Holy crap, whey protein isolate is three
times roughly as expensive as it was in
the year 2001. Now, the only question is
is who do we blame and where do we take
the pitchforks? Whey protein prices will
probably stay elevated or climb even
higher for the next few years. Some good
news, there are some cheaper
alternatives to try for now if you're
really income constrained, but [music]
new technology is coming to the rescue.
Folks, why does protein cost so much?
Protein prices are too damn high meme.
We've been making quite a few protein
videos lately, which we love to make.
And often times folks in their responses
to these protein videos and their
reactions have been pointing out that
whey protein cost has gone up a lot.
Now, typically, I have my butlers shop
for secret shoppers who shop for other
secret shoppers cuz you have to have
layers as a trillionaire, who all then
get protein. I never see the price at
the stores. As a matter of fact, Scott,
you know this about me, I really don't
like to be shown prices, it offends me.
Oh, darling, prices are a concern of the
poor, but stoop down for my uranium jet
blimp SpaceX rocket to uh look into the
price situation and I don't know, what
did we find, folks? Did we find that
prices are going up? Maybe. Did we find
that a global cabal of dairy suppliers
colluding to keep the prices up? Scott,
what is your opinion generally of big
dairy?
>> Dude, evil.
>> Evil.
>> They like take the cows and they like
tear them apart to get the milk out.
That's what I heard.
>> That's how you get milk out of a cow,
with a chainsaw.
>> [laughter]
>> And then
>> It sprays out if you're going through
it.
>> [laughter]
>> Welcome to the channel, everybody.
Or or is it the supplement companies
themselves again colluding to raise
protein prices or is the problem
something closer to the core of the very
industry that makes protein powder out
of milk products to begin with? Let's
dive in.
And the way we're going to dive in first
is to look at protein cost historically.
Because we didn't just want to assume
prices were up. Also, prices up compared
to what is a really important question.
So, I did some research
and I got whey isolate price data for
the past 25 years. So, we're going to
look at that data roughly five-year
increments from around the year 2001.
Back when Scott and I were in
uh high school. High school, Scott?
>> That's right. The glory days.
>> uh protein to me at that point from a
tub was the equivalent of steroids
morally, so I did not consume it.
Um and all the way up to 2026. So, check
out the graph on your screen right now,
folks. What is going on with that graph?
So,
there's a lot, but the general trend
ain't great.
On the one hand,
holy crap,
whey protein isolate is three times
roughly as expensive as it was in the
year 2001 today. What the
And
really concerningly,
basically two times as expensive as it
was just in 2020.
Wait, that's really weird. And this is
also really concerning if you do the
math, a full 20% more expensive from
just literally last year. What the hell
is going on?
Prices
are going up.
They are.
The protein cost increase that you have
seen in your, you know, line items when
you go to the store or go to your online
retailer for protein, it's real and it's
big.
Now, the only question is is who do we
blame and where do we take the
pitchforks? Scott, when's the last time
you lit one of those tiki torches on
fire and purchased a pitchfork at
Walmart?
>> It's It's been too long. I'm ready to
go.
>> The answer is tomorrow.
>> Tomorrow, [laughter] let's go.
>> Jeff Bezos' house. Why not blame him?
But, really quick,
staying grounded in evidence-based is
what we do here on this channel and at
RP Strength in general, so let's take a
look at two more protein cost displays
to make sure we're not getting the
pitchforks out a little soon. Now,
first, inflation is a real thing, so we
want to adjust for it. Here's the graph
that is whey protein prices, but
adjusted for inflation.
Now, what we can see is that protein
cost did not triple since 2001, but it
did almost double. It had actually looks
like protein cost really didn't go up
basically at all from about 2001 to
2020, which is really curious. This
tells us something really important. Two
things. One, it's not some kind of thing
that just a trend in society. Like
you'll notice some consumer goods just
keep going up all the time, especially
ones involving a high degree of
government regulation like education and
health care just keep going up all the
time and have been for like damn near
all of recorded history. That's not
what's happening. The price increase
adjusted for inflation, which is the
more honest way to display it, is super
super recent, right? 2001 to 2020 ain't
none happened, basically the same price.
