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You can find just about anything at Costco, including vegan snacks. But there are some that you should avoid — particularly the IQBar Chocolate Lovers Variety Pack, which our taste tester ranked very last in our ranking of nine vegan snacks from Costco. This 18-count pack of protein bars comes with a variety of chocolatey flavors, including Peanut Butter Chip, Chocolate Sea Salt, and Almond Butter Chip. But truth be told, not even our self-proclaimed chocolate-loving taste tester was drawn in by these bars. Not only were they the most expensive vegan snack in the lineup, but the flavors and textures left us with more mixed feelings than love. And we aren’t alone in those feelings.
While customers can appreciate the 12 grams of plant-based protein that each IQBar offers, many of them picked up on the lingering aftertaste left over from the mix of pea protein powder and stevia they contain. One Amazon customer wrote, “This product doesn’t taste real. And it doesn’t taste like chocolate… And there’s an aftertaste of sugar alcohol (even though it doesn’t contain sugar alcohols).” Another said, “The taste was something that could take some getting used to, as it wasn’t as chocolatey as I’d hoped.” But that’s only the beginning of the mixed feelings surrounding these bars.
When it comes to protein bars, texture is equally as important as taste
Aside from the taste, many people had issues with the texture of the bars in the IQBar Chocolate Lovers Variety Pack, making note of the protein crisps specifically. Our taste tester also noticed the protein crisps inside these bars. But, not only were the crisps noticeable, they were also seemingly unnecessary since most of these bars already get the crunchy factor of vegan chocolate chips. Made from a combination of pea protein and tapioca starch, many customers mistook the crisps for other ingredients like dried fruit or nuts. One customer wrote, “The bar itself is texturely challenging. It’s soft enough to break apart while you’re trying to hold it. It’s oddly slimy with coarsely ground pieces of almonds (referring to the protein crisps) in it.”
In light of these bars’ textures, customers seem to agree that they miss the mark in more ways than one, calling them not just gritty, but also simultaneously pasty, slimy, and almost chalky. Overall, none of the bars included in the IQBar Chocolate Lovers Variety Pack seem to deliver the experience the name suggests.
Fortunately, there are plenty of other vegan snacks to choose from at Costco — ones that our taste tester actually approves of. Next time, grab a pack of BoBo Oat Bites, or go a completely different direction and grab the frozen yakisoba noodles from Ajinomoto for something savory and plant protein packed.
