“We are pleased this matter has been resolved and look forward to continuing to focus on our customers and our business,” the company wrote on its website
Credit: Slaven Vlasic/Getty
NEED TO KNOW
- A lawsuit alleging that David Protein understates the calorie and fat count of its protein bars has been dismissed by the plaintiffs
- The initial complaint alleged that the company was deliberately misleading customers to pay a price premium for its bars
- “David is 150 calories,” a representative of the brand told PEOPLE
A lawsuit filed against David Protein, alleging it deliberately understated fat and calorie counts in its protein bars, has been dismissed.
Three customers who filed a class-action lawsuit in January 2026 against the company voluntarily dismissed the lawsuit, per a March 30 notice of voluntary dismissal without prejudice obtained by PEOPLE.
The plaintiffs provided notice that the lawsuit against the company was “voluntarily dismissed, without prejudice," meaning the plaintiffs could file the same complaint in the future.
“David is 150 calories," David Protein representative Markos Bitsakakis tells PEOPLE in response to the dismissal.
The brand also released a statement on its website.
“We are pleased this matter has been resolved and look forward to continuing to focus on our customers and our business,” the statement read. “We remain confident in the accuracy of our nutrition labeling.”
Representatives for the plaintiffs did not immediately respond to PEOPLE’s request for comment on the case’s dismissal.
The initial complaint filed on Jan. 23, 2026, alleged that David Protein’s bars contained “a significant[ly] higher number of calories and total fat than represented on the product packaging,” allegedly based on tests showing a difference between the advertised and measured fat and calorie count of the bars.
The complaint alleged that the company understated these statistics to entice customers to pay a price premium for the bars.
Bitsakakis said that online claims supporting the lawsuit were justified by bomb calorimetry, which measures heat released as food is burned to calculate calories.
He told PEOPLE earlier in March that David bars contain an ingredient called esterified propoxylated glycerol (EPG) that is “minimally digested” by the human body and thus has different FDA-approved caloric values for nutrition labeling that are not accurately captured through bomb calorimetry.
“David Protein’s nutrition labels reflect this FDA-recognized value and comply fully with FDA labeling regulations,” he said.
CEO Peter Rahal echoed Bitsakakis' remarks in a statement on the brand’s website on March 12.
“The claims in this lawsuit are meritless and reflect a fundamental misunderstanding of basic, well-established scientific principles regarding how calories are determined under U.S. nutrition labeling standards for ingredients like EPG,” Rahal said.
“[David Protein remains] committed to delivering innovative products with a high calorie-from-protein ratio that consumers can trust,” he said.
Read the full article here
