Peter Rahal built two $600 million businesses by spotting diet trends - now his protein bar monopoly is crushing small companies
The entrepreneur behind David Bar has mastered commodifying health anxiety, but his acquisition of a miracle ingredient's only supplier reveals where optimisation culture leads
On 29 May, Mckay Fugal received the email that would kill his business. Epogee, the Indianapolis company that had supplied his chocolate manufacturer for years, would no longer accept new orders. The explanation was brief: David, the buzzy protein bar startup, had acquired Epogee. No transition period. No warning. Just an immediate cutoff of the one ingredient Defiant Foods couldn't function without.
Fugal wasn't alone. Across the US, small food companies opened similar messages that day. Shawn Brown in British Columbia, who'd invested more than $750,000 building a production facility specifically designed around this ingredient. Spencer Krug, who'd been planning to expand his brownie line. Within days, three companies filed a federal antitrust lawsuit in New York, alleging David orchestrated a secretive acquisition specifically to monopolise supply and eliminate competitors.
The ingredient at the centre is esterified propoxylated glycerol - mercifully abbreviated as EPG. Only one company in the world manufactures it: Epogee, which holds the exclusive patent. This modified plant oil mimics fat but passes through the digestive system mostly undigested, delivering 92% fewer calories. It solves the eternal protein bar problem: protein is dry and chalky, fat makes it palatable but adds calories. EPG provides the mouthfeel without the caloric penalty.
For companies trying to create high-protein, low-calorie products that don't taste like cardboard, EPG was the only solution. They built entire operations around it. Then David bought the only supplier and shut off the tap.
The pattern hunter
Peter Rahal's talent lies in pattern recognition. He spots diet trends with laser precision and builds products that perfectly embody the cultural moment. This is his second time capturing a movement and selling it for a fortune.
His first success came with RX Bar, launched in 2013 from his mother's basement in suburban Chicago. Rahal and his childhood friend Jared Smith each invested $5,000 making bars that aligned perfectly with the paleo movement's emphasis on whole, unprocessed ingredients. Their packaging was radically simple: ingredients listed boldly on the front. "3 egg whites, 6 almonds, 4 cashews, 2 dates. No BS."
The bars contained just 12 grams of protein - unremarkable by today's standards - but quantity wasn't the point. The paleo movement cared about ingredient quality and recognisability. Rahal delivered exactly what the moment demanded. Within five years, Kellogg acquired RX Bar for $600 million.
After the sale, Rahal bought a Ferrari and a $19 million Miami Beach mansion. He described trying "hedonism for a bit" before getting bored. His non-compete agreement with Kellogg prevented him from launching a new nutrition bar until October 2022. When that restriction expired, he immediately began developing his second act.
The cultural landscape had shifted entirely. People had moved beyond paleo's natural ingredient focus. The new obsession was protein maximisation and performance optimisation. Gen Z was posting cottage cheese recipes on TikTok and tracking macro percentages. Cottage cheese sales jumped over 50% in five years as people discovered it contained more protein than Greek yoghurt. Longevity doctors were appearing on popular podcasts discussing muscle preservation.
Rahal built David to meet this moment. Where RX Bar emphasised natural simplicity, David emphasises optimisation metrics. The bars contain 28 grams of protein and just 150 calories - a macro profile essentially impossible without EPG. The branding evokes Renaissance sculpture meets Silicon Valley: golden wrappers, a formal serif font inspired by 1990s Apple advertisements.
Rahal secured early investment from Peter Attia and Andrew Huberman, the neuroscientist whose podcast has become hugely influential in wellness circles. Attia became David's chief science officer and coined the term CFP - calories from protein - as a key metric. David bars clock in at 75% CFP. This percentage thinking epitomises contemporary optimisation culture: not just "does this have protein" but "what's the efficiency ratio."
The launch was perfectly calibrated for 2023. David sent 20,000 bars pre-launch to fitness influencers and the first 5,000 people on their waitlist, generating enormous social media buzz. The company reportedly hit $1 million in revenue in its first week and is projected to reach $100 million in its first full year.
Why protein became gold
For decades, dietary advice swung between villains. Fat was the enemy through the 1980s and '90s. Then carbohydrates became the problem. Protein, though, was never the enemy. This stability positioned it perfectly for its contemporary moment.
What changed wasn't the science itself, but our understanding of optimal rather than minimal intake. The recommended dietary allowance has remained at 0.8 grams per kilogram of body weight for over 40 years - explicitly designed as the minimum needed to avoid deficiency. For a 70-kilogram adult, that's just 56 grams daily.
Research published in recent years has challenged this as woefully inadequate. Stuart Phillips at McMaster University and other researchers suggest protein requirements may be underestimated by as much as 60% for some populations. The emerging consensus among longevity doctors points to 1 to 2 grams per kilogram - double or more the official recommendation.
The shift reflects genuine insight about ageing. As we grow older, our bodies become more resistant to the signals that trigger muscle growth - anabolic resistance. Lean muscle mass drops precipitously after age 75, leading to frailty, falls, and loss of independence. Higher protein intake helps preserve muscle mass and strength.
Attia, the Stanford-trained physician who's become perhaps the most influential voice in longevity medicine, recommends patients consume about 1 gram of protein per pound of body weight daily. The goal isn't bodybuilding aesthetics but functional preservation. You don't eat protein to get massive; you eat it so you can get up off the floor when you're 80.
This reframing transformed protein from a bodybuilder concern to a longevity necessity. The shift opened enormous market opportunities for anyone who could help people hit their numbers. David arrived at precisely the right moment.
