$300m in year two. The controversy came free, with David Protein’s Peter Rahal

David protein bars went from startup to one of the hottest consumer products in America in under two years. But the ride has been anything but smooth. Founder and CEO Peter Rahal joins Rapid Response to talk about building a breakout brand through lawsuits, a Jeffrey Epstein association, and the kind of social media heat most companies would run from. Rahal also revisits his $600 million sale of RXBar to Kellogg and what he learned about keeping your edge after a defining win. Visit the Rapid Response website here: https://www.rapidresponseshow.com/ See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

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• 2:08Speaker 02

  Anything that's really innovative and new in our culture, in the world, gets misunderstood. Americans have realized that protein is the most important macronutrient. It's the most expensive. It's the hardest to get. It doesn't always taste good. So what do people want from a protein bar? Really, you want a protein delivery system.

• 2:28Bob Safian?

  Are there any ways that controversy like this is good for a new brand?

• 2:33Speaker 02

  All things equal, you'd rather have people talking about you than not.

• 2:44Bob Safian?

  That's Peter Rahal, founder and CEO of protein bar company David, one of the hottest new consumer products of the last two years. I first met Peter when he was running RX Bars, which he sold to Kellogg for $600 million. I wanted to talk with him now, not only because of David's phenomenal success out of the gate, but because the company has thrived despite a series of controversies, from multiple lawsuits to an awkward connection to Jeffrey Epstein. Peter talks to me about how innovation can create obstacles, but also opportunity. We delve into food science, social media marketing, and his rather contentious assertion that protein itself is masculine.

• 3:28Bob Safian?

  There's a lot unconventional about Peter's approach, so let's get to it. I'm Bob Safian, and this is Rapid Response.

• 3:41Bob Safian?

  I'm Bob Safian. I'm here with Peter Rahal, CEO of David, the popular protein bar. Peter, welcome to the show.

• 3:49Speaker 02

  Great to be here.

• 3:50Bob Safian?

  David has had a tremendous run since launching in 2024. It's on track for more than $300 million in revenue in just your second full year. I will say that I didn't immediately associate the brand with you. You didn't call it Peter or Rahal. Why David?

• 4:09Speaker 02

  Our namesake is Michelangelo's masterpiece, this sculpture of David. The chisel is this really crude tool. It's a nail. It's what Michelangelo's used. But when you apply discipline and intelligence to it,

• 4:28Speaker 02

  And you can create a masterpiece and you can create something beautiful. The values of the brand and what we stand for is around discipline, education or intelligence, and then beauty.

• 4:40Bob Safian?

  With David, it's part of a new wave of bars with high protein, low fat. Few of them though pack the combination that David does. The package says 28 grams of protein, 150 calories, no sugar, which sounds impossible. And I guess it would be without the sort of special ingredient called EPG. If I understand it right, EPG is a kind of fat that's hard for the human body to absorb?

• 5:09Speaker 02

  Yeah, so it's a hard fat, so it's a high mill point fat.

• 5:16Speaker 02

  And it's a modified triglyceride. Your body has an enzyme called lipase that breaks off the fatty acids from the glycerol backbone. And that's where all the energy gets released. And so if you prevent lipase from doing that, your body can't digest it. It's really like a biohack. So your mouth views it as fat, but then your body isn't able to break it down. And because it's a 104, mill point's a hard fat, similar to like beef tallow or palm oil. It goes through your body in a solid state.

• 5:54Bob Safian?

  As I recall, there was a product back in the 1990s with some similar attributes, Elestra, but it wasn't well tolerated. People came away with cramps and whatnot. So is EPG like an Elestra descendant?

• 6:08Speaker 02

  It's the same like idea, but different. It's not the same mechanism. The fundamental problem with that technology was it was liquid at 95 degrees. So at body temperature, it was liquid. So the tolerance is much lower. In the 90s, there was like four of these attempts at this technology, coming off of sort of successful innovation around sugar substitutes and high density sweeteners. The industry looked to sort of reduce calories and fat is obviously the most dense on energy or calories. There's like a race to do this. Elestra was first and basically.

• 6:52Speaker 02

  Totally blew up the market, but because of the sort of debacle of Lustra, it just left.

• 6:59Bob Safian?

  Everybody just ran away from it.

• 7:01Speaker 02

  Everyone ran away from it. The one that's actually the best innovation just got forgotten.

• 7:06Bob Safian?

  Were you already planning to do another protein bar to do David before you knew about EPG? Or was EPG like, oh, this enables me to do something that means I'll go back into this business?

