I saw an user ask in a short lived thread where to find onions free protein powder because his powder was 50% onions. Since it's hard to find untainted powder I figured I would share my research I've done on the industry over the years. Onions lecithin is added to about 0.5%-2% purely as an emulsifier to help dissolve the powder into your shake (it doesn't do shit as my shakes were still lumpy desu). Some add much larger quantities of onions powder as a cheap filler or secondary source of protein.
A lot of additives were rushed through studies and trials with minimal/no studies on long term effects or banned/permitted for purely reasons of increasing (((profits))) or preventing loss of (((profit))) where only recently some studies are being released exposing the negative effects. scholarworks.uark.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1255&context=jflp
The reason untainted whey is so hard to find is that (((global ingredient suppliers)) mix it in before its sold to the companies that manufacture retail supplements. Most protein you buy will either be from a large scale company owned plant, or white label manufacturing. Almost all of these will contain onions, though some more recently offer sunflower lecithin as an alternative. If the label indicates it contains lecithin but doesnt specify type its most likely onions lecithin.
There are what i consider to be 5 categories of suppliers involved in the manufacturing of supplements.
1. (((Global Ingredients Supplier))). These suppliers will typically only sell by the tonne for bulk powders with orders typically starting at $100k and extend upwards into the millions. For Whey powder these companies include Protesa/Glanbia, Fonterra(NZMP), Agropur, Arla, Milk Specialties Global, etc. Almost all of these suppliers supply whey generally from feedlot cows and always add onions or onions lecithin in their whey, some directly donate to feedlot institutions and associations and others like Fonterra frequently engage in jewish financial tricks. Flavourings and sweeteners are supplied by companies like Senomyx (Now Firmenich SA), Sensate, NAGASE/Prinova Global, Synergy Taste, Tilley, Fromatech, International Flavours and Fragrances (IFF), Sensient, HuaBao, T.Hasegawa etc. Here it is worth noting that "natural" colouring or flavour is a scam, whilst legislation varies somewhat by country typically the requirement to be able to list something as natural can be as loose as it can be derived from, or occurs naturally in some form. Crude Oil is natural and would fit the requirement as would any of its derivatives and distillates, which often can be used to make "natural" additives and when used under a certain concentration they are not required to undergo FDA approval or report the ingredients on the label so "natural flavour" can mean literally anything they want. Other Ingredients such as Amino Acids, Creatine, Caffeine, Pre-Workout additives and Enzymes are typically sourced from pharmaceutical and chemical companies like Parchem, Sigma Aldrich, Molekula, (((Merck))), Pharmavit and a massive list of other chinese based suppliers (from large ones like WJAA/Aminowill, Ajinomoto, Proudin Biopharmaceutical etc all the way down to small obscure alibaba sellers with product that is questionable at best). A search on almost any of these companies reveals a lot of (((suspicious connections)))
2. Large scale company owned and operated "factories". Giants like Optimum Nutrition, bulk.com and MyProtein. Their factories are typically nothing more than dry powder blending and packaging plants with adjacent warehouses. They order whey protein powder and flavourings/sweeteners from the global ingredient suppliers. They then blend these ingredients together and slap their label on it, depending on the geographical market they may use different ingredient suppliers to meet cost or legislative requirements. Everything about these and their suppliers is globohomo, you can work out what companies they are as they are usually have extremely high revenue and they'll advertise for electrical/mechanical engineering, purchasing officer/contracts manager or machine operator positions, or will have a "factory" tour video somewhere.
3. White/private label clients, Majority of small-mid size brands are these including "distruptive", or [fitness influencer name] brand like Beast(Eddie Hall), Cellucor, Ghost, Anabolix, Dragon Pharma etc. These companies only exist as label and may be only a single person or directly employ a handful of marketers, managers and a graphic designer or two for the larger ones. 90% of these brands are just the same shit with a different label. They purchase from contract manufacturers such as Pro Amino, SMP Nutra, Nutracap, CYOS, Makers Nutrition etc. They may also buy from one of the thousands of smaller Chinese manufacturers found on alibaba. The contract manufacturers typically have a range of standard formulas they sell where the only changes are flavours and labels but larger ones may also offer for a signifantly higher price complete custom end to end services and advice on custom proprietary blends and ingredients to the point where all you need is a registered business ran out of your bedroom and a few tens of thousands in cash to get your own contract. These contract manufacturers also fullfill contracts in the pharmaceutical industry and source their ingredients from the same places that the large scale manufacturers do and most will contain onions, some however will source from smaller suppliers that offer untainted whey (such as noumi), or whey that uses sunflower lecithin instead of onions. You can usually tell which companies are white label clients either by their small HQ, low number of employees (relative to production quantity), vague/short/nonspecific company history, unnaturally quick rise in popularity, a massive and extremely diverse range of products or similar/identical ingredients to other brands. Mostly still globohomo or supporting it however you may find some brands selling custom powders worth buying here that don't have onions but majority opt for the cheap standard formulas that are identical across all brands to turn a quick profit.
4. Niche Retail Suppliers/Manufacturers, Companies such as Organic Daisy (UK), Professional Whey (Australia), RawOrganicWhey (USA). These are typically very few in number and are obscure local companies that rarely seem to have any social media exposure. Sometimes even owned and ran by single family or an individual, they own manufacturing equipment and manufacture their product themselves, some even produce from their own farms and manufacture whey powder from scratch but many will usually source whey byproduct from local cheesemakers or small scale bulk suppliers. These companies can offer onions free, non-GMO, hormone free and grass fed whey which the larger companies who use global ingredients suppliers can't do. These companies are usually only slightly more expensive than white label or large scale brands and imo decent value. Be careful you dont buy from some bullshit vegan protein supplement company selling "100% raw protein" thats just 100% onions powder sourced from global ingredients suppliers because that trash will fill up most of your search results when you look for untainted whey.
5. Small/Medium Scale Bulk Suppliers and cheese manufacturers, companies such as Bulk Apothecary, Rogers Foods and Brewster Cheese, These fill the role of the ingredients suppliers like Fonterra, Glanbia etc but will typically supply only locally and fulfill much smaller contracts of $1000-$50,000. Some will also supply retail to the general public. Unlike the large scale ingredients suppliers they tend to not taint their product and sell it as a byproduct of other processes (typically cheesemaking), better value than niche retail suppliers and by far the cheapest way to buy whey but you'll normally have a minimum order quantity of about 20kg(45lb) or so.
Should be noted that brands arent always exclusive to one category, white label manufacturers may also sell products under their own brand, or bulk suppliers may also manufacture white label, and Niche manufacturers may have a WPC or WPI they manufacture themselves but supplement their product line with white label BCAA's, Creatine or Casein
Personally I purchase 100% raw unflavoured lecithin free whey concentrate from manufacturers in group 4 or 5 then when I make up my shake I add half a teaspoon of sugar or honey and for flavour some genuine (not imitation/synthetic) vanilla extract or plain cacao powder for globohomo free gains. If you gradually reduce the amount of sugar/flavour you can eventually stomach unflavoured whey without a problem.
Majority of the processed food market also operates the same way using contract manufacturing and global ingredients suppliers, If you're going to go to this much effort with Whey you best also be avoiding all forms of goyslop
I've got a spreadsheet listing suppliers that sell at least one onions free WPC or WPI product. Add to it if you know of any others