The acquisition strategy
Before David's involvement, EPG was incredibly niche. Only a handful of tiny food brands used it. Defiant Foods made low-calorie chocolate bars. Own Your Hunger produced nut butters. Lighten Up Foods manufactured sauces. Small businesses operating in entirely different categories from protein bars, built around this remarkable ingredient.
According to the federal lawsuit, Epogee began reporting supply shortages in March but assured customers product would be available in May. Responses to subsequent inquiries became vague. Then on 29 May, Epogee informed clients it would no longer accept new orders following the David acquisition.
The plaintiffs claim David deliberately strung them along during the concealed acquisition so they wouldn't make alternative arrangements. In May, David announced it had acquired Epogee and raised $75 million in Series A funding. Almost immediately, David cut off EPG supply. Epogee fulfilled existing orders and then closed the tap.
The three companies filing suit collectively report approximately $107,000 in lost sales, $449,000 in research and development investments, ongoing operational losses of about $15,000 monthly, and inventory write-offs of roughly $85,000.
David's response: these companies "only have themselves to blame for not signing long-term supply agreements." Rahal explained to Men's Health magazine: "In business, I'm hypersensitive to dependencies. I'm thinking about who's going to kill me, how am I going to die? And I think that's a really important mindset. You need to protect any sort of dependency you have as a brand."
Legal experts note David's position may have merit. Abe Wickelgren, an antitrust law expert at the University of Texas School of Law, points out that Epogee's patent created a monopoly regardless of ownership. The patent system explicitly grants monopoly power to incentivise innovation. David didn't create the situation where one company owns exclusive EPG rights; it simply acquired that company.
Yet several affected businesses noted in court filings that despite multi-year relationships with Epogee, they were never offered long-term supply agreements. The acquisition happened quickly and quietly. Small bootstrapped companies suddenly found themselves cut off from an ingredient they'd invested years developing around.
The human cost
Fugal says his company spent years developing chocolate that contains 220 calories and 12 grams of protein per bar - impossible without EPG's unique properties. "Fat is a very important part of chocolate," he explained. "Without it, we wouldn't be able to call our product chocolate." Defiant is now shutting down.
Brown's Moon Magic had invested more than $750,000 building a production facility in British Columbia specifically designed to accommodate EPG's unique properties. Despite this substantial investment and "several attempts," he was not given the opportunity to resume ordering. The facility sits idle.
Krug added that "after substantial investment in this company and its products, I had intended to expand my line of brownies in the future, but instead I am currently in the process of shutting down our website and all sales."
These weren't large corporations with diverse product lines. They were small businesses - often single-product companies - built around an innovative ingredient they'd discovered. They'd invested hundreds of thousands developing formulations, building facilities, establishing supply chains, and growing customer bases. Now they're shutting down entirely, not because customers didn't want their products, but because they lost access to the one ingredient their operations depended on.
Where optimisation leads
After the EPG lawsuit generated negative publicity, David began selling wild-caught Pacific cod that customers heat at home and eat from a pouch. No seasoning, no preparation, just protein in its purest, least appetising form. At 92% CFP, it beats even David bars on the efficiency metric.
The marketing positioning is revealing. David describes itself as designing "tools to increase muscle and decrease fat. Some of our products are edible. Some in the future will not be." This isn't a food company; it's an optimisation technology company that happens to sell consumables. The boiled cod isn't meant to be delicious. It's meant to help you hit your numbers by any means necessary.
We've gamified nutrition, transforming eating from a bodily need into a quantifiable performance metric. Once something becomes a score, people will pay for tools that help them win. David isn't competing with other protein bars; it's competing with the anxiety of not being optimal enough.
Rahal doesn't create these cultural moments; he spots them and builds products that allow participation. RX Bar let you signal participation in the paleo movement's "real food" ethos. David lets you signal participation in optimisation culture. Both moments had legitimate nutritional insights at their core, but both spawned industries selling identity as much as nutrition.
The EPG lawsuit has yet to reach resolution. David argues that vertical integration is sound business strategy and that the patent system created the monopoly regardless of who owns it. The plaintiffs counter that deliberately cutting off businesses who'd invested substantially represents anti-competitive conduct that harms innovation.
Beyond the legal question lies a deeper one about what optimisation culture actually optimises for. David moved aggressively to control EPG supply, securing its competitive advantage and protecting what Rahal calls a "dependency." That makes business sense within a framework where every interaction is competition.
In a market designed around anxiety about ageing and performance, perhaps the greatest optimisation is recognising that anxiety itself as the most scalable resource. The small businesses crushed by the Epogee acquisition invested hundreds of thousands developing products they believed in. Whether David legally violated antitrust law remains to be determined. Whether it violated something else - some unwritten norm about fair dealing, about not destroying businesses that aren't even competing with you - feels clearer.
Rahal has mastered spotting cultural moments and building businesses that capture them. Twice now, he's sold that talent for hundreds of millions. The market has validated his pattern recognition spectacularly. But the EPG controversy suggests that optimisation culture, taken to its logical conclusion, optimises for something other than the thriving, independent, functional ageing that protein science actually promises. It optimises for control, for dominance, for winning - even when winning means small businesses built around innovation lose everything.
The boiled cod in a pouch was supposed to be clever marketing - look how seriously we take optimisation. Instead, it became the perfect metaphor. We've drained all the pleasure from eating, seasoned nothing, optimised everything, and called it progress. Some won that game spectacularly. Others are shutting down their websites. And we're all still wondering whether hitting our protein targets before 10am actually made us any healthier, or just more anxious about the scores we're failing to max out.