Every flavour of Protein & Fibre is made from four ingredients. Four. Not fourteen. Not twenty-two. Four.
Here they are. Here's why each one is there. And here's why a short ingredients list is a feature, not a limitation.
Ingredient One: Ground Sunflower Kernels
This is the foundation. The ingredient that provides the protein, the fibre, the healthy fats, and the naturally occurring vitamins and minerals.
Whole sunflower kernels are hulled, gently cold-pressed to reduce excess oil, pasteurised for food safety, and finely ground into a smooth powder. No solvents. No chemical extraction. No protein isolation. The kernels are processed mechanically and stay as close to their original whole-food form as possible.
What it provides per serving:
21–23g of protein containing all essential amino acids, including the branched-chain amino acids leucine, isoleucine, and valine.
8–10g of dietary fibre — around a quarter to a third of the recommended daily intake.
Approximately 4.6g of healthy fats, predominantly monounsaturated fat, similar to that found in olive oil.
Iron (3.8mg, 27% of Reference Intake), potassium (609mg, 30% RI), calcium (121mg, 15% RI), and vitamin E (3.8mg, 31% RI).
Naturally occurring lecithin that acts as a natural emulsifier, allowing the powder to mix smoothly without added gums.
This is the ingredient that makes everything else possible. Because the sunflower kernel retains its natural nutritional complexity, Protein & Fibre doesn't need the long list of additives that protein isolates require. The fibre provides texture. The lecithin provides mixability. The protein provides nutrition. The whole food does all the jobs that a stripped-down isolate needs multiple additives to replicate.
Where it comes from: European-grown (Bulgaria, EU), processed under EU food safety standards. Certified BRC, IFS, Kosher, and Halal. Pasteurised to a validated 5-log microbiological reduction, making it safe for consumption without further processing.
Ingredient Two: Ground Dates
The sweetener. But not a sweetener in the way the industry typically uses the word.
Whole dried dates, milled into a fine powder with all their natural fibre and nutrients intact. No extraction. No refinement. No processing beyond drying and grinding.
What it provides:
Natural sweetness — enough to round out the flavour of the shake without overwhelming it.
A subtle, clean sweetness that doesn't linger or leave an aftertaste.
7g of naturally occurring sugar per serving, all from the dates. That's less than a single apple.
Additional fibre from the date's own structure.
Naturally occurring potassium, magnesium, and B vitamins.
The sugar in dates is consumed within a whole-food matrix alongside fibre, which can slow absorption compared to free sugars. The result is more gradual absorption, which can help reduce rapid spikes in blood sugar compared to free sugars.
Why dates and not sweetener: Because dates provide a more natural and balanced sweetness. They offer genuine sweetness from a recognisable food, with nutritional value included, without the aftertaste, digestive issues, or metabolic questions associated with sucralose, aspartame, stevia, or other high-intensity sweeteners.
Ingredient Three: The Flavour Ingredient
This changes by flavour, but the principle is always the same: the flavour comes from the real thing.
Chocolate: Cocoa powder. The same ingredient you'd use to bake a cake. Rich, slightly bitter, genuinely chocolate.
Coffee: Ground coffee beans. Actual coffee. Roasted, aromatic, unmistakable.
Cinnamon: Ground cinnamon. Warm, fragrant, naturally complex.
Vanilla Bean: Real vanilla. Subtle, creamy, clean.
In each case, the flavour ingredient is the real food, not a synthetic approximation. There are no "natural flavourings" (a regulatory term that can include processed flavour extracts). No artificial flavourings. No flavour compounds designed to mimic something they aren't.
Why this matters: When the base ingredient (sunflower kernel protein) is naturally mild and pleasant, real flavour ingredients can do their job without competition. Cocoa tastes like cocoa because there's nothing fighting it. This is made possible because we don't need to mask an unpleasant base with aggressive sweetness and synthetic flavour.
Ingredient Four: Sea Salt
A pinch. Literally.
Sea salt is there to balance the flavour profile — to bring out the natural taste of the other three ingredients and add a subtle depth that would be missing without it.
No complex function beyond improving flavour balance. It makes the shake taste better, the way a pinch of salt makes any food taste better.
Why Four Is Enough
If a protein powder relies on many ingredients to be palatable, the question isn't why four seems too few. The question is why so many are necessary.
Most protein powders start with a stripped-down isolate — a single macronutrient extracted from its whole-food source with the fibre, fat, and micronutrients removed. This creates a product that needs extensive reconstruction:
Gums and thickeners because the natural texture was removed.
Emulsifiers because the natural lecithin was removed.
Sweeteners because the natural flavour needs masking.
Flavourings because the base ingredient is unpleasant.
Anti-caking agents because the product clumps without them.
Fillers because the cost needs subsidising.
Many additives exist to address challenges created during processing. When you start with a whole food that retains its natural properties, many of those problems are reduced or avoided.
Four ingredients isn’t a limitation — it reflects a different starting point.
The Challenge
Here's the test. Go to your kitchen. Pick up your protein powder. Count the ingredients on the back. Look up the ones you don't recognise. Ask yourself what each one does and why it's there.
Then ask yourself: which approach would you prefer — a long list of ingredients designed to fix a processed product, or a short list that works because it was never broken?
Ground sunflower kernels. Dates. A flavour ingredient. Sea salt.
That's the whole list.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can a protein shake really work with only four ingredients?
Yes. When the base ingredient is a whole food that naturally contains protein, fibre, healthy fats, and micronutrients, most of the additives found in conventional protein powders become unnecessary. The sunflower kernel contributes to structure, mixability, nutrition, and a mild flavour base that real food ingredients complement naturally.
What about vitamins and minerals — are they added?
No. The iron (27% RI), potassium (30% RI), calcium (15% RI), and vitamin E (31% RI) in each serving occur naturally in the ground sunflower kernels. Nothing is fortified or supplemented. The nutrients are present because the whole food is used rather than an isolated extract.
Why is the ingredients list so much shorter than other protein powders?
Because most protein powders use isolated protein that has been stripped of its natural fibre, fat, and nutrients. Rebuilding the product's taste, texture, and mixability requires adding gums, emulsifiers, sweeteners, flavourings, and other processing aids. Protein & Fibre uses the whole food, so those additions aren't needed.
Are dates as an ingredient going to make it too sweet?
No. The sweetness from ground dates is subtle and clean — enough to balance the flavour without dominating it. It's significantly less sweet than a protein powder using artificial sweeteners, and there's no aftertaste. The 7g of sugar per serving is less than a small apple.
Is the flavour ingredient the same across all flavours?
No. Each flavour uses the genuine food: cocoa powder for Chocolate, ground coffee for Coffee, ground cinnamon for Cinnamon, and real vanilla for Vanilla Bean. The ingredient changes, but the principle stays the same — real food, not synthetic flavouring.