Best energy bars: 19 reviewed, tested and rated

They’re great for on the bike and everyday snacking before a workout. But which of these 19 energy bars deliver the magical combination of taste, texture and nutritional goodness…?

Why use energy bars?

Energy bars generally aren’t needed for up to around 75-90mins of training. After that time, however, they become essential, especially if you’re not a fan of energy gels.

That’s because your glucose and glycogen (how glucose is stored in the body) will be running low and you’ll need a top up.

How much you can tolerate’s highly individual but, as a benchmark, you’re looking at around 60g carbs an hour. Any more and your stomach might start playing (bad) tricks.

As for when you should turn to the bar, we generally keep to the bike leg of a triathlon. Its weight-bearing nature prevents your stomach flying up and down, while the chance to freewheel at times lowers intensity.

Both make it a calmer environment for your stomach to digest, absorb, and assimilate nutrients. That being said, the endurance runners among us will need to supplement gels with bars to maintain energy reserves.

And remember there’s always the complimentary homemade energy bar option, especially over Ironman where flavour fatigue is common. You can find recipes for homemade energy bars here.

Tried and tested: Best energy bars at a glance

• Best energy bar for slow-release energy: CLIF Bar (chocolate chip) | Buy now from Ellis Brigham (£2.20)
• Best energy bar for taste: TORQ Explore (Apple strudel) | Buy now from Ellis Brigham (£2.15)
• Highly-rated energy bar: Veloforte Di Bosco Energy bar | Buy now from Condor Cycles (£2.50)
• Best budget energy bar: Decathlon energy date bars (banana) |Buy now from Decathlon (£6.99).

Right, time to serve up a new PB…

Best energy bars for triathletes in 2024

Rawvelo organic energy bar (peanut butter)

• $32.99 for 12 ($2.80 per bar) /£23.99 for 12 (£2 per bar)

Rawvelo, as the name suggests, prides itself on using organic and natural foods. And it shows in the concise ingredients list.

Take the peanut butter organic energy bar as an example. The 45g bar’s made up of Deglet Noor dates, whole oats, peanut butter, maple syrup, vanilla extract and sea salt.

In short, it’s the polar opposite of the Styrkr. And that stretches to carbohydrate quantity, too, as this compact morsel included around 20g carbohydrates.

Much of those carbohydrates derive from the dates, so are relatively slow releasing.

Fat content’s proportionally high at 7.1g and stems from the peanut butter.

As I’ve mentioned a few times here, arguably the higher the fat content, the more these bars are suitable for longer efforts and general snacking.

For both, you can enjoy the moderate taste and texture. In my opinion, the former needs a bigger taste hit and the latter a little more moisture.

Veloforte Di Bosco Energy bar

• $68.99 for box of 20 / £30.79 for 12 (£2.57 per bar)

Veloforte’s mission highlights just how much influence the laboratories have had on our sports nutrition over the years and is why Veloforte make great noise about using ‘natural food’. It sounds obvious. As we know with mass food production, it can often be anything but.

To that end, the key ingredient of this 62g bar is mixed dried fruit. Cranberries, raisins, dates, sour cherries and lemon zest are complemented by a nutty mix of almonds and pistachio.

The recipes are said to be based on a 13th-century Italian fortifier, panforte, from the town of Siena. I’ve never tasted panforte but it certainly conjures tastes and images of Christmas, and is really rather nice and unlike any of its competitors.

Each bar sends just over 40g carbohydrates your way with nearly 9g from fats. You also get around 5g protein for a hint of muscle repair. As mentioned before, this sends this bar the way of the long-distance market and everyday snackers.

TORQ Explore (Apple strudel)

• $1.99 per bar / £43 for 20 (£2.15 per bar)

There’s a nutritional longevity theme to this issue’s test with Torq raising their carbohydrate-filled glasses to 25 years in the game. In the competitive – and often short-lived – world of sports nutrition, chapeau to the British brand.

Typically Torq, this apple-strudel flapjack is free from artificial colours, sweeteners and preservatives.

