
Sign up to save your podcasts
Or


Wait, you’re telling me that a $100 million plus acquisition just occurred in the North American protein bar market…and I’ve never once mentioned the brand name throughout its almost decadelong existence? That simply cannot be TRU! Though, before anyone tries to ignorantly throw dirt on my name…I'll finally reveal why I’ve been publicly ignoring TRUBAR! However, it was just announced that TRUBAR would be acquired by Eti Gida, a Turkish CPG company, for approximately $142.5 million. And if you were trying to understand the valuation…as of the 2025 third quarter closing (dated September 30, 2025), trailing twelve months revenue from the TRUBAR segment would be just shy of $61 million. So, this would imply a 2.3x trailing twelve-month revenue multiple. And this is why I suspect TRUBAR “retail investors” are unhappy with the M&A transaction, as it would mark what I believe to be one of the lowest revenue multiples in the last decade of the protein bars market. Yet, for several varied reasons…TRUBAR isn’t ONE Brands, Quest Nutrition, FITCRUNCH, Barebells, Power Crunch, or a few other protein bar companies involved in recent M&A activity. Firstly, unlike the negative EBITDA (on a trailing twelve-month basis) at TRUBAR, these other protein bar companies actually made money. Next, while customers might enjoy the taste (and consumption experience) of TRUBAR products, there isn’t anything differentiated about them. If you weren’t familiar, protein bars are mostly a contract manufacturing “follow the leader” dominated category with a “sea of sameness” market composition. But even if TRUBAR differentiation could’ve been gained by form factor uniqueness (complexity), it still requires creating (or owning) the manufacturing process if a protein snacking company really hopes to secure longer-term defensibility (and competitive advantage). Then, with Big CPG jumping heavily into “protein-ified variants” of their leading snacking brands, it will further deepen the competitive landscape and transform “protein” into a battleground category as it proliferates across the entire grocery store. And you can argue that most of the beforementioned protein bars are dealing (at some level) with this same challenge (as the market evolves, expands, and segments further), but mainstream buyers don’t know about TRUBAR. Yes, retail availability has grown substantially in recent years…and revenue growth has largely accompanied it, but TRUBAR still has an extremely low U.S. protein bars market share and brand household penetration percentage overall. But to understand if new ownership can materially improve the likelihood that TRUBAR will become culturally relevant with the next generation of modern protein snacking customers, I'll more closely examine Eit Gida...which is among the top CPG manufacturers based in Turkey (becoming well-known in multiple geographies across various bakery and snacking categories). Though, you might be wondering…why is a Turkish Big CPG strategic acquiring a relatively small Canadian public company selling plant-based protein bars mainly in the U.S. market? But more importantly if Eti Gida can really help TRUBAR carve out a distinct niche in the crowded North American protein bar market.
By Joshua Schall4.8
1717 ratings
Wait, you’re telling me that a $100 million plus acquisition just occurred in the North American protein bar market…and I’ve never once mentioned the brand name throughout its almost decadelong existence? That simply cannot be TRU! Though, before anyone tries to ignorantly throw dirt on my name…I'll finally reveal why I’ve been publicly ignoring TRUBAR! However, it was just announced that TRUBAR would be acquired by Eti Gida, a Turkish CPG company, for approximately $142.5 million. And if you were trying to understand the valuation…as of the 2025 third quarter closing (dated September 30, 2025), trailing twelve months revenue from the TRUBAR segment would be just shy of $61 million. So, this would imply a 2.3x trailing twelve-month revenue multiple. And this is why I suspect TRUBAR “retail investors” are unhappy with the M&A transaction, as it would mark what I believe to be one of the lowest revenue multiples in the last decade of the protein bars market. Yet, for several varied reasons…TRUBAR isn’t ONE Brands, Quest Nutrition, FITCRUNCH, Barebells, Power Crunch, or a few other protein bar companies involved in recent M&A activity. Firstly, unlike the negative EBITDA (on a trailing twelve-month basis) at TRUBAR, these other protein bar companies actually made money. Next, while customers might enjoy the taste (and consumption experience) of TRUBAR products, there isn’t anything differentiated about them. If you weren’t familiar, protein bars are mostly a contract manufacturing “follow the leader” dominated category with a “sea of sameness” market composition. But even if TRUBAR differentiation could’ve been gained by form factor uniqueness (complexity), it still requires creating (or owning) the manufacturing process if a protein snacking company really hopes to secure longer-term defensibility (and competitive advantage). Then, with Big CPG jumping heavily into “protein-ified variants” of their leading snacking brands, it will further deepen the competitive landscape and transform “protein” into a battleground category as it proliferates across the entire grocery store. And you can argue that most of the beforementioned protein bars are dealing (at some level) with this same challenge (as the market evolves, expands, and segments further), but mainstream buyers don’t know about TRUBAR. Yes, retail availability has grown substantially in recent years…and revenue growth has largely accompanied it, but TRUBAR still has an extremely low U.S. protein bars market share and brand household penetration percentage overall. But to understand if new ownership can materially improve the likelihood that TRUBAR will become culturally relevant with the next generation of modern protein snacking customers, I'll more closely examine Eit Gida...which is among the top CPG manufacturers based in Turkey (becoming well-known in multiple geographies across various bakery and snacking categories). Though, you might be wondering…why is a Turkish Big CPG strategic acquiring a relatively small Canadian public company selling plant-based protein bars mainly in the U.S. market? But more importantly if Eti Gida can really help TRUBAR carve out a distinct niche in the crowded North American protein bar market.

30,704 Listeners

9,590 Listeners

1,093 Listeners

14,975 Listeners

30,240 Listeners

112,872 Listeners

3,985 Listeners

8,969 Listeners

9,034 Listeners

6,053 Listeners

9,947 Listeners

56 Listeners

26 Listeners

1,388 Listeners

304 Listeners