I use Huel for convenience plus I know it saves food waste and I suspect that by combining all the ingredients on site you probably reduce materials waste as well. I.e. Mainly I see ((Rather -saw) you as an ethical brand.
So I was really happy using your products and promoting them - until you released your Ready To Drink range, which makes you look just like every other retailer. All those plastic bottles Why bother??
So basically I can no longer promote you and feel ok about it. Which is a shame as I also run an environmental podcast and I wanted to discuss you on it.
There is going to be a big shift in customers wanting retailers to be better than this. And I can assure you that green customers are the most loyal you can find.
So Iād ask you to consider some workarounds
Stop selling them.
Keep selling them and markup the price by 20p a bottle and give all excess profit to the Ellen MacArthur Foundation. Plus make a disclaimer as to why you are doing this on the website.
Positioning yourself as an environmental brand as well as a convenience brand may help.
If you do - youāll have a loyal buyer and someone who will really promote you.
If you donāt then Iāll shift to another similar brand who does.
I think this still holds. You can still talk about it. Actually, it will give you a very good discussion. You could compare the powder to the RTD, how you feel about them, compare the environmental impact of both, or compare them to food, etc.
With regards to the RTD and plastic, it is ultimately a business decission. If you check the original thread there are few good points in both sides. Perhaps you might want to check it. In Huelās favour, they have tried to reduce the plastic impact, plus compromised to do it better in the near future.
Tim is on holiday who is normally the active guy on the UK forum but thought I would add my two cents.
I completely get where people are coming from with the added plastic. However, I think the bigger picture is often missed. For a lot of people, for whatever reason whether it is the texture or stigma behind it etc, do not choose the powders. As a result they have a typical meal for lunch like a meal deal. Which includes 3 different products, with packaging.
Huel RTD, gives people an option for a vegan product, all in one piece of packaging. This packaging is 100% recyclable and made of 25% recycled plastic (check out @Coupās link to see why we canāt go higher currently). As this is version 1 we are going to improve on this donāt worry.
So yes, compared to the powder it is worse environmentally, but compared to just about every other convenience option on the market I would say it is better.
Having worked in customer experience I can say that people have moved from a first order of trying RTD to giving the powders a go for the first time with their second order.
Does DrChris also take umbrage with the many retailers of āproteinā powders and shakes who provide many more drinks and powders in recycled plastic containers. Compared to this the impact of RTD Huel appears to be minimal. I donāt use RTD for the environmental its convenience. I think we must assume a correlation of the more convenient something is the environmental impact usually increases (there are some exceptions). For me, using RTD āon the goā actually has a positive impact in my work, I down it in 5 minutes and crack on with my work.
The fact that Huel RTD bottles are 100% recyclable and are made partially from recycled materials shows that Huel have done the best they can for the moment. Kudos to them for this.
Bottles are also reusable. They could be utilised to transport water instead of buying bottled stuff. They could be filled with chilled filtered water if you prefer that to water straight from the tap.
They can also be used for carrying/storing made-up Huel powder shakes.
I read the previous posters link to the āPlastic Promiseā and Iāll admit I was hasty in judging, so I apologise for that.
Your points about going veggie and food waste being most important aspects are really sound (2 of the top 5 of the Drawdown project!) and are definitely the most important factors to consider.
Just to reference one of the other posters - recycling is not an effective strategy long term. It downgrades plastics quality, costs lots of money, energy, resources etc, and in the task world, lots of people donāt do it at all our donāt do it properly (e.g. Donāt clean the bottles first) - Reusing or refusing it in the first place is way more eco-friendly.
As a further question - How do you tempt consumers from the RTD bottles to the powder? Information on the bottle, or in the box the bottles come (Or even being on a podcast ;))
BTW Your feedback is really appreciated. A retailer who cares about their impact is super important to a lot of people (Even those who do live in caves )
I do agree that recycling might not be the ābest strategy long termā, but certainly is an effective way to combat our current habits.
I would love to see other better ways like reusing the bottles, but this seems logistically very hard. Moreover taking into account the worldwide aspect of the business. It would be easier to do in a more local manner (UK only or something).
I think currently this is done passively, aka, because you need to buy both in the same website you will ultimately be curious about the other product and you will see that is cheaper. Doing it in an active manner could be a good suggestion, indeed.
I disagree, RTD must be more profitableā¦ Iād guess theyāre more than happy to point people toward the convenience and ease of RTD rather than powder.
Not a jab or complaint at Huel, just a business assumption.
Drawdown is a great resource and the full list can be found here: drawdown.org/solutions I feel we have smashed 4 out of the top 5 (as refrigeration is not necessary for prolonged shelf-life).
Bioplastic is number 47 on our list but it is something we are working towards.
To be honest we donāt have a specific company script pushing someone to either product and itās down to the individual to make the choice. We take a personal approach in Customer Experience so it can vary by executive the advice given, Iām not sure on anyone who leans towards promoting RTD over powder from the off.
Personally, in Customer Experience I always discussed powder first with someone wanting to know more about Huel as this is our flagship product. RTD came up if someone is away from a kitchen/office for more than 24 hours or is unsure on consuming a powder (RTD is more similar to products already on the market). There is a stigma with some individuals over consuming a powder (for whatever reason) that I think you forget if you have been consuming Huel for a while. RTD has less of a stigma and if someone is happy with RTD the jump from RTD to powder is less of a jump than from nothing to powder.
In terms of reusing the bottles it has been discussed before but you have to think about the extra emissions taking the bottles, cleaning and sterilising them again to ensure food safety and shelf-life then refilling them again. This would also require setting up a whole new system/entire factory to achieve this which is not within many companyāsā reach, Iād suggest only the multi-billion dollar companies.
Cool to hear people tried RTD as a gateway product to the real thing. I remember hearing one such story on the forum. Itās what we had hoped would happen all along and goes a long way toward justifying RTD as an offering
I agree with @RyanT here, as itās a great way to introduce people to Huel in general.
This is exactly my thought on RTD products. Itās the top in priority meals, pay up and eat without
any additional effort. So looking at the Huel RTD as an individual product, itās far better than
the many other āon-the-goā meal options available and thus still good.
On the subject of not wasting food. Since Iāve been on Huel I donāt overstock my fridge with perishables. Just buy enough for my immediate needs or live out of the freezer for my one non-Huel meal a day.
Why bother??
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