It’s also incredibly tasty, its sweetness deriving from organic golden syrup, nice chunky organic raisins and organic dark brown sugar.

That sugar hit delivers 43g carbohydrates with fat at 8.1g, predominantly down to sunflower oil (organic, of course). The choice of sunflower oil’s not nutritionally perfect as it’s high in omega-6, which are inflammatory – not great when training hard.

Then again, these are designed for either the generally lower-intensity bike or an everyday snack.

On the downside, its buttery taste and texture (from the oil; it’s vegan-friendly) borders on unctuous, which might be too rich for some. But definitely not us.

Skratch Labs energy bar (Peanutbutter and strawberries)

• $29.95 / £29.95 for 12 (£2.50 per bar)

Skratch Labs’ founder Allen Lim forever retains a place in my fuelling heart as co-writer of the excellent Feed Zone Portables recipe book where Lim and Biju Thomas showed you things you didn’t think culinary possible with rice, sugar and kitchen foil.

They’re on-the-fly fuelling alchemists. With this bar, Skratch has gone for the traditional American peanut butter and sweet combo.

I had reservations but it grew on us; we particularly liked the sea-salt taste that explains the 210mg sodium hit, which is appreciated in hotter climes.

Each 50g bar delivers 32g carbohydrates plus a relatively hefty 12g fats – ostensibly from the nut butter blend and roasted peanuts – so this is arguably for snacking or long-distance rides where intensity’s lower and the need for rapid energy delivery’s not as important as shorter distance. (Those fats slow carbohydrate metabolism slightly.)

While the taste is good, the texture might be a little dry for some.

Decathlon energy date bars (banana)

• £8.99 for 10 (£0.90 per bar) UK only

Sports-retail behemoth Decathlon is renowned for packing many a product and many a bargain into its global stores.

So it is here with 10 x 35g bars that hit the tills at just £8.99. That’s 90p per bar. Hence, marks scored for frugality.

But what about taste? Actually, it’s not bad, the date composition complemented by the banana after-taste.

That said, we’re not talking healthy chunks of fruit as seen in the Torq Explore bar; instead, it’s 67% date paste, which contributes to a slightly squashed texture that could do with a little more water content. So not as virtuous.

Then again, this is by some margin the cheapest bar on test. As the ‘eco-size’ tag infers, it’s also the lightest calorie-wise with 20g carbohydrates from each bar. Protein and fat make up 2.2g and fat 2.7g, respectively, so this is more aimed at higher-intensity moments as those carbohydrates should be metabolised swiftly.

Just note that while this is a good-value bar, once you base it on pence per carbohydrates, it’s not quite the absolute bargain you think it is.

Maurten Solid C160

• $3 per bar / £29.95 for 12 (£2.50 per bar)

Is there any stopping Swedish brand Maurten? They burst into the public’s consciousness when Eluid Kipchoge broke the marathon world record in Berlin in 2018, the Kenyan using their gentler-on-the stomach hydrogel product.

This year it’s been about the company’s bicarb system, which seems to have given this old nutrition strategy new legs. It’s helped them close a recent round of capital funding at the $20-million mark.

Innovation is appealing. There’s less of the cutting-edge about the Solid C 160 bar, a two-piece, oat- and rice-based chewable with cocoa.

As the name suggests, they’re a solid-looking duo but are easily chowed down, albeit they’re a little sweeter than my palate’s preference. I know that’ll hit the mark for many, though.

Each 27.5g bar comprises 20g carbohydrates from an appreciatively light ingredients list that isn’t packed with additives. All in all, it’s a bar that does the job with no airs or graces and is highly practical.

CLIF Bar chocolate chip

• $18.43 / £25 for 12 (£2.08 per bar)

Like Science in Sport, American company Clif Bar celebrates its 32nd birthday this year. Again similar to SiS, founder Gary Erickson spent many an hour burning the midnight oil on the family’s kitchen table before he settled on what would prove to be a winning and profitable formula.

