical argument that the protein supplement industry has co-opted into a mass-market claim that everyone needs more protein.
There is no robust evidence that higher protein intake substantially improves outcomes for the average adult who is already meeting the RNI through normal food. The "post-workout anabolic window" claim, central to the marketing of every protein shake and recovery product since the early 2000s, has been comprehensively reassessed in the published sports nutrition literature. A 2013 review and 2014 meta-analysis by Schoenfeld and colleagues, the most-cited contemporary work on the question, concluded that the post-exercise window for protein consumption is far wider than originally claimed, extending to several hours rather than 30 to 60 minutes [227,233]. A 2017 randomised controlled trial found that pre-exercise and post-exercise protein supplementation produced equivalent changes in body composition and strength after 10 weeks of training [231,232]. The position summarised in the 2018 review in the Journal of Orthopaedic and Sports Physical Therapy is that the apparent benefit of nutrient timing is almost entirely explained by greater total daily protein consumption in the timed condition, not by the timing itself [226].
In other words: the central claim that has built the protein bar and shake category, the urgency that drives a gym-goer to consume a Grenade Carb Killa or a Barebells bar in the locker room within 30 minutes of training, is not supported by the current sports nutrition literature. Total daily protein intake is what matters, and the average UK adult is already meeting it through ordinary food.
The marketing has nevertheless succeeded in driving consumption into three demographic segments where the underlying nutritional argument is weakest. Older adults are targeted with sarcopenia messaging despite the fact that the redistribution of existing intake, rather than supplementation, is the published consensus intervention [115,117,120,124]. Women are targeted with "lean and toned" body composition messaging, despite the WHO 2023 guidance that non-sugar sweeteners (the foundation of every "no added sugar" protein product) confer no long-term body fat benefit [59,60]. Adolescents are being recruited into the category through high school sports nutrition products, with a 2024 study finding that 29.4 percent of high-school boys aged 16-18 regularly used protein powder, alongside 16.7 percent using creatine [239]. The convergence of the protein bar demographic with the energy drinks demographic, documented earlier in this series, is now near complete: the same retail placement, the same influencer marketing channels, the same gender and age skew, the same regulatory vacuum.
Part Ten: Marketing, Fitness Influencers and the Wellness Industrial Complex
The single most powerful driver of category growth has been social media influencer marketing, particularly through Instagram, TikTok and YouTube. In March 2021 the UK Advertising Standards Authority published a monitoring exercise covering approximately 24,000 Instagram Stories from 122 UK-based influencers over a three-week period in September 2020. The ASA judged that 65 percent of identified marketing posts were insufficiently labelled as advertising, with compliance rates particularly low in the beauty, food and fitness, clothing and leisure sectors [163,164]. The ASA’s description of compliance levels in influencer marketing was "far below" what had been anticipated [163].
The fitness and protein supplement space has been a persistent area of weak compliance. ASA rulings on protein and supplement brands across the past five years have repeatedly found that influencer posts on Instagram and TikTok have failed to identify themselves clearly as advertising, with brand mentions or "@" tags judged insufficient to make the commercial relationship obvious [165,168]. The Authority’s updated 2023 guidance with the Competition and Markets Authority restated that ad disclosure must be unambiguous, must precede the consumer’s engagement with the post and cannot be buried in hashtag clouds or "see more" expansions [165,168].
The deeper problem is that the protein supplement category has built its market through precisely the influencer channel where the ASA has documented systemic non-disclosure. Fitness influencers, gym-content creators, transformation accounts and aesthetic-focused TikTokers in the "FitTok" subculture have driven category growth among adolescents and young adults specifically through endorsements that mainstream advertising restrictions, including the HFSS advertising restrictions on TV and online, do not effectively reach [155,160]. A 2025 study in Public Health Nutrition examined the food and beverage products promoted by the top 100 TikTok influencers in the United States and found that supplement and protein-fortified product promotion was significantly over-represented relative to category market share [160]. The dry-scooping trend (the consumption of un-mixed pre-workout supplement powder, sometimes at multiple times the recommended dose) was directly linked to a documented adolescent heart attack in 2021 [155]. The protein and supplement category co-existed throughout this trend and benefited commercially from the wider "FitTok" attention economy.