But, the other thing is, what the hell
happened
from 2020 to 2025?
That is very much also still happening
in 2026 cuz over even the last year
protein prices have gone up. Now, time
to freak out yet? Almost. Let's do one
more adjustment. The adjustment here is
an economic instrument called time
price.
The time price of something is the most
legitimate way to examine how much its
real cost to you has gone up or has gone
down. If you haven't heard of time
price, prepare to get your mind
elegantly blown. Ooh, elegantly blown.
Scott, I was in volume three of that
video.
>> Woah.
>> Yeah.
>> I don't recall it being so elegant,
though.
>> I mean, no.
>> [laughter]
>> No, no. The The thumbnail is me in a
business suit, but I guarantee you that
doesn't stay on for very long. So, in
any case, sir, jokes aside, time price
looks like this.
The time price of any good or service is
how long you have to work at your job,
how many hours to be able to afford that
thing. Now, typically, it's referenced
as the median hourly wage in an economy,
so like whatever the average hourly wage
is of a person, and then you display
goods and services like bicycles,
massages at parlors that maybe are
ethical, maybe not, hamburgers, and even
whey isolate, and you say like, "How
many hours does the typical person have
to work in order to buy a roughly
standard amount of this thing?" It's
super, super insightful because it
leaves currency aside. This is the real
way to measure the economy, right? Like,
this is awesome because it tells you
like, in a practical sense, how
expensive is the thing? If I tell you,
"Hey, this vacation costs XYZ thousand
yen or something in Japan," you're like,
"Is that a lot?" Well, really question
is, how much does the average Japanese
worker have to work in order to afford
that vacation? Now, that is really
telling us something, right? So, here's
the deal. Time price is super, super
important.
And here's what it looks like in whey
protein isolate terms. 2020
was the cheapest protein year of all
time. People consistently get wealthier
over time in advanced societies that are
largely based on free markets like the
United States, most of Western Europe,
free Asia, etc. People just do better
every 5 years on average, they're doing
better. And so, as we all get richer and
goods and services become more efficient
to deliver and thus deflate in price,
typically time price is something that
like really gets going. If you guys ever
want to have some fun, go visit a really
cool Instagram page or Twitter page,
wherever you post your stuff, called
Human Progress. And on there they have a
lot of time price comparisons from back
in the day. Scott, it's really funny cuz
they'll say like, you know, in 18 and
like 1905, a bicycle cost like $12. And
you're like, "Oh my god, that's so
cheap." And now it costs 200. And you're
like, "Back Back then, the median salary
was like 5 cents an hour." And you're
like, "What?" You know, like, you'd have
to work for 12 days to afford a bicycle.
Now it's 3 and 1/2 hours. You're like,
"Oh, crap." Cuz, you know, old-timey
looks like it's really cheap, but
people were so poor that it was actually
really expensive. So, adjusting for time
price, 2020 was the cheapest protein
year of all time. Okay, ready? So, that
means we can conclude one thing really,
really confidently. It's not a long-term
trend, straight up. So, if you look at
the original graph, you're like, "Dude,
every 5 years these protein
scums, these industry rats." Scott, what
animal would be the industry symbol for
the dairy industry? It can't be really
the Is it a cow? Is it like a fat cow
with a top hat sitting behind like one
of those like big office desks that's
too ostentatious and he's counting his
money.
>> Yeah, but it's also the mascot cow.
>> Yeah, he Oh, dude, I'm laughing. I sort
of think he's great now. He's just got
all these traps. He's like,
"Like, what are you doing the rest of
the day?" He's like, "Counting money."
In any case, that ain't it, right? But,
the opposite thing is the reality.
2025 was a record year, and 2026 was
more expensive still in that real time
price way.
So, what we can say is it's not a
long-term trend, but some happened
since 2020 that's like WTF. Very, very
interesting cuz it really hems off a lot
of guesses we could have made that were
wrong.
