Whey Protein Reviews: What the Labels Actually Say

The plainest formulation in this comparison, and it scores best because of it: 97.5% whey protein concentrate with a stabiliser, an acidity regulator, flavouring and one sweetener. Nothing else. It states its single protein source and the exact percentage, which most bigger brands do not, and it is one of the cheapest per 100 g we track in Cyprus. A budget Polish brand outscoring the household names is not a mistake in the method — it is what the method is for.

Best for: Anyone who wants protein rather than formulation, and does not care about brand.

Watch out: Protein content varies by flavour: the label prints 75 g/100 g for chocolate flavours, 78 g for salted and other flavours, and 81 g for unflavoured. We scored the chocolate figure, the lowest of the four, so an unflavoured tub would rate higher. We could not confirm which flavour the local Cyprus listing stocks. The ingredient list we verified came from two large Polish retailers, not the manufacturer's own site, which renders its ingredients via JavaScript.

Cheapest we track: €56.00 (€2.80/100 g, €3.73/100 g protein) at Supplement House — view listing. Price is not part of the score.

Composition checked 19 Jul 2026 from the retailer listing: source. Formulations change — always check the tub.

Joint-highest score in the comparison, and it earns it on transparency as much as content. The label prints the concentrate and isolate percentages separately — 82% and 10% — which almost nobody else here does, and the ingredient list runs to seven items with one sweetener, no thickener, no anti-caking agent and no added colour. At 75% protein it sits comfortably above the concentrate-only products without charging isolate money for a blend it will not quantify.

Best for: Anyone who wants a genuine concentrate-plus-isolate blend and wants to see the split in writing.

Watch out: The concentrate percentage moves between flavours (the manufacturer states 82.5–88% depending on flavour, and we scored chocolate at 82%), so the exact figure on your tub may differ slightly. It is sold locally in 420 g packs only, which makes it poor value per 100 g against the 2 kg bags in these tables — a good formulation at a small-pack price.

Cheapest we track: €25.00 (€5.95/100 g, €7.94/100 g protein) at ED Sport — view listing. Price is not part of the score.

Composition checked 19 Jul 2026 from the manufacturer: source. Formulations change — always check the tub.

Straightforward and honest about what it is: a single-source whey concentrate, declared at 96%, with two emulsifiers, cocoa, flavouring and one sweetener. It does not pretend to be an isolate blend, and it prints the percentage, which is worth more than the vague "whey protein blend" wording used by several pricier products here. Protein density is mid-table at 73%, which is what a concentrate honestly delivers.

Best for: Everyday protein topping-up where simplicity and a stated composition matter more than the last few percent of protein density.

Watch out: Contains soya lecithin as well as sunflower. Our composition data came from a photographed EU label on OpenFoodFacts matching the 2.5 kg pack, not from Myprotein directly — the Cyprus retailer's own page could not be verified (it blocks direct fetches and the figures we did get conflicted with two independent sources).

Cheapest we track: €59.00 (€2.36/100 g, €3.23/100 g protein) at Nutrition CY — view listing. Price is not part of the score.

Composition checked 19 Jul 2026 from the retailer listing: source. Formulations change — always check the tub.

A single-source concentrate at a declared 98%, with a solid 75% protein and no added free amino acids. The formulation is honest and the percentage is printed. What sets it apart from the other concentrates here is the sweetener choice: three of them, including sodium cyclamate and saccharin, which are less common in modern protein powders than sucralose and stevia. All are EU-approved; whether you want three sweeteners in a protein powder is a matter of taste rather than safety.

Best for: Buyers who want a plain, high-percentage concentrate from an established European brand.

Watch out: Sources disagree on the protein figure: the manufacturer's own table prints 75 g/100 g while a European retailer shows 79 g. We scored the manufacturer's number, which is the lower of the two. The manufacturer's marketing separately claims 'up to 33 g protein per shake', but that counts the milk you mix it with, not the powder.

Not currently stocked by the Malta or Cyprus retailers we track, so we have no local price for it. The score is about the formulation, which does not depend on where you buy it.

Composition checked 19 Jul 2026 from the manufacturer: source. Formulations change — always check the tub.

The most transparent label in the whole comparison. Nutrend prints the exact split — 65% whey concentrate and 24% isolate for this flavour — and the ratio genuinely changes between flavours, which they also publish rather than hide behind a single blended figure. It is the only product here declaring a full digestive enzyme blend including lactase, which is a real consideration if lactose is a problem for you. It gives back most of that advantage on additive load: six additives beyond the sweeteners.

Best for: Anyone who wants to know exactly what they are buying, and anyone who finds concentrate hard to digest.

Watch out: The chocolate flavour contains gluten-free wheat fibre, which the vanilla does not — worth checking if you avoid wheat in any form. The WPC/WPI ratio varies by flavour (65/24 here, 80/14.5 for vanilla), so the product you buy may not match the one we scored.

