Thirty years in sports nutrition, a gut that stopped cooperating, and the year whey prices made the point for us.
By Drew Campbell, NiHTEK®
Quick answer: Drew Campbell built NiHPRO® because the protein conversation had narrowed to two poor options, trusted dairy on one side and non dairy alternatives that asked consumers to accept worse taste, texture or tolerance on the other. A personal gut health journey and the 2022 whey price spike both confirmed the same point. Brands needed a genuine second protein platform, not just another commodity workaround. NiHPRO® was built around amino acid quality, hydrolysis and sensory performance to remove that trade off, not to argue that dairy is wrong.
I have been in sports nutrition for more than 30 years. Long enough to watch ingredients become trends, trends become categories, and categories fill up with products that look different on the outside and are the same thing underneath. Protein has always sat in the middle of it. I grew up professionally with whey. I know why brands trust it and why consumers do. It works, it has decades of science behind it, and it built the modern industry. So no, NiHTEK® did not start because I woke up one morning and decided whey was the enemy. That would be dishonest, and far too simple. We started because the conversation had become very small. Dairy on one side with all its credibility. On the other, a long list of alternative proteins that mostly asked the consumer to accept a compromise somewhere: taste, texture, amino acid quality or how it sat in the stomach. I never accepted that those were the only two options.
The Question That Took Shape in 2020
Around 2020 the whole world got a fast lesson in how quickly a supply chain can turn. Everyone was learning something about availability, logistics and dependency. In protein, the same question kept coming back to me. Why is so much of this category still built on such a narrow set of assumptions? At the same time, my own health and gut journey had changed how I thought about what a good protein even is. A protein can look outstanding on paper and still be wrong for the person drinking it. If it feels heavy, causes discomfort, tastes like work or becomes something you force down, the benefits on the label do not mean much. Nobody builds a lasting habit around a product they do not enjoy using. I had learned that the hard way, on myself. That gave us two problems to solve at once. Could we make a non dairy protein that performed at a much higher level instead of asking the consumer to accept the usual compromise? And could we give brands a second serious protein platform, so their future did not sit entirely on dairy or on commodity alternatives?
That was the start of NiHPRO®.
Then 2022 Removed Any Doubt
By 2022, whey prices were climbing sharply and brands across the industry were feeling it. I watched companies reopen formulas they had no intention of touching, delay decisions, pull back on promotion, and in some cases just wait and hope pricing would settle. None of that was irrational. Businesses have to protect themselves. But the period confirmed something I already believed. If everyone runs toward the same small group of proteins the moment pressure arrives, the industry has not diversified. It has moved the pressure from one part of the same system to another. I was never predicting that whey would disappear. I was arguing against building an entire strategy on the assumption that one supply system will always be there at the right price. After 2022, the need for NiHPRO® stopped being theoretical.
We Did Not Want to Make Another Plant Protein
I have never liked the habit of pushing every non dairy protein into the same plant protein box. That language carries a whole set of expectations and compromises before anyone has tasted the product. It reduces years of science, processing and formulation work down to where the raw material grew.
What matters to me is what the protein becomes. How complete is it. How does it digest. How does it taste. How does it mix. How does it hold up in a finished product. And the one that decides everything: will a real person keep using it? NiHPRO® was built around those questions. We selected and combined protein inputs, used controlled hydrolysis, optimised the amino acid profile and kept pushing on sensory performance. Then we tested, adjusted and tested again. It came out with a DIAAS of 1.16, sitting above whey isolate at 1.09, leucine comparable to whey, over 8 grams of arginine per 100 grams of protein, sugar free, lactose free and free from the world’s top 24 major allergens. There was no single morning where it all suddenly worked. It was years of solving one problem, finding the next one, and refusing to accept that good enough for non dairy was good enough. That is why we call it the third category of protein. Not dairy. Not commodity plant protein. A re engineered platform.