So, question, is protein going to cost
two times more in 2027? And 10 times
more in 2028? Will family send their
children off to fight the great whey
wars of 2029? Guys, what the hell is
going on with whey prices, and who is
behind this? Pitchfork Scott?
And tiki torches?
Is the idea of pitchforks and tiki
torches, Scott, to first stab people
that are the rich and control our
economy, and then light their stuff on
fire, or is it both at the same time, or
do you first light their house on fire,
and as they run out, you stab them?
>> No, I think it's cuz you do those things
at night so you can see better to stab
them more efficiently.
>> Ah, the tiki torches like I got to find
the rich guy in the in the bushes and
then poke at him a little bit. All
right, makes sense.
So,
why is protein more expensive? Because
now we know protein is more expensive,
but it's only a 2020s phenomena.
Couple of ideas. Idea number one, the
dairy industry is purposefully colluding
to keep the whey prices higher. That was
my first guess, but unfortunately,
there's just no evidence of that, and I
looked. It's also economically in theory
really tough to do collusion without
government support, and even even tough
to do it with government support, cuz
dairy is two things. Hyper-commoditized,
there's like a trillion dairy companies
all over the world, and they ship
everywhere and all over every state in
Wisconsin by itself has like a trillion
dairy manufacturers. And it's another
thing, it's hyper-competitive. If I am a
person who gets whey protein from a
dairy manufacturer, and I realize that I
can save 2 cents per pound on protein
from somebody else, you know what I'm
saying? Ain't no love in this game.
People talk about capitalism being real
hardcore and ruthless, and that's true,
and that means it's true at every level.
So, if you're charging me extra prices
that I could be getting more profits on,
I don't have to buy from your farm
anymore. I'm buying from somebody else.
So, turns out there's not really any
meaningful price collusion in the dairy
industry, right? That is out. Like, dang
it, I I thought at least we could blame
big dairy, Scott. All right. Pitchforks
are not being put down, tiki torches is
still lit. On to the next.
Idea number two, the supplement industry
is price gouging, which is a thing that
people in the comments seem to think.
Fortunately or not, there's no evidence
of that either, and it's even harder to
do in competition with dairy because
like Scott, we could start up a
supplement company like tomorrow, and we
very well might. But legit, supplement
companies like Scott, how many
supplement companies selling whey
protein are there if you had to guess?
>> Like a billion.
>> Like a billion, right? And so the idea
that all supplement companies would
somehow collude to keep the price of
whey up is like nonsense. If whey
protein costs like $80 a tub, and it
actually costs 50 bucks a tub to
service, there's going to be a lot of
people that look around and be like,
"That, I'm going to price mine at 65 a
tub, make a gazillion dollars, and then
retire." So,
nothing there. Okay. So, what the hell
is going on?
Now, idea number three holds more water.
Here's idea number three about why whey
protein prices have gone up radically.
Due in a large part to the GLP-1
revolution,
which says, "Hey, you're going to lose a
lot of weight, but you're got to keep
your protein up." And the messaging
around that has been really solid from a
lot of the nutrition field and basically
all of the grocery field,
loads of new products have whey protein
in them.
And more folks than ever are consuming
it.
Let me frame this in a way that's going
to make some sense.
The fraction of people that are in the
hardcore fitness industry that consume
whey protein has literally up until like
2020 or 2021 been very small as a
percent of the total of any country or
any of even the Earth. Because like it's
a hardcore thing, right? Like, you know,
like if you if you're scooping out whey
in 2015, most people look at you like
you're some kind of freak. Maybe you
are. But like it's not a usual thing.
And if you go to the store before 2020,
2021, 2022, 2023, then like most foods
don't have any kind of added protein or
anything.
The world is a different place now.
Because when regular people jump on a
trend, it changes everything. Cuz
there's a lot of regular people. And if
they come into the industry, they alter
it like crazy. If you have an artist
that does music and they're an indie
artist, they do local shows, they have a
couple of indie records, you know,
they're doing quite well for themselves
and they're getting booked, you can go
to their show, couple hundred people,
you might even be able to talk to them
after the show and have a beer.
