Word From the Founder: Why I Built NiHPRO®

By Drew Campbell, CISSN – Founder, NiHTEK^®
Forged By Nature & Backed By Science.
Protein For EveryBODY™

For most of my life, I’ve been obsessed with performance first as an athlete and lifter, then as a sports nutrition operator building brands and educating markets across multiple countries. I’ve spent more than three decades inside this industry: learning what works, watching fads come and go, and seeing how quickly marketing can outrun truth. But NiHPRO^® didn’t start as a business idea. It started as a personal problem I couldn’t ignore.

The Years That Changed Everything: Gut Issues and Autoimmunity

Around a decade ago, my health hit a wall. I was dealing with chronic gut disruption and autoimmune issues that slowly chipped away at my energy, recovery, mood, and resilience. If you’ve lived through anything similar, you’ll understand this part immediately: it doesn’t just affect your stomach it affects your identity. I tried to “outwork” it. I tried to supplement my way around it. I tried to push through it like so many high-performing people do. But eventually, I had to face the truth: if my gut wasn’t stable, nothing else was truly stable training, sleep, cognition, stress tolerance, even the way I showed up as a leader and father.

That forced a turning point. I stopped chasing quick fixes and started doing the deeper work: nutrition quality, ingredient tolerance, inflammation reduction, and rebuilding trust in my own body and here’s what surprised me the most: protein something I’d used my whole life became one of the hardest categories to “get right” when digestion is compromised.

The Protein Dilemma: Whey vs “Plant” Never Felt Like a Real Solution

The market has basically told consumers they have two options:

Dairy/whey proteins: high performance for many people, but a problem for others due to lactose sensitivity, dairy allergens, or digestive discomfort.
Traditional non-dairy proteins: helpful for some lifestyles, but often gritty, earthy, hard to flavor, and commonly linked with bloating or poor mixability depending on the source and processing.

But I didn’t want to build another “either/or” product. I wanted a new categorysomething that could genuinely satisfy:

People who love the taste and performance experience of whey
People who live 100% dairy-free
People with allergies and sensitive digestion
People who care about measurable protein quality, not just label claims

That was the original mission: create a protein that performs like the best dairy proteins without being dairy.

Why NiHTEK^® Committed to a Six-Year Protein Project

At NiHTEK^®, we build what we call Natural Health Technology ingredients engineered to solve real problems using repeatable science and scalable manufacturing, not hype. So about six years ago, we started the work that became NiHPRO^®. Not to launch “another protein.” But to engineer a fundamentally different protein ingredient one that could change the experience people expect from 100% dairy-free protein.

What NiHPRO^® is Made From

NiHPRO^® starts with a targeted blend of premium protein sources:

Pea Protein Isolate (and for US market Mung Bean Protein Isolate)
Rice Protein Isolate
A small, purposeful amount of essential amino acids (EAAs)

Let me be clear about something important: the raw materials are only the beginning. What makes NiHPRO^® different is not the idea of pea or rice plenty of products use those. What makes NiHPRO^® different is what we do to the proteins and how we transform them into a consistent, highly functional, whey-like experience while staying 100% dairy-free.

Much like a diamond is originally made from carbon (coal), a commodity, inexpensive raw material, but through millions of years of great pressure, or using science to mimic nature, it can be transformed. The story of NiHPRO^® is no different.

A Science of Plain English: How We transform proteins

To design NiHPRO^® we created an industrial manufacturing process that is based on three fundamental objectives:

Enhance the sensory experience (taste and smell, as well as mouthfeel)
Enhance the functional performance (solubility mixingability, consistency, solubility)
Help digestion, tolerance and tolerability (through advanced hydrolysis and processing)

This is the procedure in layman’s words:

1. Wet Blending + Purification Improve Taste and Functionality.

Instead of using a standard dry-blending technique, NiHPRO^® uses a controlled wet-blending process which allows deeper purification as well as functional optimization. The objective is to remove undesirable non-protein components and substances which can cause off-notes, odors and a poor mixing performance. This is the reason NiHPRO^® isn’t able to “drink” like dairy-free proteins. It’s designed to be more smooth and cleaner since all inputs are refined prior to when we take into account an overall sensory profile.

2. Advanced Precision Hydrolysis (AHP™) to help support Digestion and Mouthfeel

Then We apply Advanced Precision Hydrolysis (AHP™) an enzymatic procedure that is controlled which breaks down larger proteins into smaller Peptides.

Why is that important?

Easy digestion Hydrolyzed proteins are “pre-digested” and broken into peptides which generally are simpler for our bodies to digest than proteins that are intact.
Solubility: Hydrolysis may improve the solubility of protein in water.
Mouthfeel: If it is done correctly hydrolysis is a great way to produce a more smooth, luxurious texture.