The nutrition brand was acquired in 2022 by multinational Mondelez International for a jaw-dropping $2.9-billion. What did Mondelez get for their money?

In this chocolate-chip variety – and like all their bars – a morsel that contains at least 70% organic ingredients including the core of this one: the rolled oats.

That, the brown rice syrup and rice crispies heavily contribute to a 68g bar that features 38g carbohydrates.

It combines for a terrifically appetising bar and that’s not because the remainder’s from taste-inducing fat. No, no, no. Instead, it features 10g protein (which isn’t grainy) to stimulate muscle repair.

Arguably, that flags up that this bar is, like the Skratch Labs, more for long rides or an everyday snack. Just be aware that this is one flavoursome morsel so show restraint!

SIS GO Energy Bake (Tiramisu)

• £24 for 12 (£2 per bar) UK only

It’s 32 years since Tim Lawson and his family created Science in Sport from their Blackburn home, their isotonic energy gel the first ever that you could doff without the need for a water chaser.

We take that ease of consumption for granted now but at the time consuming a gel was akin to squeezing that last bit of toothpaste out with a miniature mangle.

It was unpleasant. Hence, it was a gamechanger, leading to a lucrative SiS going public in 2013. They’re now huge but what of their products?

Well, when it comes to the Energy Bake, pretty impressive. You have a delicious texture of gentle crumbliness wrapped around a soft-filled tiramisu centre.

It’s akin to finding your favourite chocolate in a tray of Christmas goodness (as long as you like the soft centres, of course).

Each 50g bar serves up 30g carbohydrates, of which 10g are from fructose for a classic two-to-one ratio. It’s easily masticated and flows down nicely with no gastro comeback. It’s good for the bike or as a standalone snack. But points are lost for a relatively lengthy ingredients list.

Rawvelo Organic Energy Bar

• $2.80 a bar, $32.99 for 12 / £2 a bar, £10.69 for 5

Rawvelo, as the name suggests, pride themselves on using organic and natural foods. And it shows in the ingredients list.

Take the chocolate and orange option as an example, which is made up of just Deglet Noor dates, ground almonds, raw cocoa powder, maple syrup, vanilla extract, orange oil and sea salt.

That goes a long way to justifying the roughly £2 a bar price tag, of which contains 197cals from 24.2g carbs, 8.4g fat and 4.7g protein.

Much of those carbs derive from the dates, so are relatively slow releasing, while the good fats stem from the almonds. Those almonds also deliver muscle-repairing protein.

It’s a good macronutrient mix and the taste is good, but they could do with a hint more moisture. They’re also vegan friendly.

High5 Energy Bar with Protein

• £19.99 for 12 (UK only)

This is the only bar here that sells itself as a protein energy bar. How does that work, you might ask, given protein’s primary role in exercise recovery.

Well, studies show that a modicum of protein consumed during exercise can actually accelerate recovery once finished.

The payback is that protein can (slightly) impair carbohydrate metabolism, which isn’t great when you’re crying out for energy.

As this bar contains only 19g carbs and a pretty hefty 10g protein (plus 10g fat for a 212kcal total), there’s an argument this is actually more a recovery than energy bar.

What’s clearer is that it’s suitable for vegans with pea protein replacing traditional whey. As for taste, it’s passable.

Skratch Labs Anytime Energy Bar

• US$29.95 / £29.95 for 12

Dr Allen Lim is the brains behind Skratch Labs. He’s also co-writer of one of our go-to nutrition books, Feed Zone Portables, which is packed with homemade sweet-and-savoury recipes for on-the-fly feeding.

One of the benefits of homemade efforts over commercial offerings is moisture content, but that’s not an issue in the chocolate chip and almond flavour bar on test thanks to the addition of cranberries, plus the nut-and-seed butter blend.

Calorie content’s 220kcals, comprised of 33g carbs, 8g fat and 4g protein. Hence, its ‘anytime’ moniker although it’s digested easily during exercise.

It’s tasty enough, but you can taste the salt from the addition of 125mg of sodium, which could be ideal in the heat.