If they blow up and regular people are
now big fans of them, you ain't never
going to see them again, but for like a
security team ushering them into a limo.
It is a completely different world. And
in much the same way, used to be just us
fitness folks eating the protein. Here's
the hilarious part. A lot of us fitness
folks have been screaming that other
people need to eat protein, too. So,
they started. Now there's protein in
chips, there's protein in bread, there's
protein in cereal. And the regular
people are eating it. And now we're
bitching cuz the prices are high. But
like that was going to be inevitable if
a lot of people started eating protein,
they bid up the price. That's literally
just how it works.
And there's loads of evidence for this
from all sides. Guys, they're putting
protein into bars, into shakes, into
drinks, into chips, into sodas, into
cereals, into pizza. Scott, remember
that protein pizza at Sam's Club or
whatever Costco that we got?
They What are they not putting protein
into is a better question. And so the
protein that's typically diverted to the
fitness industry is now kind of going
everywhere. And Scott, I don't know if
you've noticed this or not, but like
every Walgreens and CVS everywhere has
like a bunch of hardcore bodybuilding
protein bars and shakes available to
where like 10 years ago that I think was
not the case.
>> Yeah, they do.
>> They had some kind of shitty like
protein bar where you're like, this is a
fake protein bar, there's nothing in it.
Now they have Barebells, they have Built
Bars, they got it all. And that is being
sold to a lot of people. So the draw on
the the dairy industry for whey protein
is way higher and so the prices are are
[snorts] super super high, right? Um I
mean, protein is getting into
everything, you know? It's like, "Oh,
congratulations, Mom and Dad, the
ultrasound shows it's a girl. Aw, also
there's a tub of whey isolate in there,
too. Yeah, we have no idea how it got in
there. You It's probably going to kill
you during delivery, but the baby will
eat it and become jacked." Like I got
morbid, needlessly so.
At the end of the day, the fact that
like way more people are eating more
protein is awesome. We want more people
eating more protein and getting fitter
and healthier, but it's definitely
pushing the price up for now. And how.
We have
uh had a chance in the formulation of
the Pure Genius protein company. We were
associated with them in a slightly
different company, and then now we're uh
going to be pushing it again. For a
time, we weren't pushing the Pure Genius
brand at all here at RP, and I'm going
to tell you why.
Because the supply chain for BLG, the uh
beta-lactoglobulin protein, it's a
subfraction of whey,
that supply chain, the amount of total
BLG produced in the world was so small,
and so many people were trying to get at
it, there was no more protein to sell.
So, at some point, we literally stopped
promoting Pure Genius in massive part
because our partners at Pure Genius were
like, "We don't We can't We don't have
enough protein to sell people. We need
more whey protein to make more of the
stuff." And we looked all over the
world. It was literally legit like, "We
can't scale at this point." Now, we can.
Things are great, but this is a real
thing in the real world.
Now, you might be asking the question,
"Okay, I know some economics. If there's
a massive price increase that massively
incentivizes all these competitive dairy
companies to simply increase their
production, soak up a ton of profits,
and lower the price through
competition." So, why don't they do
that? Why don't dairy companies simply
increase their supply to meet the new
higher demand. Here's the reality. They
are fiercely working right now on doing
exactly that. But,
it's not like the digital world out
there. It's the physical world. You
don't just spin up spin up a couple new
AI agents or open up a new website and
things get going well. The physical
infrastructure required to go from milk
to powdered whey protein cannot be
cloned like a webpage or an app. It has
to be built literally from the ground
up. Like these are massive factories
with massive purification and filtration
machines. They have to stuff a ton of
cows in there and there's this giant
Scott this giant like jet engine fan
blade at the bottom that minces the cows
down into whey proteins. I understand
it's made. They got to get the blood and
guts out and the bad feelings of the
cows. But, it it literally takes years
to construct the physical machinery to
take protein and put it in your tub.
