Built Puff Bar Drops Strawberry Shortcake Chunk Flavor For Valentine’s Day

Built just leaned harder into what makes them different instead of trying to copy the chalk-brick protein bar market.

The new Strawberry Shortcake Chunk Built Puff keeps the same marshmallow / 3-Musketeers texture the brand is known for — light, airy, candy-bar style — but now with actual inclusions meant to mimic shortcake instead of just “strawberry flavored coating.”
Macros land at 15g protein and 170 calories, which immediately tells you this isn’t pretending to be a lean isolate bar… it’s a snack-replacement dessert bar.

And honestly — that’s why Built has a lane.
They don’t try to taste like protein powder. They try to taste like candy that happens to contain protein.

Where the label gets questionable

Here’s my one gripe with Built — and it applies here too.

They use a protein blend of collagen + partially hydrolyzed whey isolate.

So the question becomes:
How much of that 15g protein is actually muscle-supporting protein?

Because collagen technically counts toward protein grams on a label… but it’s not a complete protein and it doesn’t stimulate muscle protein synthesis like whey does due to low leucine and missing essential amino acids.

Meaning two bars can both say “15g protein” — and one can be dramatically more effective for recovery than the other.

To be clear:
This doesn’t make the product bad. It just changes what it is.

This is a high-satiety sweet snack with some supportive protein — not a post-workout recovery bar.

And that’s okay… as long as consumers understand the difference.

The real purpose of this bar

Built Puff bars are basically the middle ground between a candy bar and a functional snack:

• Better than eating a dessert

• Not equivalent to a whey isolate shake

• Good for cravings control

• Not optimal for protein optimization

So the Strawberry Shortcake Chunk flavor will live or die by texture and sweetness balance — because nutritionally, it’s filling a snack niche, not a performance niche.

And that’s exactly why transparency matters.
Macros alone don’t tell the whole story — ingredient quality does.