Torq Explore Flapjack (Black forest)

• $37.50 / £37 for 20

Typically Torq, this black-forest flapjack is free from artificial colours, sweeteners and preservatives. It’s also incredibly tasty, its sweetness deriving from organic golden syrup, raisins and dark brown sugar.

That sugar hit (43g carbs) cranks this bar up to 263cals with fat count at 8.1g, predominantly down to sunflower oil (organic, of course), which is high in inflammatory omega-6 – not great when training hard.

Then again, these are designed for either the generally lower-intensity bike or a pre-workout snack. You can consume post-effort, too, but the muscle-repairing protein content’s only around 13cals (3.2g).

Its buttery taste and texture (from the oil) borders on overly oily, which might be too rich for some.

Styrkr Bar50 Rice Bar (chocolate chip)

• $39.99 / £29.99 for 12

British brand Styrkr (pronounced ‘stir-kuh’ and meaning ‘strength’ in Old Norse) enters this test with a sizeable energy bar that could feed a Viking army.

Each 70g bar delivers a whopping 50g carbohydrates, which equates to 200 calories on its own. Throw in extra from fat (9g) and you have a bar that nearly hits the 300-calorie mark.

As the name implies, much of that carbohydrate delivery’s down to its 22% composition of rice crispies with the sweet sugary hit from glucose and golden syrup plus, of course, the chocolate chip.

It’s certainly tasty albeit will be too sweet for some. The soft, chewy texture is appreciated. As is the moisture content, which helped the bar go down smoothly – though refrain from wolfing down at once as it can be a little sickly.

Marks are lost for the ingredients list, however, which goes on and on and on. In my experience, brevity often equals healthier when it comes to nutrition.

Aptonia Eco-size Energy Bars

• £6.99 for 10 (UK only)

Sports-retail behemoths Decathlon’s renowned for packing in many a bargain into their global stores. As we see here with 10 ‘eco-sized’ bars that hit the tills at just £6.99.

So, marks scored for frugality. But what about taste and texture? Actually, they’re not bad, the 69% date composition making them decidedly palatable.

Then again, at this price, we’re not talking healthy chunks of date. Instead, it’s date paste, which is heavy on the corn oil.

As the ‘eco-size’ tag infers, it’s also the lightest calorie-wise with 136kcals from each 40g bar. Around 26g derives from carbs, with protein making up 1.3g and fat 2.4g. That’s a proper good energy split for higher-intensity moments.

Mountain Fuel Feel Good Bar

• $1.15 / £2.30

Mountain Fuel might be new to you, but they’ve made great strides in the world of ultra-running, the highlight of which came when trail-running god Kilian Jornet was reported as buying their products.

And we can see why with this ‘double-ginger’ flapjack. It’s delicious, and delivers an appreciated ginger hit via ground ginger and natural ginger flavouring.

It was particularly appreciated on long winter rides and runs, stimulating a feeling of warmth in the cold, foggy air.

Mind you, it’s a calorific beast, containing 373kcals from 42g carbs, 22g fat and 5g protein. Like many here, that ticks the long-course boxes but arguably too much for Olympic-distance. Still, it’s a bar loaded with goodness.

Chia Charge

• $3 / £2.25

I remember years ago, when chia seeds were seemingly sprinkled everywhere, dropping chia seeds into water as per instructions.

The super-seeds expanded into pale spawn and it was disgusting. Thankfully, the same can’t be said for this tasty flapjack, which delivers chia’s mooted energy-boosting and antioxidant properties in a mix of oats and salted caramel.

This combination, plus demerara sugar, golden syrup and butter, cranks up calorie count to a whopping 378.

Arguably, that’s good for ultra-racing and if you’re a very heavy trainer but, for most, that’s too extreme when this is considered a snack.

Then again, many of you will be able to consume this amount of calories per hour when riding, though just remember 22g (around 198kcals) of that’s from fats with 44g (around 156kcals) from carbs.