Plus,
this process of getting the factories up
and running doesn't start right when
whey protein prices go up like they did
in the very early 2020s because the
dairy industry owners who shove millions
of dollars in of capital expenditure
into these factories, they have no idea
if the trend of protein is a flash in
the pan or long term. Imagine you build
a factory, you start building a factory
that takes 3 years to build because of a
1-year flash whey protein increase. That
would be terrible business. You're like,
"Hey, we got a new factory." And your
financiers are like, "Cool, how much is
whey protein cost?" They're like, "It's
back down to record low levels." They're
like, "Oh, so who's going to pay us back
this loan for these machines?" You're
like,
but
but but I we're out of business. So, it
would really really suck. So, what's
going on is this. The dairy industry is
building new protein capacity at record
scale. But, they had a late start cuz it
was like protein prices went up a few
years. They looked around. They're like,
"Oh, this is a for real thing. Okay,
start building the facilities, right?"
And new facilities will take some years
to come online and start producing more
whey to make it cheaper. And
protein demand is still going up this
entire time.
So, here's the safe bet.
Whey protein prices will probably stay
elevated or climb even higher for the
next few years.
No mega corporate Illuminati conspiracy
and higher prices for the next few
years. Scott, what the hell is going on?
At least we could have found a
mechanical octopus behind all of this.
Standard economics is
>> It's not exciting.
>> It's just not exciting at all. I got to
pay more money cuz the dairy industry
can't produce protein fast enough.
That's the most blasé I've ever
heard in my entire life.
Some good news.
There are some cheaper alternatives to
try for now if you're really income
constrained.
What can you do about it now?
Go to the rich part of town
where only a full body sign, you're
naked underneath the sign that says,
"Will work for whey." It's a fine idea.
But also, there's a couple of
alternatives you could try before you
get to that.
We got this graphic for you here.
Take a look at it. You can even pause
your video if you need to.
Soy protein is a high quality protein.
And PS, we have many videos on this if
you want to search through. It doesn't
do to your estrogen levels, so
don't you ever worry about that.
You can start with soy and there's a few
other competitive proteins in that
graphic that may be able to unload your
financial burden from whey protein.
This is a big deal.
This is a big deal. You can do a little
bit better. Now,
what about the actual sources?
How high quality are these sources?
Whey isolate is a 10 out of 10.
If you choose casein milk or egg
protein, it's like a 9.75 out of 10 on
quality. It's ultra high.
Soy protein isolate is an 8.5, which is
roughly the same vibe score that we
would give like every animal source,
chicken, beef, etc.
Pea isolate protein, which can be a
complete protein source if you get it
from the right suppliers, gets a 7.5.
Not too bad. So, you can use some of
these alternative sources. My personal
recommendation is soy. I also like the
way soy protein powder tastes and mixes
for some reason. That is a real serious
thing to consider. So, you can keep
paying a shitload for whey, and you
know, most of us can afford it, but if
you're like, "Dude, this is crazy." Soy
is a great alternative, and so are a few
of the others.
Now,
lastly, what is the future of protein
cost?
What is whey protein going to cost in
the future future, like years from now?
Like, are you ready? You have to ask
yourself the question to die in one of
Saturn's lesser-known moons in a laser
gun battle for control of a regional
whey isolate shipping facility?
I would prepare for that. But, some bad
news. Whey protein prices probably won't
go down anywhere anytime soon. Not for
like a year or two, anyway. There's just
not enough industrial capacity, and
prices are still going up as it is,
because people are still consuming more
and more protein every month and every
year.
But, new technology is coming to the
rescue. For example,
whey protein can now be made through
fermentation with zero animal inputs,
basically making it vegan, and massive
scaling potential. It's still a bit more
expensive than dairy whey today. But, if
that dairy whey thing keeps climbing,
and it probably will,
fermented whey is already on a massive
price decline, and they might intersect
through each other in like 2028, and
then we might see cheaper whey than ever
just a few years later. So, give some of
the alternatives a try, rely on whole
foods as much as possible, and things
will get cheaper soon.
Just not yet, unfortunately.
Damn whey protein cabals.
See you guys next time.
>> [music]
[music]