Cheapest we track: €41.95 (€4.20/100 g, €5.59/100 g protein) at Malta Elite Supplements — view listing. Price is not part of the score.

Composition checked 19 Jul 2026 from the manufacturer: source. Formulations change — always check the tub.

A genuinely strong formulation — 79% protein, isolate listed first, and no added free amino acids — and the reason it does not score higher is transparency rather than quality. The three whey forms are grouped as a single "whey protein blend (98%)" with no breakdown, so there is no way to know how much of what you are paying an isolate-tier price for is actually isolate. Ingredient order implies isolate leads, but implication is not a declaration.

Best for: Buyers who want a reliably-made, widely-stocked protein and are willing to pay for the brand.

Watch out: Consistently among the more expensive options per 100 g of protein in our Cyprus data. Note also that the US version of this product carries an Aminogen and lactase enzyme blend that the EU/UK formulation does not — do not assume US reviews describe the tub sold here.

Cheapest we track: €150.00 (€3.30/100 g, €4.18/100 g protein) at Nutrition CY — view listing. Price is not part of the score.

Composition checked 19 Jul 2026 from the manufacturer: source. Formulations change — always check the tub.

The highest protein figure in this comparison at 83%, from a declared 86% whey isolate — genuinely a strong base, and the percentage is printed. But it is the only product here that adds free amino acids as separate declared ingredients: L-Glutamine at 4.2%, plus leucine, isoleucine and valine. That matters for a specific reason: protein content is derived from a nitrogen measurement, and added free aminos raise that reading without contributing equivalent intact whey protein. It also carries by far the longest additive list here — three colours, three emulsifiers, two thickeners, an anti-caking agent and a creamer built on partly hydrogenated coconut fat.

Best for: People who want a high declared protein figure from an isolate and are not troubled by a long ingredient list.

Watch out: The added free amino acids mean the 83% figure is not directly comparable with products whose protein comes entirely from intact whey. Composition also changes noticeably by flavour: we verified Catalan Caramel Cream at 86% isolate with 4.2% glutamine, but Chocolate is 85% with 5.5% glutamine and Banana is 90% with 2.5% glutamine plus a tartrazine colour. Check the tub you are buying.

Cheapest we track: €69.00 (€3.45/100 g, €4.16/100 g protein) at Nutrition CY — view listing. Price is not part of the score.

Composition checked 19 Jul 2026 from the manufacturer: source. Formulations change — always check the tub.

Four ingredients: whey concentrate, cocoa, flavouring and one sweetener. Nothing added, nothing to argue with. The catch is the name — despite '100% Whey Protein' on the front, this is whey concentrate only, with no isolate or hydrolysate. The '100%' refers to the protein all being whey-derived, not to a premium blend, and at 73% protein that is exactly what a good concentrate delivers.

Best for: People who want a short ingredient list and are not paying for isolate.

Watch out: It loses transparency points not for hiding anything but for not printing what percentage of the formula the concentrate is — several rivals do. If you want the absolute plainest version, the same brand's unflavoured WPC 80 is a single ingredient at 78% protein, higher than this flavoured one.

Not currently stocked by the Malta or Cyprus retailers we track, so we have no local price for it. The score is about the formulation, which does not depend on where you buy it.

Composition checked 19 Jul 2026 from the manufacturer: source. Formulations change — always check the tub.

A clean three-source blend with a genuinely short ingredient list — whey concentrate, isolate, hydrolysed whey, cocoa, flavouring and one sweetener — at 70% protein. The interesting part is what we had to untangle to score it. This product has been quietly reformulated: the recipe scored here prints 21 g protein per 30 g scoop and 67 servings per 2 kg tub, while the current recipe prints 24 g per 33 g scoop, 61 servings, adds milk protein concentrate as a fourth source and adds carboxymethyl cellulose and guar gum thickeners. Both are on sale in Malta right now — one local retailer lists an 825 g pack explicitly labelled “New Version”.

Best for: Buyers who prefer the shorter pre-reformulation ingredient list, if they can identify which tub they are holding.

Watch out: Check the servings count on the tub before assuming this score applies: 67 servings per 2 kg and a 30 g scoop is the recipe we scored; 61 servings and a 33 g scoop is the reformulated one, which has more protein per scoop but adds a fourth protein source and two thickeners. Also worth knowing: the “75 servings” that appears in some retailer listings and web addresses is not printed on any label we could find, in either version — it appears to be stale packaging copy that has outlived the pack it described.

Cheapest we track: €54.99 (€2.75/100 g, €3.93/100 g protein) at Supplemented Malta — view listing. Price is not part of the score.

Composition checked 19 Jul 2026 from the manufacturer: source. Formulations change — always check the tub.

Credit where it is due: Dymatize prints the exact percentage of each protein form, which almost nobody else does. What those percentages reveal is that this is a whey concentrate product — 90% concentrate, with the isolate and hydrolysate together making up 1%. That is a perfectly reasonable product, but it is worth knowing before paying a premium for the words "isolate" and "hydrolysed" on the front. It carries the heaviest additive load here after the BioTechUSA: three thickeners, three sweeteners, an anti-caking agent and a flavour enhancer.