OTE Anytime Bar

• £1.40 (UK and EU only)

British outfit OTE has kept things like nanna used to make with this traditional flapjack.

Around 46%’s made up of glutenfree oats, which heavily contribute to the 37.2g carbs nestling within each 62g bar. A further 8.2g fat and 3.8g protein contribute to the overall package of 248.9kcals.

That figure and macronutrient breakdown’s similar to more conventional energy bars where the focus is on slow- and fast-releasing carbs (from those oats and golden syrup) over fats and protein.

This is silkier than the last OTE Anytime Bar we tested. That was a vegan number, and the vegetable oil just couldn’t match the buttery joy here.

The only criticism is the raspberry and white chocolate flavour, which just didn’t float our boat. Then again, I’m not a huge fan of raspberries so will refrain from dropping marks. Price is good, too.

Enervit Sport Lemon Cream

• $2.49 / £2.20

This bar is such an outlier in this test that it’s akin to us lining up in the elite men’s triathlon at the Olympics. It’s out of place.

In times gone by the push for scientific breakthrough came at the expense of the two essentials: flavour and texture.

It seems that Enervit Sport’s stuck in the 2000s with its compressed, powdery formulation. Moisture’s absent and the lemon-cream hit helps make this the most artificial tasting bar on test. (There’s also a cocoa flavour that’s marginally tastier).

On the positive, it comes as a double bar for more manageable consumption and each double bar delivers 36g carbs and just 3.6g fat so, on paper, this is a good pick for higher intensity, shorter distances.

Enervit Competition

• $1.99 / £1.49

Enervit fuelled Tour de France champion Tadej Pogacar, the Italian company providing the Slovenian with the full gamut of products from energy powders to gels and bars.

Did he consume this, Enervit’s Competition Bar? Probably, but this is the least tasty bar on test. Yes, it’s a nice hint of orange, that citrus twang sharp enough to cut through any flavour fatigue.

The problem is the texture, which is a touch old-school dryness for our liking. Okay, maybe not the Weetabix-alike specimens of times gone by, but not the smooth delivery we’ve come to anticipate of the contemporary bar.

Maybe that’s why it’s recommended to ‘eat one bar with an appropriate quantity of water’. On the positive, this is a fast-acting race-focused morsel with 23g from carbs and less than a gramme from fat.

High5 Slow Release

• £19.99 for 12 bars (UK only)

High5 has established a reputation for serving up delicious energy bars at a good price. And they’ve achieved that balancing act once again with this parcel of apricot joy.

On face value, anyway. You see, while the others on test are more expensive, their energy content is significantly higher than the 151 calories seen here. Short changed? Partly.

While the fatty hit of 4.7g is much lower than seen in the Torq and OTE bars on the left, so is the 23g of carbohydrates.

In short, they’re not like for like; in fact, this is a bar designed to consume solely for training and racing, providing a nice mix of slow- and fast-releasing sugars thanks to both the dried fruit and the addition of isomaltulose, which has a lower GI rating than glucose and sucrose.

Overall verdict

After the test period, beyond bordering on developing diabetes, it became clear just how much tastier ‘sports’ bars are in 2024 compared to 2002.

All the sports science in the world is made redundant if taste and texture’s repellent. Then again, science has a role, and shows that some of these bars are better for recovery (and snacking) and some for on-thebike and run fuelling.

When it comes to the former, we hone in on morsels that have higher protein content. Protein’s the building blocks of muscle (among its many roles) with much research showing a 20g post-exercise protein hit is optimum.

None of the bars reach those heights, with Veloforte and High5 peaking at 10g. If cost is no option, we’d go for the natural Veloforte over the High5.

That said, we’d choose CLIF’s offering over both. It’s so much tastier than the last CLIF bar we tried and good for snacking and recovery.

When it comes to on-bike fuelling, Torq’s black-forest effort heads down the finish chute first, its 43g carbs delivered in a tasty package.

Hats off, too, to Mountain Fuel, despite its high calorie count we suggest grazing is better than consuming in one go.