David Protein Bar Sued Over Fake Calories — What the Cases Reveal

David protein bars arrived in late 2024 with a bold promise: 28 grams of protein, 150 calories, zero grams of sugar. The brand, founded by RXBar co-creator Peter Rahal and backed by influencers including Andrew Huberman and Layne Norton, reached a $725 million valuation in under a year. Then the lawsuits came.

Two entirely separate legal challenges hit David — operated by Linus Technology, Inc. — within months of each other. The first was a consumer class action filed in January 2026 in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, alleging the bars contain far more calories and fat than the labels state. That case was voluntarily dropped by the plaintiffs in March 2026. The second is an active antitrust lawsuit filed in June 2025, also in the Southern District of New York, accusing David of acquiring the sole supplier of a patented fat substitute and cutting off competitors to lock up an emerging market segment. That case is still being litigated as of June 2026.

David Protein Bar Lawsuit Timeline and Updates

Late 2024 — David Bars Launch to Viral Success

David protein bars launched commercially in late 2024, rapidly becoming one of the most talked-about products in the wellness space. The bars’ macros — 28g protein, 150 calories, 2–2.5g fat, 0g sugar — were extraordinary by industry standards. For context, most competing protein bars in the same calorie range contain 20 grams of protein or less. The secret was EPG.

EPG, or esterified propoxylated glycerol, is a modified plant-based oil that behaves like fat in texture and cooking but is resistant to the digestive enzyme lipase. Because the body cannot break it down, almost none of its calories are absorbed. EPG contains 0.7 calories per gram — compared to 9 calories per gram for conventional fat. By substituting EPG for regular fat, David could list dramatically lower calorie figures on its label while maintaining the rich, satisfying texture consumers expect from a high-quality protein bar. The FDA recognizes EPG’s reduced caloric value for labeling purposes.

The company was founded by Peter Rahal, the co-creator of RXBar, which sold to Kellogg’s for $600 million in 2017. That pedigree accelerated investor confidence and influencer alignment simultaneously.

May 29, 2025 — David Acquires Epogee

The acquisition that triggered the antitrust case came with almost no warning. On May 29, 2025, David announced it had acquired Epogee — the sole manufacturer of EPG, which holds the exclusive patent on the ingredient. David simultaneously notified existing Epogee customers that it would no longer accept new orders for EPG from outside companies.

For the food brands that had built entire product lines around EPG, the cutoff was immediate and devastating. OWN Your Hunger, a nut butter company, Lighten Up Foods, and Defiant Foods — a chocolate brand whose co-founder stated his product simply cannot exist without EPG — collectively reported $449,000 in R&D investment tied to EPG-based formulations that could not be repurposed, $107,000 in lost confirmed sales from unfulfillable orders, and over $85,000 in specialized packaging inventory rendered worthless because it carried EPG-based calorie claims that would be inaccurate if used with any other ingredient.

June 2, 2025 — Antitrust Lawsuit Filed

Three days after the acquisition was announced, OWN Your Hunger LLC, Lighten Up Foods LLC, and Defiant Foods LLC filed an antitrust lawsuit against Linus Technology (d/b/a David Protein), Epogee LLC, and Peter Rahal. Case No. 1:25-cv-04544, assigned to U.S. District Judge Victor Marrero in the Southern District of New York.

The complaint alleged that David acquired Epogee specifically to eliminate competitors and create an artificial monopoly in an emerging food segment. The plaintiffs immediately filed a motion for a temporary restraining order (TRO) demanding the court force David to restore EPG supply while the litigation proceeded.

June 2025 — TRO Denied, First Setback for Plaintiffs

Judge Marrero denied the TRO within weeks of filing. In a 12-page order, he found the plaintiffs had not demonstrated a likelihood of success on the merits of their antitrust claims. He declined to force David to supply EPG to its competitors while the case played out. That was a significant early signal.

Several other former Epogee customers — companies that had also lost access to the ingredient — filed sworn statements with the court outlining the business harm they suffered. Their accounts provided color but did not change the judge’s calculus on the emergency relief question.