Best for: People who want the composition spelled out and do not mind a heavily formulated, easy-mixing powder.

Watch out: The Cyprus listing states 95% concentrate against the manufacturer's 90%, and 34 g serving against 35 g — we used the manufacturer's figures. The US-market Dymatize formulation differs materially from this EU one.

Cheapest we track: €75.00 (€3.57/100 g, €4.96/100 g protein) at Nutrition CY — view listing. Price is not part of the score.

Composition checked 19 Jul 2026 from the manufacturer: source. Formulations change — always check the tub.

A four-source milk blend — whey concentrate, whey isolate, milk protein concentrate and skimmed milk powder — with only one sweetener and no added free amino acids. The formulation is reasonable and consistently declared across the manufacturer and three retailers we checked. It loses points for giving no ratio between those four sources: skimmed milk powder is a considerably cheaper input than whey isolate, and there is no way to tell how the blend is weighted.

Best for: Someone who likes the flavour range and wants a single-sweetener product.

Watch out: At 70% protein it is one of the lower-density options here while not being one of the cheapest per 100 g of protein. The colour used varies by flavour.

Cheapest we track: €59.00 (€2.95/100 g, €4.21/100 g protein) at Nutrition CY — view listing. Price is not part of the score.

Composition checked 19 Jul 2026 from the manufacturer: source. Formulations change — always check the tub.

The most rigorously documented label we read anywhere in this comparison. Every flavour has its own tagged nutrition table and its own ingredient block, so there is no guessing which numbers belong to which tub — and they print BOTH protein figures, the legally required nitrogen-times-6.25 value and the scientific nitrogen-times-6.38 value, with a footnote explaining the difference. That is a brand telling you exactly how its protein number was arrived at, which is the single thing most likely to be quietly gamed elsewhere in this category. The formulation itself is a solid 73.7% whey complex with a short additive list.

Best for: People who care about being able to audit a label, and who want a concentrate/isolate blend without added aminos.

Watch out: The printed panel gives only the combined 94% for the whey complex; the claim that the isolate portion is a guaranteed 12.5% appears in marketing copy and the FAQ, not in the ingredient declaration, so we did not score it as a stated ratio. The hazelnut flavour is the one variant that is not gluten-free. At around €5.49 per 100 g locally it is among the more expensive options here.

Cheapest we track: €45.00 (€5.49/100 g, €7.45/100 g protein) at ED Sport — view listing. Price is not part of the score.

Composition checked 19 Jul 2026 from the manufacturer: source. Formulations change — always check the tub.

The one finding here that changes what you are buying: this is not a pure whey product. The declaration lists wheat protein as the third ingredient, alongside milk protein concentrate and buttermilk powder. That is legal and clearly labelled, but wheat protein is cheaper than whey and has a different amino acid profile, and the product is sold under a "Whey Protein" name. At 70% protein it is mid-table, and it is among the cheapest per 100 g we track in Cyprus — which now makes more sense.

Best for: Budget buyers who have read the ingredient list and are content with a mixed-protein blend.

Watch out: Contains WHEAT — a declared cereal allergen — which people buying a "whey" protein may not expect. The manufacturer's own active-ingredient quantity table is internally inconsistent (its per-100 g column shows smaller numbers than its per-30 g column), and the Cyprus listing's ingredient list differs from the manufacturer's, omitting the sunflower lecithin, carob and beetroot red and adding a xanthan gum the manufacturer does not list. We used the manufacturer's version.

Cheapest we track: €39.00 (€1.95/100 g, €2.79/100 g protein) at Nutrition CY — view listing. Price is not part of the score.

Composition checked 19 Jul 2026 from the manufacturer: source. Formulations change — always check the tub.

The clearest case in this comparison of added free amino acids doing work on a label. Taurine at 3.3%, arginine at 1.7%, glutamine at 1.7% and leucine at 0.3% are declared as separate ingredients — roughly 7% of the tub — in a product whose stated protein is 73%. Because protein content is calculated from nitrogen, these cheap nitrogen-bearing additions lift the measured figure without contributing the same usable whey protein. Taurine and arginine in particular are not even complete-protein contributors. That is why this scores lowest here despite an otherwise reasonable 85% whey blend and a genuine enzyme addition.

Best for: Hard to recommend on composition alone against the cleaner concentrates at similar money.

Watch out: Beyond the added aminos, several flavours carry colourings the chocolate does not: Ponceau 4R in strawberry, tartrazine in piña colada, carmoisine and brilliant blue in vanilla veryberry. The whey concentrate to isolate ratio inside the 85% blend is never disclosed.

Cheapest we track: €121.00 (€2.42/100 g, €3.32/100 g protein) at Supplements Malta — view listing. Price is not part of the score.

Composition checked 19 Jul 2026 from the manufacturer: source. Formulations change — always check the tub.