What was once a niche supplement for dedicated athletes has quietly become a household staple — and now, a casualty of the same inflationary pressures reshaping how ordinary people eat and spend. Across the UK, protein powder prices have surged dramatically, driven by a collision of soaring demand from fitness culture and weight-loss drug users on one side, and constrained specialist manufacturing capacity on the other. The result is a product that has outpaced many household budgets, forcing consumers to ration, substitute, or walk away entirely — a small but telling measure of how economic s