The aesthetic vocabulary of the category is also worth naming. "Carb Killa," "Warrior," "Misfits," "Grenade" itself: the militarised, aggressive branding has migrated from the bodybuilding subculture into the mainstream, but the framing has not been softened. Black-and-neon packaging, capitalised typography, "shred," "ripped," "lean," "killa," explicitly evoke fitness-culture aspirational imagery that has not been examined for its appropriateness in the school sport, university sport and youth athletics contexts where these products are increasingly available [156]. The placement of protein products in supermarket "healthy living" or "free from" aisles, rather than in the confectionery aisle where their formulation and supply chain would place them, is the structural marketing decision that completes the laundering of confectionery as nutrition.
Part Eleven: Industry Structure and the Confectionery Takeover
The acquisition that signalled the category’s arrival was Mondelez International’s purchase of a significant majority interest in Grenade in March 2021 [13,14,17]. The deal was reportedly worth £200 million, a 40-times multiple on Grenade’s 2019 profits of £5 million [17]. Mondelez owns Cadbury, Oreo, Toblerone, Milka, Belvita, Ritz, Trident and dozens of other confectionery and snacking brands [16]. The Grenade acquisition was, in the words of one industry analyst quoted in the trade press at the time of the deal, the recognition that Grenade had become "a healthy confectionery brand" whose manufacturing, distribution and consumer profile were essentially indistinguishable from Mondelez’s existing categories [20]. Grenade was the company’s most significant UK acquisition since the takeover of Cadbury in 2010 [17].
The strategic logic was explicit. Mondelez stated in its press release that Grenade provided a "differentiated consumer offer through high-protein bars and performance nutrition products" alongside the company’s existing Cadbury Brunch and Cadbury Nuttier brands [16]. Mondelez Chairman and CEO Dirk Van de Put described the deal as "another exciting opportunity to deliver on our strategy to be a global leader in broader snacking, including in the important area of well-being" [14,19]. The confectionery company was buying the protein bar company because, at the level of supply chain logic, manufacturing capability and retail distribution, they were the same business with different positioning.
The structural pattern is similar elsewhere. Glanbia plc, the Irish-listed dairy and nutrition company, owns Optimum Nutrition (acquired in 2008), BSN (acquired 2011), thinkThin (acquired 2015), Amazing Grass (2017), SlimFast (2018), and a large network of joint ventures in cheese and whey production [177]. Glanbia is the world’s number one supplier of whey protein isolate and the world’s number one sports nutrition company [178]. The dairy commodity business and the consumer supplement business are vertically integrated. The byproduct of one becomes the headline ingredient of the other.
THG plc, the Manchester-based e-commerce conglomerate, owns Myprotein, the world’s largest online sports nutrition brand [183]. THG Nutrition generated £303.6 million in revenue in the first half of 2025, with Myprotein expanding into offline retail in 2025 including a US Walmart rollout and licensing partnerships with major retailers in food-to-go and confectionery [187]. THG announced upcoming global partnerships in confectionery in 2025: the formal product-category convergence completing the structural one [187].
This consolidation is the same pattern documented in the breakfast cereal article (Kellogg, General Mills and Post controlling more than 90 percent of UK breakfast cereal sales), the chocolate and confectionery article (Mondelez, Nestlé, Ferrero and Mars dominating UK confectionery), and what will be documented in detail in the forthcoming Article 14 on UK supermarket power. The protein category is not an independent, performance-oriented, athlete-built sector. It is a downstream extension of the same dairy commodity, confectionery and e-commerce conglomerates that have controlled the rest of UK ultra-processed food retail for two generations.
The implication is direct. Asking whether protein bars are healthier than chocolate bars is, structurally, the wrong question. They are made by the same companies, in many cases on the same manufacturing lines, with the same emulsifiers, the same palm-derived fats, the same flavourings and the same dairy commodity protein. The only meaningful differences are at the level of sweetener chemistry and front-of-pack claims. The companies are not selling a different product. They are selling the same product to a different consumer.
Part Twelve: Regulatory Failure and the Labelling Loopholes
The regulatory framework around protein bars and shakes is one of the most permissive in UK food law, primarily because the category has been allowed to develop without any specific regulation of its own.
There is no specific UK or EU legislation governing foods intended to meet the requirements of intense muscular effort, particularly for sports people [249]. Products presented as "food supplements" comply with Directive 2002/46/EC, implemented in the UK by the Food Supplements (England) Regulations 2003 [253]. Protein bars and most protein-fortified foods sit outside the food supplements category and are governed by general food law: Regulation 1169/2011 on the provision of food information to consumers, and Regulation 1924/2006 on nutrition and health claims [137,138,143].
