Saputo Whey Protein Concentrate Review

The biggest reason why a person would be interested in buy Saputo Whey Protein in the first place is because they were told it is a cheap and affordable protein powder. In a country like India where there aren’t many manufacturers of quality health supplements, even buying something as simple as a whey protein powder becomes a problem, primarily because of two reasons. One is because these supplements aren’t manufactured onshore; buyer has to pay a heavy import duty to get these shipped into the country.

Import Duties

For example, import duty on whey protein powder or any supplement in form of a powder would be 30%, if the supplement is in form of a capsule, liquid or tablet you can expect the duties to be somewhere around 50% but even this is not certain. Depending on the mood of the custom guys and which HS code they are putting your shipment under, you can expect the duties to be anywhere between 30% to 185%; so do not be surprised if you see a $165 import duty on a $110 shipment (this happened with one of my friends when he bought a whey protein powder online and had it shipped to India).

But this is not all, apart from the import duties you also would have to pay international shipping charges which would be almost equal to the price of the item that you bought. Try buying anything from Bodybuilding.Com website, see how much FedEx is charging to ship it to India and you would know what I mean. So after import duties and shipping charges, a person ends up paying almost double the price of the supplement.

Risky of a Fake Product

Saputo Whey Protein Concentrate Review

Second reason occurs when you try to buy the supplement from an Indian reseller. This reseller will offer you supplements of a well known international brand at a cost which would be lesser than what you would have paid if you bought it directly from a US based website. This sounds lucrative enough but the biggest problem is that there is no way to know if the product is genuine or not. Read this article on how to identify a fake supplement if you want to go more into details. So the sure shot way of buying a good quality supplement that will give you good results is by paying a hefty price for it. This is where brands like Saputo come into picture; because they offer you the same results, same amount of gains but at a dirt cheap price.

Saputo Whey Protein Powder

Saputo is a dairy company based out of Canada. I read somewhere that since they are a dairy manufacturer; some other brands in fact may be getting their whey from Saputo or one of their subsidiaries. I cannot really comment on the validity of this claim, may or may not be true. What Saputo provides is Whey protein concentrate that they claim to be as effective as any whey protein powder from any well know brand. A whey protein concentrate is raw whey without digestive enzymes or any sort of flavor at all. It is like the raw material that other supplement brands add flavor and some other nutritious values and sell at a higher price. Absence of flavor, enzymes and any other supplements attribute to its low price.

I used Saputo Whey Protein a while back for a few months. Here is a short review of how I found the product:

Price of Saputo Whey Protein

This probably is the biggest plus point. Their prices are dirt cheap. You can easily get a 10 lbs pack for almost as low as Rs. 3000. The bigger bag you buy, cheaper it gets. Even I thought to try it out only and only because of its low price. I had never heard of the name Saputo before but because I could get it for such a low price, I thought why the hell not and went for it.

Servings

Their 1 serving size is 31 grams so about 75 servings in a 5 lbs pack and 150 servings in a 10 lbs pack. Considering the low price you pay overall, even the high number of servings sounds quite a value for money.

Nutrition

Each serving contains 24 grams of protein, 1.95 grams fat, and 126 calories overall.

Taste

As I mentioned above, this product is a whey protein concentrate so there is no flavor at all. It does have a weird taste that I am finding it difficult to compare it to something. It wouldn’t be wrong to say that it tastes like if you mixed chalk with water.

Mixing Ability

It doesn’t mix easily with either water or milk. I haven’t tried mixing it with fruit juice so cannot really say anything about that.

Saputo Whey Protein Performance and Gains

This is the most critical part and this is where this product disappoints. I used it for about 4 months and was taking 4 scoops each day. I usually consume some amount of eggs as well as a part of my daily diet; but during the period when I was using Saputo, it was the only form of protein that I consumed. 4 scoops each day meant almost 100 grams of protein but there were no gains at all.

I started small; 1 scoop during the first week, 2 scoops for next two weeks, three scoops for next three weeks; and then 4 scoops for the remaining period. Because this was a whey protein concentrate that doesn’t easily digest so I wanted to start small. During the entire period, I was regular at the gym, was working out hard however there was just no benefit of taking this product at all. On the contrary, I actually ended up losing some muscle mass. I knew the product was genuine because I bought it from a reliable source so there was no risk of consuming a fake product as well.

Conclusion

Bottom line is, even though it comes at a very low price, whatever money you will spend on it will be a complete waste. You are better off eating eggs and consuming skimmed milk for the same amount of money rather than buying Saputo. If you want results and serious gains, look elsewhere for some other brand. I had been buying supplements from both Flipkart and Amazon where I get a pretty good price and so far have not faced any issue at all of receiving a fake product.

CLICK HERE to review several better whey proteins available on Flipkart at good prices.

Click on the links below to read about some other protein supplements I have reviewed.

Ultimate Nutrition Prostar 100% Whey Protein Review

Biox Power Casein Complex Review

Review : Universal Ultra Whey Pro

Click here to read my review on Davisco whey protein concentrate, another brand that people consider to buy because of it lesser cost. People in the comments asked me about it so I decided to try  the product.