What NiHPRO®Gold Added
NiHPRO®Gold came out of everything we learned building the wider NiHPRO® family. It was developed as a premium non dairy hydrolyzed protein isolate platform for brands working on higher level ready to mix, ready to drink and functional nutrition concepts. The target was never a better specification sheet. It was a better experience in the product someone actually buys. Cleaner flavour, smoother mouthfeel, better dispersion, a lighter feel, more room for the formulator to work. We still tell every partner the truth: an ingredient will not rescue a poor formula. The flavour system matters. Processing matters. Sweeteners, texture and application work all matter. But the platform you start on makes an enormous difference to where you can finish.
Where I Think This Is Going
Protein is becoming a much bigger thing than the category I walked into three decades ago. It is moving into GLP-1 nutrition, women’s body composition, gut health, active ageing and ordinary daily wellness. Most of those people would never call themselves athletes, and they still care about strength, lean mass, energy and how they feel. They also expect protein to fit into their day without feeling like a punishment. That changes the development brief completely. Someone on a GLP-1 with a reduced appetite needs efficient, easy nutrition, not a thick shake they have to fight through. A woman buying protein for body composition and healthy ageing wants the quality without 1990s bodybuilding language wrapped around it. Someone focused on their gut will judge the product on how they feel two hours later, not on what the label claims. The old category boundaries are coming apart, and that leaves room for a protein platform built for more bodies, more lifestyles and more applications. Protein For EveryBODY™ is not just a line we print. It is the direction of the company.
From an Idea to 38 Brands
Founders get attached to what they build. The market owes us none of that belief, which is why the proof outside this company is the part that counts. As of 12 September 2026, NiHPRO® is represented across 38 brands in 17 markets and six continents. Thirty five TLAs are signed, three more are issued and awaiting signature, and 16 consumer brands are already in market. Behind those numbers are real conversations, trials, reformulations, approvals, launches, reorders and a fair few lessons. Some of those partnerships moved quickly. Others took years. That is normal when you are asking brands and consumers to think about protein differently. We have also seen early case studies that give me confidence: products selling through, partners reordering, brands choosing to build more deeply around the platform. I am proud of it. I do not treat it as permission to get comfortable. We still need more applications, more research, more consumer education and more proof across more markets.
Diversification Is Not Fear. It Is Room to Move.
One Last Thing
This industry gave me my career, a lot of my closest friendships and the chance to build companies around something I genuinely love. I respect its history. Respecting it does not mean repeating it forever. The next era of protein will be broader, more inclusive and more technically demanding. Consumers will want performance and experience together. Brands will need science and commercial resilience together. The winners will not be the ones shouting loudest about dairy or non dairy. They will be the ones building the best products for the lives people are actually living. That is what we started working toward in 2020. 2022 made the case for us. The brands now launching around the world suggest we were reading it right. We did not build NiHPRO® to join the old protein argument. We built it so there would be another choice. If your brand is working through a more resilient protein portfolio, I would be interested to hear what you are seeing in your own market.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why did NiHTEK® build NiHPRO® instead of just using whey?
NiHPRO® was not built to argue that whey is wrong. It was built because the protein conversation had narrowed to two options, trusted dairy or non dairy alternatives that asked consumers to accept a compromise on taste, texture or tolerance, and NiHTEK® wanted to remove that trade off rather than pick a side.
How does NiHPRO®'s DIAAS compare to whey isolate?
NiHPRO® has a DIAAS of 1.16, compared with 1.09 for whey isolate, alongside leucine comparable to whey and over 8 grams of arginine per 100 grams of protein. It is also sugar free, lactose free and free from the world’s top 24 major allergens.
Does NiHTEK® believe whey protein will disappear?
No. Drew Campbell has been explicit that he was never predicting whey would disappear. The argument is against building an entire strategy on the assumption that one supply system will always be available at the right price, not against whey itself.
What was NiHPRO®Gold specifically designed to improve?
NiHPRO®Gold was designed to improve the actual product experience, not just the specification sheet, focusing on cleaner flavour, smoother mouthfeel, better dispersion and a lighter feel for ready to mix, ready to drink and functional nutrition concepts.
Is protein diversification about avoiding whey out of fear?
No. Diversification is framed as a source of freedom, to innovate, manage margin, serve different consumers and respond to market shifts, rather than a fear based reaction against whey.