Under Regulation 1924/2006, the "high protein" claim that drives the entire category may be made where at least 20 percent of the energy value of the food is provided by protein [137,138,141]. The threshold is reached easily by adding 20-25 grams of milk protein concentrate or whey isolate to a 200-220 kilocalorie bar. The composition of the rest of the product is irrelevant to whether the "high protein" claim can be made. A bar can be entirely composed of maltitol, palm fat, soy lecithin, glycerol, polydextrose and trace flavourings, and still legitimately bear "HIGH PROTEIN" in the principal field of vision provided the 20 percent energy threshold is met.
The carbohydrate and sugar declaration rules permit the further sleight of hand that consumers do not see. Under retained Regulation 1169/2011, the mandatory nutrition declaration must include carbohydrate and "of which sugars" [250,252]. Polyols (sugar alcohols) may be declared voluntarily on a separate line. Fibre may be declared on a separate line. The net effect is that a 60g Grenade Carb Killa carrying 13.5g total carbohydrate, 1.4g of which is "sugar," can market itself as "low sugar" or "no added sugar" while quietly containing 10.6g of polyols and 6.7g of added fibres (largely polydextrose) [264]. The polyol declaration is mandatory for products containing more than 10 grams of polyols per 100 grams, but only as the warning statement "excessive consumption may have a laxative effect" [251]. It is not required on the front of the pack. It is rarely if ever the consumer’s first interaction with the product.
The "per serving" versus "per 100g" labelling provisions add a further layer. Products are required to provide nutrition information per 100g [250]. The front-of-pack claim is typically pitched per serving (per bar, per shake, per scoop). A consumer comparing the front-of-pack protein number of a 60g bar with the front-of-pack sugar number of a 100g chocolate bar is making a comparison across two different denominators, in most cases without realising it.
There is no mandatory pre-market testing of protein supplements for heavy metals, microbiological contaminants or label accuracy in the United Kingdom. The Food Standards Agency’s position is that general food law applies and that manufacturers are responsible for compliance. The contrast with the regulation of infant formula, where compositional requirements are mandatory and enforcement is centralised, is sharp. The contrast with the regulation of medicinal products is sharper. Protein supplements occupy a regulatory category in which the marketing claims approach those of medicinal products (muscle building, recovery, weight management) while the regulatory scrutiny approaches that of confectionery.
The Office for Health Improvement and Disparities and the Department of Health and Social Care have not taken any specific policy position on the protein supplement category, despite the WHO 2023 guidance against non-sugar sweetener use for weight control [59,60], the IARC reclassification of aspartame [49,51,58], the BMJ 2024 umbrella review on ultra-processed food and mortality [107,109], and the accumulating evidence on sugar alcohols and cardiovascular risk [32,42,46]. The category has expanded into mainstream British retail without a single piece of regulatory action by any UK public health body specifically addressing it.
Questions Nobody Is Asking
If the Mondelez acquisition of Grenade is the recognition that protein bars are confectionery, why are the products still placed in the "healthy living" aisle rather than the confectionery aisle?
If the WHO has recommended against the use of non-sugar sweeteners for weight control, why are products sweetened entirely with sugar alcohols and intense sweeteners permitted to bear front-of-pack "no added sugar" claims that imply a weight-control benefit?
If erythritol and xylitol are now associated with cardiovascular events in peer-reviewed cardiology research, why does the UK have no mandatory warning or restriction on their use in products consumed daily by gym-goers, older adults and adolescents?
If the Clean Label Project has documented that 47 percent of US protein powders exceed at least one regulatory limit for heavy metals, with chocolate-flavoured powders 110 times more contaminated for cadmium than vanilla, why has the UK Food Standards Agency not commissioned any equivalent national testing programme?
If hexane is a CDC-classified neurotoxin used in the manufacture of soy protein isolate, why is it permitted to be omitted from ingredient declarations as a "processing aid" on a product that millions of UK consumers, including children, eat weekly?
If the UK Reference Nutrient Intake for protein is 0.75g per kilogram of body weight and the average UK adult already consumes substantially more than this through ordinary food, who exactly is the marketing of an additional 20-25 grams of protein per bar aimed at, and on what evidence-based public health justification?