• 7:20Speaker 02

  No, it was more, I was designing a protein bar like from first principles. So what do people want from a protein bar? They want the most protein, least amount of calories, and obviously great taste and texture and price and some other factors. But really you want a protein delivery system. And then there's fat, like you need fat

• 7:42Speaker 02

  for mouthfeel, for texture. But with fat, you really don't want any calories. And so in that search,

• 7:50Speaker 02

  realizes EPG was unequivocally the best fat to use. And so in that pursuit of like the best fat system, it was pretty like crystal clear that EPG was like the one you want in a protein bar.

• 8:04Bob Safian?

  You wanted it enough that last year you you bought the company that manufactures it. Epigee that that that owns the patent. You were then sued by competitors for blocking their access to it for terminating contracts. That suit was dismissed. But were you sort of thinking from the beginning that you might want to use all the EPG yourself for David?

• 8:26Speaker 02

  When we started to get traction, our demand was going to consume all the capacity that Epigee can make. And if you're on the Epigee side, it's really hard to scale an ingredient company because you have this chicken or the egg problem. You want people to adopt your ingredient. There's not enough supply to service the demand. There's not enough demand to justify the creation of more supply. And so the Epigee team was like, they basically, they came to me like, we have a crazy idea.

• 9:00Speaker 02

  And I was like, let's, let's hear it. Let's merge and you guys take it over because you really kind of need to vertically integrate these, these businesses. So it wasn't just a straight acquisition. They, they, they're on the cap table today.

• 9:13Bob Safian?

  I can imagine that when you then like get lawsuits from competitors saying, oh, you, you know, you did this to screw us. It's gotta be like, no, no, no, they came to me.

• 9:23Speaker 02

  Yeah, they came to me and, and they would have been screwed even if the deal didn't happen because there's no supply and we had a supply agreement that gave us the right to all the inventory that was available.

• 9:34Bob Safian?

  You face some, some other controversy in, in the short intense rise you've had. I mean, there was a class action lawsuit challenging your labeling, you know, which was also withdrawn, but it was kind of claiming that there was more fat and more calories than listed because of the way, you know, you calculate EPG and like.

• 9:55Speaker 02

  Well, it wasn't that, it was actually they just didn't know about EPG. And I mean, and I think the thing is like, anything that's really innovative and new in our culture, in the world gets misunderstood.

• 10:12Bob Safian?

  So you think of these as sort of well-meaning concerns as opposed to like a stunt by competitors to try to sort of slow you down?

• 10:20Speaker 02

  It's just like part of the territory of innovation.

• 10:23Bob Safian?

  Are there any ways that like controversy like this is good for a new brand? Like the more, you know, more people know you, the better?

• 10:32Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think like over time is a net positive. It's, um, it's bringing attention to something innovative. It's teaching people, it's educating in a way. All things equal, you'd rather have people talking about you than not.

• 10:44Bob Safian?

  I have one more bumpy moment I have to ask about. Your chief science officer and initial investor was the author and wellness guru, Dr. Peter Attia. He stepped down after sort of previous communications with Jeffrey Epstein surfaced in court documents.

• 10:59Bob Safian?

  How did you and Peter connect? And, and how did you personally react when you heard about this Epstein connection?

• 11:07Speaker 02

  Yeah, so I met Peter through a friend. You know, Peter was like America's doctor, like he was the voice of nutrition and really influential. I wanted someone to guide us on the science. And so we agreed to have him as the chief science officer. And then I think it was like February, you know, I wake up Saturday morning, check X. Epstein files released and Peter's in it. And then I was like, oh, like, of course, he's, he's like, probably the best private practicing doctor in America. I'm not surprised he like had patients in that world, whatever. And then I was like, oh, shit. People are going after him. He's the doctor, like you can't be hanging out with Epstein. And then I was like, oh, this is bad.

• 11:49Speaker 02

  And then, you know, Peter came to the conclusion like, hey, listen, I need to take a step back from my responsibilities. Focus on my family, most importantly, and, and focus on my practice. As a company, we stand with the victims and, and it's all obviously frustrating that the DOJ

• 12:11Speaker 02

  isn't doing anything for the victims of all this. And like, it's quite gross. So, um, yeah, we, we stand with the victims and, um, respect Peter, but yeah, we had to go separate ways.

• 12:24Bob Safian?

