Spend five minutes looking at protein powder now and you will find far more than chocolate, vanilla and strawberry. There are flavours inspired by puddings, cakes, biscuits, cereals and plenty of things you would normally expect to see on a dessert menu.
Those names attract attention, but do people actually choose them? We looked at 39,174 Per4m Advanced Whey sample flavour selections from Muscle Supply orders over the 180 days ending 26 September 2026. Because these were individual samples, they give us a useful view of the flavours people were curious enough to try.
The flavours customers picked most
Sticky Toffee Pudding came out on top during the period. The rest of the five most selected flavours followed the same dessert and bakery theme:
- Sticky Toffee Pudding — 2,276 selections
- Cookie Dough — 1,716
- French Toast Maple Swirl — 1,619
- Carrot Cake — 1,576
- Caramel Biscuit — 1,530
Together, those five accounted for 8,717 selections, a little over 22% of all the flavour choices in the analysis.
What stands out is that none of them is a straightforward chocolate, vanilla or strawberry. They all promise something a bit more specific. You can already imagine what Sticky Toffee Pudding or Caramel Biscuit is trying to taste like before opening the sachet.
Samples make unusual flavours easier to try
There is a simple reason adventurous flavours can work so well as samples: the risk is small. Buying one Carrot Cake sachet feels very different from buying a full tub and drinking the same flavour for the next few weeks.
We see plenty of customers mix familiar choices with one or two flavours they probably would not choose in a larger format. Someone might add Double Chocolate because they know roughly what to expect, then include Cookie Dough or French Toast Maple Swirl out of curiosity.
That is one of the most useful things about samples. They let you find out whether a flavour is enjoyable as a full shake, rather than relying on the name or assuming that liking the dessert means you will want a protein powder based on it.
Chocolate, vanilla and strawberry still have a place
The result does not mean traditional flavours have fallen out of favour. Vanilla Creme, Strawberry Creme, Double Chocolate and other recognisable choices were still selected hundreds of times during the same period.
Familiar flavours can be easier to use regularly. Vanilla mixes well with fruit or cereal, while chocolate is a dependable choice when you want a shake that does not feel too unusual. They are also sensible reference points when you are comparing brands because you already know the sort of taste you expect.
The real pattern is that customers do not have to choose between safe and adventurous. Samples make it easy to try both in the same order.
What the numbers really show
These figures tell us which flavours customers chose to try. They do not prove that the leading flavours taste better, and they are not a national ranking of the UK’s favourite protein powders.
A flavour can receive more selections because its name sounds interesting, because it was visible for longer or because it stayed available while another flavour did not. We also cannot tell from a sample selection alone whether the customer later bought a full tub.
Even with those limits, more than 39,000 selections gives us a useful view of behaviour in our own store. Customers were clearly willing to go beyond the traditional three flavours when they could start with a single serving.
What we would take from this as a retailer
Creative flavour names are doing more than making tubs look different on a shelf. They give people a reason to explore, particularly when the flavour is based on something familiar enough to picture, such as sticky toffee pudding, cookie dough or carrot cake.
They can also make choosing harder. A name cannot tell you how sweet the shake will be, how strong the flavour is or whether you will still enjoy it after several servings. Two brands can use the same flavour name and produce noticeably different shakes.
That is why we would not call the top five the “best” Per4m flavours. They are the ones our customers selected most often as samples during this period. That makes them a useful starting point, but your own taste matters more than the ranking.
A sensible way to build a taste test
If you are trying protein samples for the first time, choose a small mix instead of six very similar flavours. Start with one option you normally enjoy, then add a couple that are different enough to tell you something useful.
You could compare a chocolate flavour, a fruit or vanilla flavour and one dessert-inspired option. Mix them in the same way you would use a full tub, with the same amount of water or milk, so the comparison is fair.
Our Per4m flavour guide can help you narrow down the range. You can also browse our protein samples to put together your own selection.
How we worked it out
We reviewed 5,806 Muscle Supply orders containing Per4m Advanced Whey samples during the 180 days ending 26 September 2026. Across those orders, customers made 39,174 selections covering 39 flavours.
Each flavour included in an order counts as one selection. If an order contained six different sample flavours, it contributes six selections to the total.
Not every flavour was available for exactly the same length of time, so availability can affect the totals. The figures describe choices made by Muscle Supply customers during this period. They are not intended as a national survey or as a measure of taste, quality or customer satisfaction.
Want to compare more options? Browse our protein range or explore supplement samples.