February 2026 — First Motion to Dismiss Granted

In a 32-page order, Judge Marrero granted David’s motion to dismiss the original complaint. The core problem was market definition. In antitrust law, a plaintiff must define the “relevant market” in which they allege the defendant holds monopoly power. Marrero found the plaintiffs’ market definition self-contradictory: they had acknowledged that competitors were producing comparable protein bars without EPG, which undermined their claim that EPG was uniquely essential to the market. He also found the complaint failed to explain why nut butter spreads and chocolate bars would be interchangeable with David protein bars in the same product market.

Critically, Marrero did not dismiss the case with prejudice. He gave the plaintiffs leave to file an amended complaint correcting the deficiencies he identified — a second chance that David’s legal team would later argue was one chance too many.

January 23, 2026 — Consumer Class Action Filed

While the antitrust case was unfolding, a separate group of three individual consumers struck from a different direction. Daniella Lopez of Los Angeles, David Freifeld of Vernon Hills, Illinois, and Crystal Paterson of New York filed a proposed class action against Linus Technologies in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York on January 23, 2026.

The complaint alleged the bars were mislabeled — that the 150-calorie figure on the packaging was materially false. The plaintiffs hired FDA-accredited Anresco Laboratories to test multiple David bar flavors. The lab’s results, using the Atwater method for calculating calories, found the bars contained 263 to 275 calories depending on flavor — between 78% and 83% above the labeled 150. On fat content, the testing reportedly found between 10 and 13 grams per bar against the advertised 2 to 2.5 grams — a discrepancy of up to 400%.

The class action was filed on behalf of all U.S. consumers who purchased David bars. It called the company’s marketing “unlawful and deceptive” and alleged violations of FDA labeling regulations, which generally require that a product not be misbranded if its nutrient content exceeds the declared amount by more than 20%.

Late January–March 2026 — David’s Defense and the EPG Science Debate

Peter Rahal went public immediately. In a LinkedIn letter addressed to customers and partners, and in a statement to Vanity Fair, he called the lawsuit “frivolous” and said the company “stands behind the accuracy of our product labeling.” The company’s Instagram posted: “No one is getting Regina Georged” — a reference to Mean Girls, where a character is tricked into eating a weight-gain protein bar. The post landed with David’s audience, which skews young, fitness-oriented, and social-media-fluent.

The scientific defense turned on the Atwater method used by the plaintiffs’ lab. Atwater factors are the standard tool for calculating caloric content: 4 calories per gram of protein, 4 per gram of carbohydrate, 9 per gram of fat. The problem, David argued, is that Atwater was never designed for ingredients like EPG. Because EPG is not digested by the body, its fat grams should not be multiplied by the standard fat calorie factor. The body simply does not absorb those calories. Applying Atwater to EPG, David’s team argued, is like calculating the caloric content of dietary fiber using the carbohydrate factor — it produces a number that has no relationship to metabolic reality.

The FDA, David said, had approved a different caloric value for EPG under 21 CFR Part 101 — one that reflects the ingredient’s actual metabolizable energy, not its combustion energy. The label was correct under that standard. A registered dietitian who spoke to NBC News confirmed the basic science: EPG “yields 92% fewer calories than typical fats because it resists digestive enzymes and passes through the system without being absorbed.” That corroboration from an independent expert was significant for public perception, if not for the litigation itself.

March 30, 2026 — Consumer Class Action Voluntarily Dismissed

The three plaintiffs filed a notice of voluntary dismissal without prejudice on March 30, 2026. No explanation was given. Their attorneys did not respond to press inquiries. David issued a statement: “We are pleased this matter has been resolved and look forward to continuing to focus on our customers and our business. We remain confident in the accuracy of our nutrition labeling.” Rahal told NBC News simply: “David is 150 calories.”

The dismissal without prejudice means the plaintiffs could theoretically refile — but given the scientific ground David had occupied in public, a renewed filing would need stronger evidence and a more robust rebuttal of the EPG metabolic argument to survive a motion to dismiss.