If the post-workout anabolic window has been comprehensively reassessed in the sports nutrition literature, why is the "consume within 30 minutes" framing still permitted on packaging, in influencer content and in mainstream fitness marketing?
If Mondelez owns Grenade and Glanbia owns Optimum Nutrition, and these are the same companies that already own and produce the chocolate bars, biscuits and shake products this series has previously documented, what is the meaningful nutritional difference between a Cadbury bar and a Carb Killa beyond the price tag and the front-of-pack claim?
If Article 14 of this series will document how UK supermarkets squeeze suppliers, drive down farmgate prices and proliferate own-label SKUs, what is happening to the contract manufacturing of the protein bar category that is now found in every Big Four supermarket "active living" aisle, and who is testing the heavy metal content of the cheapest tier?
If protein bars are increasingly given to teenagers after school sport, sold by influencers on TikTok to 14-year-old girls, recommended by personal trainers and sold in petrol stations next to energy drinks, why is the regulatory framework around these products no more robust than the framework around any other ultra-processed snack? Why are they not subject to the same advertising restrictions, the same age-related sale considerations, the same front-of-pack warnings that the energy drink article documented for caffeinated stimulants aimed at the same demographic?
Call to Action
The protein bar and protein shake category is the most successful laundering of confectionery as health food in recent British retail history. It has been built in less than fifteen years, primarily by confectionery conglomerates, dairy commodity processors and e-commerce aggregators, on a regulatory architecture that permits a "high protein" claim to make a product nutritionally indistinguishable from a chocolate bar appear in the healthy aisle of every major retailer. The chemistry that has replaced sugar in these products is in many cases accumulating its own evidence base of harm. The contaminant profile is documented in the United States but untested in the United Kingdom. The marketing channel is influencer-driven, demographically focused on adolescents, women and older adults, and regularly non-compliant with the Advertising Standards Authority’s own disclosure rules. The supply chain is the same supply chain that produces the rest of the British ultra-processed food system.
What is needed is straightforward and overdue.
The Food Standards Agency should commission a national testing programme for heavy metals in protein supplements, comparable in scope to existing programmes for baby food and infant formula, with results published annually and product names disclosed.
The Office for Health Improvement and Disparities should issue formal guidance on the marketing of protein-fortified products to adolescents, mirroring the existing guidance on the marketing of HFSS foods to children, and should consider whether the existing HFSS regime is appropriate for products of this composition.
The Department of Health and Social Care should request the Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition to issue an updated position on the use of polyols and intense sweeteners in the UK food supply, with explicit reference to the Hazen et al. 2023 and 2024 cardiovascular findings and the WHO 2023 NSS guidance.
The Advertising Standards Authority and the Competition and Markets Authority should commission an updated review of influencer marketing compliance specifically in the protein and sports nutrition category, with referrals to enforcement where systemic non-disclosure is identified.
The major UK retailers should be required by the FSA to provide, on request, sourcing chain documentation for the whey protein concentrate, soy protein isolate and milk protein concentrate used in their own-label protein product ranges.
And the British public should be told, clearly and once, what these products are. They are not nutrition. They are not health food. They are not athletic recovery products in any meaningful, evidence-based sense. They are ultra-processed confectionery, formulated to clear a single regulatory threshold, sold at three to five times the price of the chocolate bars they replace, produced by the same companies that make the chocolate bars, on the same lines, with the same chemistry, marketed to a population that has been deliberately persuaded it needs more protein than it does. The Grenade Carb Killa on the shelf is, in every meaningful structural sense, a Cadbury bar with maltitol where the sugar used to be. The "high protein" claim does not change that. It only changes who buys it.
It is time the British food regulatory system acknowledged the difference between a nutritional benefit and a nutritional claim. It is time the British public did the same.
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https://www.sundried.com/blogs/reviews/grenade-carb-killa-review
Amazon listing, "Grenade Carb Killa High Protein and Low Sugar Candy Bar, Caramel Chaos."
https://www.amazon.com/Grenade-Nutrition-Protein-Supplement-Caramel/dp/B017VJLMB8
British Essentials, "Grenade Carb Killa Cookies & Cream Protein Bar 60g" (ingredient declaration).
https://britishessentials.com/products/grenade-carb-killa-cookies-cream-protein-bar-60g
Nutrition Now, "Grenade Carb Killa Bars 60g — official UK stockist nutrition data."
https://nutritionnow.co.uk/products/grenade-carb-killa-60g-x-12-bars
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