The key word is precision: hydrolysis can be performed properly or poorly. We developed NiHPRO^® for repeatability, flexible, and optimized for the real-world consumer experience.

3. Infusion into a Unified Protein Matrix (Not a Simple Dry Blend)

This part is hard to explain without getting too technical, so I’ll say it like this:

NiHPRO^® is engineered so the components don’t behave like separate ingredients floating around in your shaker cup. The Molecular Protein Infusion (MPi™) patented tech is revolutionary, yet also leveraging off what naturally occurs when in a wet blend process, allowing proteins to “fold” onto each other with no changes to the protein molecule or denaturing.

Through our infusion approach, the goal is a uniform protein matrix a consistent product with mixing experience and solubility that is even and predictable. That matters for brands, manufacturers, and consumers because it reduces batch-to-batch variability and helps the final product perform across formats: powders, beverages, and functional foods.

Protein Quality That’s Measurable: DIAAS 1.16

One of the biggest problems in the protein category is that consumers are often forced to choose between:

Good taste and texture
High protein quality
Digestive comfort

NiHPRO^® was built to break that trade-off. From a protein quality perspective, NiHPRO^® has achieved a DIAAS of 1.16 a digestible indispensable amino acid score that reflects amino acid profile and digestibility in a more rigorous way than older scoring methods. In plain terms, it’s not just protein grams. It’s the quality of the amino acids you absorb and can use.

NiHPRO^® is Gut-Friendly Because It Had to Be

Gut-friendly is not a trendy angle we added later. It’s part of the DNA of why I insisted this ingredient be included and gut-friendly isn’t only about being non-dairy. It’s also about digestibility, ease of digestion, and the reality of daily use. Because NiHPRO^® is hydrolyzed through Advanced Precision Hydrolysis (AHP™), it’s broken down into peptides, supporting a smoother, easier experience for many people compared with intact non-dairy proteins.

It’s also why taste matters in this conversation. If a protein tastes harsh, earthy, or unpleasant, people force it down, add excessive masking, or stop using it entirely. Sadly, many non-dairy commodity proteins fall into that trap, which is one reason many people don’t experience them as truly “gut-friendly” in practice.

NiHPRO^® is designed to be a protein people can use consistently without the common friction points especially those who live 100% dairy-free, those with sensitive digestion, and those who simply want a premium experience that doesn’t fight back.

It’s also why we prioritize standards such as FODMAP-friendly positioning and a broader allergen-aware approach. NiHPRO^® is designed to be free from the world’s top 24 allergens, including the major ones that matter most to consumers and manufacturers: dairy, soy, peanuts, eggs, and corn, and it is also GMO-Free.

NiHPRO^® is Bigger Than Gut Health

My personal story starts with gut health and autoimmunity, but NiHPRO® is built for something larger:

Creating a third category of protein.
Not whey. Not “typical” non-dairy.

A new standard: 100% dairy-free protein that can finally compete with dairy on taste, mixability, mouthfeel, and measurable quality.

That matters because the world is changing. More people want dairy-free options. More people have allergies or sensitivities. More people care about ingredients, sourcing, and how products make them feel not just what the label says. NiHPRO^® is our response to that reality built with science, built with manufacturing discipline, and built from the perspective of someone who has lived the problem firsthand.

Who NiHPRO^® Is For

Brand owners who want a premium, differentiated protein story that performs in the real world
Manufacturers who need consistency, solubility, and dependable functionality
Athletes and everyday consumers who want high-quality protein without dairy trade-offs
People with sensitive digestion who are tired of trying proteins that don’t work for them

My Promise as the Founder

I’ve spent over 30 years in sports nutrition. I’ve worked across markets, built companies, partnered with global teams, and watched enough cycles to know one thing for sure:

Trust is the only real long-term advantage.

That’s why NiHTEK^® is committed to measurable quality, real science, and products that earn their place in someone’s daily routine. NiHPRO^® exists because I wanted to solve a problem I lived and then build something strong enough that brands and consumers around the world could trust it too. If you’re a brand or manufacturer interested in samples, specifications, or technical validation, we’re happy to support you.

Let’s build the next category properly.
Forged By Nature & Backed By Science.
Protein For EveryBODY™

About the Author

Drew Campbell, CISSN, is the Founder of NiHTEK^® (Nature’s Innovative Health Technologies) and a Certified Sports Nutritionist (CISSN). With more than three decades in sports nutrition across multiple global markets, Drew focuses on building science-led ingredients that raise the standard of performance nutrition without sacrificing real-world taste, tolerance, and manufacturing scalability.