  David's in 16,000 some retailers now, but you started selling via TikTok shop. I'm, I'm curious, it's tough to address challenges on social media platforms in general for a lot of brands, for a lot of people. How, how did you approach that kind of challenge, whether with the lawsuits or a T or other detractors? Like, is there a philosophy you have about the way you communicate on social?

• 12:50Speaker 02

  Yeah, the population consumes different media and like the generations consume different media. And that's the tricky part. And so boomers are watching TV, maybe on Facebook. Millennials are primarily on Instagram.

• 13:07Speaker 02

  And Gen Z is on TikTok and Gen Alpha. So you have to address all those sort of information routes. I think the most important thing is speed and directness. If you don't have a platform and audience, you just get lost. So thankfully, I have like a good reputation. And if I post something on X, people, people will listen to it and it gets exposed. So that's really helpful.

• 13:32Speaker 02

  But on TikTok, which is interesting, a strategy is like, yes, we can say something. But if it's not entertaining, it doesn't get picked up.

• 13:41Bob Safian?

  Sometimes detractors can be entertaining and that just sort of goes on its own. And you kind of, you gotta just let it go.

• 13:49Speaker 02

  Remember like in the nineties, people like tried good news, but it didn't work. Like good news doesn't work. Rage works, fear, like bad news works. And so there's this weird incentive for content creators to just like make negative or bad news because that's what gets engagement. Like a positive review doesn't go viral.

• 14:10Bob Safian?

  I just want to pause here to acknowledge the calm Peter is exhibiting when describing the range of controversies he's had to navigate with David. I'm sure he's not always so even keeled, but it's hard to imagine the David business gathering the momentum it has without steadiness and resilience. So what's Peter's plan for keeping the momentum going? We'll talk about that and more after the break. Stay with us.

• 14:41Speaker 00

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• 16:29Bob Safian?

  Before the break, Peter Rayhal talked about the incredible success of Protein Bar David in the face of a series of obstacles. Now he talks about plans to keep the momentum going, plus why he believes protein is masculine, an assertion that makes me a bit uneasy, as you'll hear in real time. Let's jump back in.

• 16:51Bob Safian?

  I saw that you just released another new product, this sort of high protein ice cream, which sold out very quickly. Is that the next market? Or are you really like, no, we're David's bars. We have a little ice cream, but we're focused on the bars.

• 17:07Speaker 02

  Yeah, what we're seeing with ice cream is I think that would be equal to the bar business. Traditional ice cream is full cream and sugar. With our product, we're actually, it allows you to kind of eat it without the consequences of getting into a caloric surplus.

• 17:24Bob Safian?

  And is EPG the secret ingredient? Or whatever, the special thing that allows that in ice cream in the similar way that does with the bars?

• 17:33Speaker 02

  I would say the combination of it's basically like EPG. Which which gives you the texture and then it's whey protein isolate,

• 17:42Speaker 02

  which is a version of milk and then it's allulose, which is a rare sugar. So, so you can think of it as like a really a high tech ice cream. There's a version of sugar. There's a version of cream and there's a version of milk.

• 17:54Speaker 02

  With bars, you see people like they kind of complain about texture. They complain about nutrition. Um, and so we're able to deliver a product with the the protein of a meal and the calories of a snack. And then the ice cream situation is like, you know, it's like, I love ice cream, but it's 1400 calories a pint and like 40 grams of sugar. So,

• 18:16Speaker 02

  to offer something that's a fourth of the calories with some protein, it's like a, it's a really valuable offering.

• 18:22Bob Safian?

  Do you worry at all that protein is like the the fashionable macronutrient of the moment, but it it might fade? I mean, consumers do tend to move around to the next thing. So how do you sort of future prove the business?

• 18:37Speaker 02

  If protein started to slow down in popularity, that would not be a bad thing for us because there's just supply issues on protein.

• 18:44Bob Safian?

  Because you're growing so fast, like it's it's just hard to keep up with it?

• 18:48Speaker 02

  I'm I'm adding, it's more Americans have realized that protein is the most important macronutrient. It's the most expensive. It's the hardest to get. It doesn't always taste good. What you're seeing over the past two years and it's driven by GLP ones, it's driven by general education is that, oh, protein's really valuable. It's a key kind of cornerstone to a really balanced diet. And the RDA recommendation of 50 grams is not for optimizing or thriving. It's just like to survive. We're betting the company that it's the most important macronutrient. The evidence is overwhelming that it is. Are too many people entering it and putting protein in places that don't exist, shouldn't exist? Probably.

