The Barebells Chewy Protein Bar was another one of the leading functional food company’s Christmas Edition drops that was initially put together for the holiday season and intended to be around for a limited time. It came in the one Santa’s Strawberry flavor and features a build different from any other Barebells product, including the signature Barebells Protein Bar, the smooth Soft Protein Bar, and even any other past creation like the Barebells Core Protein Bar and Double Bite.
The texture of the Barebells Chewy Protein Bar is the big difference, similar to the leading Barebells Protein Bar versus the Soft Protein Bar. The main body is soft and chewy — no alternative layers or gooey filling — just the one base piece that has its own unique consistency. The brand just made the Chewy Protein Bar permanent, as we suspected, in three flavors, separate from the original Santa’s Strawberry in Peachy Peach, Fizzy Cola, and Banana Choco, which we’ve got our hands on for review.
Review
The Barebells Chewy Protein Bar is as smooth and fluffy as it looks in pictures, offering one of the softest textures out of any Barebells innovation, past and present. The consistency is very much like a big, somewhat dense marshmallow, almost spongy. It is identical to the classic foam candy that comes in all different shapes and sizes in Barebells’ home country of Sweden. There is some chewiness to it, although not in the endless chewiness you get from poorly made protein bars; it’s closer to the chewiness of marshmallow.
The consistency of the Barebells Chewy Protein Bar is amazing, and it is the highlight of the functional food, as there is some flavor involved, but the spongy foam candy build is hard to stand out over. The flavors of the product are not as in-your-face or complicated as the Barebells Protein Bar, where you get chocolate and crispy pieces on the outside and layers of taste and texture inside. The Peachy Peach has a sweet and smooth peach flavor, Choco Banana offers a slightly more intense banana taste with rich chocolate, and Fizzy Cola, believe it or not, does subtly taste like cola candy.
The nutrition balance on the Barebells Chewy Protein Bar is not as lean as the self-titled Barebells Protein Bar or the Soft Protein Bar, although it easily makes up for that in tasting like an actual candy bar with the teeth-sinking, fluffy marshmallow texture being the driving force. Each of the flavors packs 10g of protein, half the brand’s leading protein bar, and in traditional Barebells style, it keeps the sugar almost non-existent at about a gram a piece and a calorie count of around 140.
Summary
The difficulty with launching a completely new protein bar is the concern for crossover, as you wouldn’t want to add something similar to what you already have unless it’s meant to be a replacement. Barebells’ fluffy Chewy Protein Bar achieves this by offering a softer experience than any of its other protein bars, and at 40g a piece, it is incredibly easy, quick, and addictive to eat. Currently, it is only available in Sweden, but we can see this launching everywhere with how different the experience is, not just within the Barebells catalog, but there is also nothing else like it on the market.
