Why Are Quest Chips So Expensive? (10 Reasons)
Potato chips are a common snack between meals and in addition to meals.
Besides their flavor, chips offer a sense of comfort and are widely viewed as comfort food.
There are also tons of varieties of chips like those from Quest.
If you love Quest chips, then you may have noticed how expensive their bags of chips can cost.
Considering that they’re just chips, you may wonder what makes Quest Chips so expensive.
Why Are Quest Chips So Expensive? (10 Reasons)
The average price of Quest chips is around $10.
However, you can also find chips worth around $22, and some can even go up to $92.
Certain factors like the ingredients used in the chips, the number of chips you receive, and the brand name all contribute to a higher price.
Let’s look at these factors in more detail.
1. Higher Protein
One of the selling points that Quest chips have is that their chips contain more protein than the average potato chip.
Quest, itself, is a health-focused company.
While they’re primarily known for their Quest bars, they have since expanded into making other protein-packed food.
When it comes to their chips, they focus on providing chips that contain more protein than carbs.
Their goal is to make chips that are healthier to eat.
While their chips still aren’t 100% healthy, the fact that they contain more protein than carbs can be an ideal choice for people looking to maintain muscle mass.
Protein is a vital part of losing weight and gaining muscle.
A serving size of Quest chips, which happens to be an entire bag, contains 18 grams of protein.
That’s substantially higher than most other carb-focused chips.
The problem with protein-packed chips is that they’re more expensive to make.
Their makers use more expensive ingredients to give them that extra protein.
That drives up manufacturing costs which means Quest sells its chips at higher prices to offset those costs.
Quest chips are expensive because of the amount of protein their chips pack.
2. Come From A Health-Focused Company
Quest chips are also expensive because of the reputation that the company has built for itself.
Quest has a focus on providing clean, healthy food.
They primarily make snack food for people who take their fitness seriously.
Whether it’s hiking, sports, or just fun, Quest packs protein and energy in all their foods to help support an active lifestyle.
This focus on health means that their food tends to be more expensive.
Their chips are no exception.
Any time something is healthy or at least marketed as healthy, the price tends to be higher.
That’s because healthier products tend to be more expensive to produce.
They use high-quality ingredients or rarer ingredients that provide a certain health boost.
Since they’re using more expensive ingredients, the cost to produce chips is higher.
There’s also a lot of trust in Quest’s brand name.
They’ve made a reputation for themselves in producing high-quality, effective snacks.
People are more willing to pay higher prices for their snacks because they know their food is worth the expense.
Quest chips are expensive because of their focus on health.
3. Milk Ingredients
One of the primary ingredients that Quest uses to give their chips more protein is milk and milk products.
The problem with using milk products is that they aren’t always cheap.
That’s especially true when certain factors are impacting the raising of dairy cows.
For example, when drought occurs in certain areas of the country, it affects the price of feed.
Farmers find themselves paying higher prices to feed their dairy cows.
Since their cows need a good diet to produce high-quality milk, that can become an expensive cost.
To make up for the cost, dairy farmers need to sell their milk and milk products at higher prices.
Quest then pays that higher price and needs to offset its own cost.
The customer is the one who ultimately pays the highest price.
Drought isn’t the only thing that can affect the price of milk either.
Wildfires, fertilizer costs, and other problems affecting agriculture can make raising dairy cows more expensive.
If milk becomes expensive, then anything containing milk is also going to be a bit more expensive.
Quest is expensive because it contains milk and milk products.
4. Niche Product
Quest chips are a niche product.
A niche is a type of sub-product that exists in a wider market.
For example, it’s part of the wider or general market of chips.
However, they provide something that general chips don’t provide.
They’re a protein-heavy, healthier form of a chip.
As such, they gear themselves toward a specific audience.
Those who want to enjoy a good snack but also want to complement their fitness routine will be interested in their protein-heavy chips.
However, because the audience is so specific, it means that it’s also smaller.
The general public might not want protein-heavy chips because they’re not interested in the health properties that they provide.
As such, Quest has to double down on the audience that does have an interest in their chips.
They put a higher price tag on their chips because they know they’re providing a product that few other brands can offer.
Those who have an interest in their specific product are going to be willing to pay a higher price because they can’t easily buy the same product elsewhere.
Quest chips are expensive because they’re a niche product.
5. More Expensive Manufacturing Process
The method used to make Quest chips is different than general potato chips.
In particular, they bake their chips.
Baked chips tend to be more expensive because it’s a slightly costlier method of making chips than deep-frying them.
Baking takes just a bit longer than frying chips.