April 2026 — Third Amended Antitrust Complaint Filed

The antitrust plaintiffs continued. Refining their market definition after two rounds of court-identified deficiencies, OWN Your Hunger, Lighten Up Foods, and Defiant Foods filed a third amended complaint in April 2026. This time they narrowed the relevant market specifically to “high-calories from protein (CFP) protein bars” — bars in which 50% to 75% of calories come from protein.

The logic was precise. Given EPG’s 0.7 calories per gram, formulators who lack access to EPG cannot push calories-from-protein above approximately 47% without running into serious palatability and formulation problems. David’s bars sit at 75% CFP. No other commercially available ingredient replicates what EPG does in that calorie range. Therefore, the plaintiffs argued, the relevant market is the high-CFP bar segment — and in that market, David holds 100% of sales.

Before the acquisition, at least five companies besides David were developing high-CFP bars using EPG, the complaint alleged. All of them lost access. Only David remained.

May 1, 2026 — David Pushes for Final Dismissal with Prejudice

David’s legal team filed a response urging Judge Marrero to dismiss the third amended complaint with prejudice — meaning permanently, with no further amendments permitted. Their argument was direct: the plaintiffs had now filed four versions of the same complaint and had still not corrected its fundamental deficiencies.

On the market definition question, David argued consumers “shop for protein bars, not EPG-based or high-CFP protein bars” and that no supermarket stocks a “high-CFP protein bar” aisle. The market David competes in is the protein bar market — full stop. It maintained that David’s price of $3.25 per bar had not changed since launch, undermining the monopoly pricing argument. And it raised a crucial legal point: EPG is a patented ingredient, and patent holders are generally not obligated to sell their products to third parties or to license their patent to competitors. The antitrust claim, David argued, was asking the court to override patent law in the name of competition.

The plaintiffs countered that David’s monopoly power in the downstream bar market — not just the EPG ingredient market — is what the case is really about. Acquiring the sole supplier of a bottleneck input and refusing to sell it to rivals is textbook anticompetitive exclusion, regardless of patent rights, they argued. The case was pending a ruling from Judge Marrero as of June 2026.

What EPG Is and Why It Changes the Math

EPG is a modified plant-based fat. Epogee manufactures it by splitting plant-based oils — typically canola — into glycerin and fatty acids, inserting a food-grade chemical link, and reassembling them. The resulting compound behaves like fat in texture and mouthfeel: it melts, emulsifies, and provides the richness that makes food palatable. But the inserted link makes EPG resistant to lipase, the enzyme responsible for fat digestion. The body’s digestive system simply cannot break the bond. EPG passes through without being absorbed.

That is the entire premise of David’s macros. A conventional protein bar delivering 28 grams of protein at 150 calories would require essentially no fat and very little carbohydrate. That formula is nearly impossible to make palatable without major texture compromises. EPG solves it: the bar can contain fat for texture and flavor, but that fat contributes almost nothing to the calorie count. The result is a bar that tastes like a real chocolate product but hits macros that would otherwise be achievable only in a lab.

The FDA recognizes EPG’s reduced caloric value under 21 CFR Part 101.9, which governs nutrition labeling. Under that regulation, David argued its label was precisely correct — 150 metabolizable calories. The plaintiffs’ lab measured total combustion energy, not metabolizable energy. Those are different numbers for an ingredient the human body does not digest.

The Antitrust Theory: What the Plaintiffs Are Actually Arguing

The antitrust case rests on a theory called “monopolization of an input market.” The argument is not that David’s protein bar is bad or overpriced. It is that David identified a strategic ingredient, acquired its only manufacturer, and then used that acquisition to eliminate every potential competitor before they could reach market.

Under Section 2 of the Sherman Antitrust Act, monopolization is illegal when it results from anticompetitive conduct rather than superior products, business acumen, or historic accident. The plaintiffs are arguing that David’s dominance in the high-CFP protein bar space is not the product of superior formulation — it is the product of owning the only supply of the ingredient that makes the formulation possible, and refusing to sell that ingredient to anyone else.

David’s counterargument has two prongs. First, the relevant market is all protein bars, not a subset invented for litigation. In a market with hundreds of competing bars, David holds a fraction of a percent of total sales. No monopoly exists. Second, patent holders are not required to share their intellectual property, and EPG is a patented ingredient. Forcing David to sell EPG to competitors would effectively strip it of the benefits of its acquisition — a result antitrust law does not generally require.

