Bridget Grover doesn’t just talk about wellness; she anatomizes it. She knows how food behaves in the body, what happens when inflammation simmers quietly beneath the surface, and how one “healthy” protein bar can undo hours of good intentions. That’s because she’s lived it, studied it, and, eventually, rebuilt it from the inside out.
Before she was the co-founder and COO of Five Plus Protein, Bridget was a Physician Assistant with a background in exercise science, kinesiology, and healthcare law, a résumé that sounds like a crossword of the human body. She’s worked in clinical care, taught college students, and trained clients one-on-one. She’s seen firsthand how people’s best efforts at “being healthy” can backfire thanks to misleading marketing, hidden sugars, and food that looks virtuous but leaves your gut wrecked and your energy erratic.
“I’ve always believed the body wants to heal,” she says. “You just have to stop getting in its way.”
That single idea would eventually become the quiet thesis behind Five Plus Protein, the California-based brand she co-founded alongside CEO Joel Montesano and co-founder Lynda Montesano. Together, they’ve created something deceptively simple: a line of plant-based protein bars with no added sugar, no inflammatory junk, and no “chalky health food” energy. They taste, as Bridget insists, like something you’d actually look forward to eating, proof that science and pleasure don’t have to be mutually exclusive.
But to understand how Bridget helped turn that conviction into a brand, you have to rewind a bit, back to her first love: how the body moves and heals.

From the Clinic to the Kitchen: Where Science Meets Snacktime

Bridget’s story reads like a love letter to functional wellness, the kind that doesn’t depend on a crystal collection or a juice cleanse but on an almost reverent respect for biology. As a Physician Assistant, she spent years in the trenches of healthcare, seeing what inflammation really looks like in aging bodies and in patients whose diets weren’t serving them. Her days were full of charts, medications, and the soft heartbreak of preventable illness.
“People think inflammation is an abstract thing,” she explains. “But when you’ve worked in nursing homes or with autoimmune patients, you see what chronic inflammation really does. It’s fatigue, joint pain, brain fog, it’s aging before your time.”
The irony? Many of those same patients were reaching for “healthy” protein bars or shakes filled with ingredients that quietly worsened their conditions. Sugar alcohols, whey proteins, emulsifiers, gums, all the invisible irritants hiding behind the health halo.
Bridget saw the disconnect, and it hit home. As a certified personal trainer and nutrition-minded clinician, she was constantly recommending supplements to clients, but none of them passed her own test. “If I couldn’t eat it and feel great afterward, I wasn’t going to tell someone else to.”
So when Joel Montesano began developing what would become Five Plus Protein, she didn’t just join the team; she dove into formulation research like it was a lab experiment. The mission was clear: create something that not only avoided inflammation but actively helped calm it. The result was their flagship Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip LAST Protein Bar, a creamy, decadent-tasting bar made with real peanut butter, pea protein, MCT oil, and anti-inflammatory ingredients like cacao, cinnamon, and turmeric.
“We called it our ‘proof of concept,’” Bridget says, laughing. “Because we had to prove you could make something healthy that people actually wanted to eat. No grimacing allowed.”
And it worked. The bar didn’t just land; it lingered. Customers started describing it as the first protein bar they didn’t have to eat but wanted to. So, when the team launched their second flavor, the Café Mocha Latte LAST Protein Bar, they knew they were onto something. Equal parts breakfast replacement and coffeehouse treat; it doubled down on the brand’s anti-inflammatory promise while giving consumers a gentle energy lift without the sugar crash.
The science was solid. But the soul? That was pure Bridget.

The Philosophy Behind the Formula

If Joel brought the vision and Lynda brought the financial and creative grounding, Bridget became the heartbeat, the one constantly asking, “But how does this make people feel?”
That question wasn’t marketing fluff. It was physiology. Bridget’s approach to wellness is tactile, sensory, human. She talks about digestion the way a gardener talks about soil, how everything that grows depends on what happens beneath the surface.
“It’s not about counting macros,” she says. “It’s about what your body can actually use. If you eat something that causes bloating or fatigue, it doesn’t matter what the label says. Your body’s telling you the truth.”
It’s this insistence on listening, really listening, that defines her leadership at Five Plus Protein. She treats product development like a conversation between science and intuition. “The data matters, but so does the lived experience,” she adds. “We test, we taste, we tweak. If something feels off, we go back to the drawing board.”
In a world obsessed with performance metrics and quick fixes, Bridget’s philosophy is refreshingly slow, deliberate, and almost maternal. She’s not chasing trends; she’s chasing trust. And that trust, she says, comes from transparency.
“Legacy brands aren’t built on noise. They’re built on consistency,” she explains. “People come back to what makes them feel good long term, not what’s just shiny for a season.”

