Biotech Transforms Protein Food Market
$180M/year protein poptart
The big shift is that protein brands are no longer just flavoring around protein’s bad texture, they are redesigning the food itself with novel ingredients. Quest made protein bars feel more like candy by leaning on sugar alcohols. RXBAR made bars feel simpler by using egg whites and dates. David and Legendary push further by using EPG, a fat substitute with about 0.7 calories per gram versus 9 for fat, so they can make foods like bars and pastries that keep the creamy bite of junk food while packing far more of the calories into protein.
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This changes the product format, not just the nutrition label. Legendary is selling toaster pastries, donuts, chips, and now mac and cheese, which means protein moves from the supplement aisle into everyday snack and meal occasions. That is why its growth can look more like a breakout CPG brand than a niche fitness product.
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Control of the ingredient stack is becoming strategic. David acquired Epogee in May 2025 as part of its $75M Series A, securing the company behind EPG. Legendary licenses the ingredient and pairs it with its own manufacturing in Bell, California, giving it tight control over formulation and production even without owning the core fat technology.
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The competitive set is widening. Simply Good Foods, Quest’s parent, is still much larger at about $1.4B in revenue, but its growth is far slower. At the same time, natural high protein foods like Chobani offer another path, giving GLP-1 users protein density without engineered ingredients, which splits the market between biotech style products and recognizable whole food formats.
Going forward, the winners in protein food are likely to look less like bar brands and more like food technology companies with strong distribution. The playbook is to use formulation science to enter more aisles, from snacks to center of plate meals, while building either proprietary ingredient access or enough scale to defend premium pricing at retail.