Late last year, we were introduced to NxtBar, a high-protein snack from a company of the same name. The product features a Quest Bar-like build and promises an enjoyable balance of taste and nutrition, which, as we’ve said many times before, is not as easy as it sounds. At the same time we posted about NxtBar, we decided to order a variety box from Amazon and see how it compares to the intense competition.
The NxtBar comes in a nice selection of six different flavors, including Banana Nut Bread, Chocolate Cookie Dough, Lemon Pound Cake, and Vanilla Almond Butter. As mentioned, we did grab a variety pack to try all of its different flavors, each providing 15g of protein per bar, 20 to 27g of carbohydrates with only 1 to 2g of that sugar, 8 to 11g of fat, and calories ranging between 190 and 230.
Review
In the last decade, a lot of new protein bars have hit the market and delivered better taste and texture than some of the products that emerged earlier in the decade, like the Quest Bar. As mentioned, NxtBar’s protein bar does feature a similar build and style to Quest Nutrition’s original hit snack, although unfortunately, we didn’t find it to be any better, despite having less protein and around the same calories.
The NxtBar is quite a chewy, thick, and dense protein bar that makes the snack a lot harder to enjoy overall and brings back memories of products we had long before candy bar-like snacks came about. It does compare best to a Quest Bar, as once again, the build is similar, although the NxtBar is a bit smoother. It has moments of flavor thanks to its sometimes frequent chunks and pieces, although they’re not overly sweet and do more for the texture than taste
The flavors we enjoyed the most were the ones with chocolate, not just because we’re fans of chocolate, but because when you get to the chocolate bits and pieces in the product, they stand out better against the base flavor. Don’t get us wrong, NxtBar is edible and somewhat enjoyable; we just feel it lacks the sweet, rich, and lasting flavors we’ve come to expect, thanks to the newer protein bars out there.
Summary
NxtBar is not a bad protein bar, it certainly has its highlights; it simply falls behind based on the level of competitors that are on the market such as Barebells, Grenade and ESN, which have forced us to expect more from protein bars and snacks. With 15g of protein per bar, we were hoping for something that’s at least soft, combined with smooth, obvious flavors that you can taste rather than look at the wrapper for a description.
If you’re a fan of Quest Nutrition’s original Quest Bar, you might want to give this a try, although as mentioned, it has 5g less protein with around the same amount of calories. We’d also liken it to the One Bar from One Brands, although that also has more protein sitting at the usual 20g per bar, as well as stronger, sweeter, and more consistent flavors.