Aging Well Is the New Ambition

At the core of Five Plus Protein’s mission is a deceptively radical idea: aging is not something to fight, it’s something to master. Bridget loves this. “We talk so much about anti-aging, but that’s not the goal,” she says. “The goal is to age well. To have the energy, strength, and clarity to keep doing the things you love.”
She sees food as the first frontier in that journey, and the most powerful form of self-defense we have. “The right nutrients are your armor,” she says. “But they should also be your joy.”
In many ways, Bridget’s work is about rewriting the emotional script around nutrition. Instead of guilt and restriction, she frames it as curiosity and care. The bars are just the beginning. Each flavor is designed as both nourishment and reassurance, a small daily act of trust between your body and your willpower.
Her own days are surprisingly unglamorous. Between managing operations, overseeing formulations, and still consulting in healthcare settings, Bridget doesn’t exactly have hours for wellness rituals. “People imagine I start my mornings meditating with adaptogens,” she jokes. “In reality, it’s a protein bar, a coffee, and getting my son to school on time.”
That self-deprecating humor is part of her charm. She doesn’t want wellness to feel like an exclusive club; she wants it to feel like a friend who knows how to read a nutrition label and still order dessert.

Behind Every Great Brand Is a Great Gut Feeling

What makes Bridget such a magnetic figure in the wellness world isn’t just her expertise; it’s her willingness to be human in a space that often punishes imperfection. She admits she still loves peanut butter straight from the jar. She still rolls her eyes at “detox” trends that promise miracles. And she still believes science should serve people, not intimidate them.
“Health shouldn’t feel like homework,” she says. “It should feel like freedom.”
That philosophy is embedded in every layer of Five Plus Protein, from the clean ingredient lists to the brand’s tone, which feels like it was written by a friend who’s equal parts nutritionist and comedian. The company’s very name, “Five Plus,” nods to the idea that a little more, more awareness, more intention, more kindness toward your body, can make all the difference.
And while the brand is still young, it already carries the early DNA of a legacy company. The founders aren’t chasing viral fame or “limited edition” hype. They’re building trust, one satisfied digestive system at a time. “Our customers know we mean it,” Bridget says simply. “We make food we actually eat ourselves.”
It’s the kind of statement that shouldn’t sound revolutionary, but in today’s health market, it is.

The Future Is Functional (and Delicious)

Bridget’s vision for the future of Five Plus Protein is expansive but grounded. She talks about innovation not in terms of product drops, but in terms of purpose. “We want to help people reframe what wellness looks like, not a list of rules, but a relationship,” she says. “You should feel supported, not shamed, by your food choices.”
That ethos is guiding the brand’s next moves: more flavors, new formulations, and perhaps even stepping beyond bars into other anti-inflammatory functional foods. But whatever comes next, Bridget’s focus will remain the same, to make wellness taste better, feel better, and last longer.
When asked what success looks like to her, she doesn’t mention revenue or reach. She mentions legacy. “If people trust us with their bodies,” she says, “we’ve done our job.”
That, in the end, may be Bridget Grover’s quiet superpower. She’s building a brand not around perfection, but around permission, permission to feel good, to eat well, to live longer, and to love your food as much as it loves you back.

The Takeaway

If you strip away the clean design, the marketing, and the Instagram gloss, Five Plus Protein is really a story about reclaiming honesty in health. About a clinician-turned-founder who decided that wellness should nourish, not punish. About the belief that something as small as a snack can carry something as big as hope.
Bridget Grover may never call herself a visionary. But in her quiet, deliberate way, she’s redefining what a legacy wellness brand looks like, one that listens to science, honors the body, and never forgets that pleasure is part of the prescription.
The next time you reach for a Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip LAST Protein Bar or Café Mocha Latte LAST Protein Bar, think of it as more than a snack. It’s a philosophy you can hold in your hand, one that says yes, you can have health and happiness in the same bite.