• 19:28Speaker 02

  And are people going to be exhausted by that? Probably. And are there a lot of companies that are doing it that probably won't be here in two years? Probably in 10 years, is protein going to be more popular than it is today? I think it's going to be equal to or greater than it is today. It's not like a diet trend.

• 19:43Bob Safian?

  You mentioned GLP ones. How does that fit into this? I mean, for for some folks, it's an alternate way to address, you know, their intake.

• 19:54Speaker 02

  I think it's a enormous breakthrough that will change nutrition culture forever.

• 20:00Speaker 02

  Nutrition no longer becomes the main intervention. And so I don't think you're going to see these wild swing and popular diets that move back and forth. I think you're going to see just people take GLP-1s. And if you're taking a GLP-1, the recommendation is ensure you get enough protein and fiber

• 20:25Speaker 02

  to offset the potential downsides of muscle atrophy, which is the main risk with it. I don't see that changing for the foreseeable future.

• 20:37Bob Safian?

  And I was curious, the name David, did you worry at all about it appealing less to women?

• 20:44Speaker 02

  No, men will not consume feminine things.

• 20:52Speaker 02

  They just don't.

• 20:56Speaker 02

  Women will consume masculine things if they're aesthetic or beautiful.

• 21:04Speaker 02

  And if anything, it's cool for women to consume masculine things if they're aesthetic. But the inverse does not happen. You would never have like a pink protein bar. You'd be like, that's not for me. But if you were to have a protein bar that was masculine, but yet had good design or aesthetic, you would consume that and also your wife would too.

• 21:29Bob Safian?

  And when you look at who the customers are for David, that has been borne out? That it's balanced?

• 21:36Speaker 02

  No, it's actually 60 40 female to male.

• 21:40Bob Safian?

  So you picked the male name so that you could appeal to the men? Cause you could have made it pink.

• 21:46Speaker 02

  It's not about appealing to men. It's about, like you, it's about, it's about not turning off men, really. You know, we don't have gender and language in English, like other languages. But if you were to give a gender to a protein bar, it would be a man.

• 22:10Bob Safian?

  Because.

• 22:13Speaker 02

  It's masculine.

• 22:16Bob Safian?

  I mean, because protein isn't just masculine, like women have protein, plenty of protein in, you know?

• 22:23Speaker 02

  Yeah, of course, but I'm not, it's not about, it's not about if something could be masculine and, and like masculine feminine can live in both genders. It's just about the energy of it. It's, it's a, it's a strong, it's a has masculine traits.

• 22:41Speaker 02

  And so therefore, if you're going to give it a gender, you're giving it a man, a masculine thing.

• 22:47Bob Safian?

  So, so you're, you're two, two years into this adventure. What's at stake for, for David right now?

• 22:56Speaker 02

  I mean, everything's important. Right now in our, in our life cycle, what's at stake is just coming to market and, and getting the, the distribution and bringing on the right retail partners.

• 23:08Bob Safian?

  Well, thanks for sitting down to have the chat.

• 23:11Speaker 02

  Thanks, Bob.

• 23:14Bob Safian?

  Peter left me uncharacteristically speechless at the end of our conversation. David's growth has been extraordinary, especially in the face of lawsuits and controversy. And so maybe his analysis of consumers is spot on. Something about his framing of a molecule like protein as masculine, though, strikes me as reductive and inappropriate, echoing the problematic realms of the so-called manosphere. But hey, Peter says the controversy is a net positive, so maybe he's unconcerned about it. And I suppose he could be deliberately stirring the pot. We'll see what TikTok has to say about it all. I'm Bob Safian. Thanks for listening.

• 24:02Speaker 00

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• 26:28Bob Safian?

  Rapid Response is a Wait What original. I'm Bob Safian, our executive producer is Eve Tro, our senior producer is Alex Morris, and our associate producer is Masha Makutonina. Mixing and mastering by Aaron Bastinelli and Brian Pugh. Our theme music is by Ryan Holiday. Our head of podcasts is Lita Malad. For more, visit rapidresponseshow.com. Hey listeners, Bob here. If you listen to Rapid Response on MasterChef Scale, you may be missing half the show.

• 27:11Bob Safian?

  Because every Friday, we release a second Rapid Response exclusively in the Rapid Response feed. The guests and topics are just as compelling and timely, from Ford CEO to NASA's administrator to the lessons from the devil wears Prada. It takes about 10 seconds to find. Just search Rapid Response wherever you listen to podcasts and hit follow to make sure you never miss an episode. I hope to see you there.