As such, since it takes a bit longer, it means that the company is going a bit longer without making a profit.
To make up for that loss of time, they have to put a higher price on their chips.
Baked chips are also considered healthier than fried chips.
That’s because they contain less fat and fewer calories.
The health factor adds to the price tag.
Finally, the company needs to invest in large ovens to bake their chips.
This is a bit more expensive than just having a large vat and filling it with frying oil.
Since the costs of baking are more expensive, Quest has to offset those costs with higher prices on its chips.
Quest chips are expensive because they’re more costly to manufacture than deep-fried chips.
6. Use Healthy Spices Instead Of Artificial Dyes
Another aspect that sets Quest chips apart from traditional chips is that they use healthy spices to color their chips.
Other chip companies rely on artificial dyes.
There’s some controversy when it comes to using artificial dyes in food.
Some studies have suggested that artificial dyes can lead to certain behavioral problems in children.
Others have indicated that it can lead to several inflammatory bowel diseases.
Food companies that use artificial dyes do so to give their foods a more appetizing appearance.
When a chip company makes a spicy chip, for example, they color it red to make it look like it’s spicy.
It looks more appetizing than just a standard yellow chip.
Quest relies on spices to color its chips rather than dyes.
In part, this is due to its focus on providing healthy food.
Spices are natural and not harmful, provided you don’t have an allergy to them.
They also bring some natural color to a chip.
Finally, they give it its unique flavor.
A spicy chip from Quest may not be as vibrantly red as a Dorito chip, but it’s healthier and packed full of flavor.
However, this use of spices also makes their chips a bit more expensive.
Artificial dyes are extremely cheap.
Spices carry higher costs.
Because it costs more to make their chips, Quest has to sell them at higher prices.
Quest chips are expensive because of their use of natural spices over artificial dyes.
7. Sunflower Oil
There’s a lot of discussion over the use of oil in potato chips.
Some oil like palm oil is often met with resistance.
That’s because the harvesting of palm oil isn’t always sustainable.
Habitat loss is a harsh side-effect of harvesting palm oil.
Deforestation, a problem influencing climate change, is another side effect.
While there certainly are companies that are using more sustainable methods of harvesting palm oil, it still isn’t an industry standard.
To stay away from the controversy, Quest uses sunflower oil instead.
Sunflowers provide many health benefits.
For one, they contain a decent amount of Omega fatty acids.
They’re also low in saturated fats.
Sunflower oil also has a pleasant flavor to it.
The problem with sunflower oil is that it’s more expensive than other types of oil like palm oil.
Despite being a plant native to the United States, sunflowers are costly to grow.
They take some time to reach their full maturity due to their size alone.
Climate change is also impacting the yield of sunflowers.
With fewer sunflowers making it to maturity, there’s less oil available on the market.
As a result, Quest and other companies have to pay more for their sunflower oil.
That drives up their manufacturing cost, which means it’s going to affect their prices.
Quest is expensive because it uses sunflower oil.
8. Offer Different Flavors
Another factor that makes Quest chips expensive is that they provide several different flavors.
You can find normal and specialty flavors.
This makes their chips expensive because they have to buy more ingredients to make all those flavors.
If they only kept to one or two flavors of chips, then they could reduce how many ingredients they need to buy.
It’d cut down on their costs, which means they’d sell at lower prices.
However, Quest wants to ensure that they have chips for everyone’s tastes.
As such, there’s no shortage of different flavors that they provide.
Some flavors may be more expensive than others depending on the specific ingredients they contain.
Regardless, Quest chips are expensive because they provide several different flavors.
9. Variety Packs
You can also make your Quest chips a lot more expensive by buying them in a variety pack.
When shopping for Quest chips, you have your choice between buying a bag of chips or buying a variety pack.
A variety pack contains different bags of chips in one pack.
They tend to be far more expensive because you’re buying more than one bag of chips.
One of those bags might also contain chips that have more expensive ingredients in them.
As a result, that single bag might drive up the price of the overall package.
Quest chips are expensive when you buy their variety packs.
10. Not Many Chips For The Price
A final reason Quest chips are expensive is that you don’t always seem to receive the number of chips that you think you pay for.
Like other chip companies, when you open a bag of potato chips, you find a lot of air inside.
The air is necessary to keep chips safe and fresh.
However, it can also feel like they’re cheating you out of food.
If you open up a bag and half of it is just air, the cost of Quest chips may not seem like it’s worth it.
Conclusion
Quest chips are a healthier version of potato chips since they focus on protein content.
The ingredients and manufacturing processes used by Quest to make their chips tend to be what makes them so expensive.