The market definition fight is the core of this case. Judge Marrero has sided with David twice already. The third amended complaint’s “high-CFP” framing is the plaintiffs’ most precise attempt to define a market narrow enough that David’s dominance is undeniable. Whether it survives a third motion to dismiss will likely determine whether this case reaches discovery — or ends here.

What the Science Fight Reveals About Food Labeling

The consumer class action illuminated a genuine regulatory gap. The Atwater factors used to calculate calories on food labels were developed in the late 19th century. They work well for conventional foods. They do not work at all for ingredients the body cannot digest. The FDA has addressed this over time through specific caloric assignments for novel ingredients — EPG being one example. But the general public and most third-party testing labs apply Atwater by default.

That disconnect is not unique to David. Dietary fiber carries 0 to 2 metabolizable calories per gram despite the Atwater carbohydrate factor of 4. Sugar alcohols like erythritol have near-zero metabolizable calories. EPG is the latest entry in a long line of ingredients that render the simple calorie calculation on a food label technically misleading — not because of fraud, but because the calculation method predates the ingredient. Similar questions have surfaced in cases like the Chobani yogurt lawsuit, where plaintiffs challenged what a food label actually represents. And the Simply Orange Juice lawsuit showed how “natural” or “healthy” branding claims can generate legal exposure even when individual ingredients are individually approved.

What David did — intentionally or not — was build a product whose macros look extraordinary on a label because the calorie math genuinely works differently for one of its key ingredients. The plaintiffs’ lab tested the bars as if EPG behaved like regular fat. It does not. That is not a defense attorneys invented after the lawsuit filed. It is the scientific reality that led the FDA to approve a separate caloric value for EPG in the first place.

What Remains Open and What Has Been Resolved

The consumer class action is closed. The plaintiffs dismissed it voluntarily without prejudice in late March 2026. No settlement was announced. David denied any wrongdoing and stood by its labeling. That case, absent a refiling with stronger methodology, is over.

The antitrust case is active. The third amended complaint is before Judge Marrero as of June 2026. David has filed a motion to dismiss with prejudice. The plaintiffs have opposed it. If Marrero dismisses again with prejudice, the antitrust battle ends. If he allows the case to proceed, it enters discovery — a phase that would expose David’s internal communications about the Epogee acquisition, pricing strategy, and decisions about EPG supply. Discovery is where antitrust cases get expensive, and where the real record of corporate intent gets built.

Separately, David announced in early 2026 plans to begin selling EPG to large CPG companies — a commercial decision that somewhat undercuts the monopoly narrative but does not change what happened in 2025 to the small brands that lost access. Whether a business decision made during litigation to supply large customers changes the antitrust analysis for the three plaintiffs who were cut off is a question that only the court can answer.

What This Lawsuit Teaches Consumers

The David protein bar litigation teaches two lessons that operate on entirely different scales. For individual consumers, it surfaces a real question: when a food label reads “150 calories,” what does that actually mean? The answer is: it means 150 metabolizable calories under the calculation method the FDA requires for that specific product. It does not necessarily mean 150 Atwater calories. That distinction matters when you are choosing a bar based on macros — and it matters even more in a food industry that is increasingly built around novel ingredients designed precisely to produce favorable label numbers.

For the food industry, the antitrust case raises a more structural question: can a startup legally acquire the sole supplier of a critical patented input and immediately cut off its competitors? Patent law says holders are not required to license their technology. Antitrust law says monopolization through anticompetitive exclusion is illegal. Where those two principles collide — as they do when a company acquires a patented bottleneck ingredient and uses it to foreclose an emerging market — is exactly the kind of novel question that courts are least prepared to answer quickly.

That is where this case stands. David built something genuinely innovative — a protein bar that is, by available science, accurately labeled at 150 metabolizable calories. It also acquired the only ingredient that makes that innovation reproducible, and it cut off every company that might have competed with it on those same terms. Whether that is brilliant vertical integration or illegal monopolization is now a question for Judge Victor Marrero.