Hot and Savory Powder Only - Add Your Own Pasta: A More Accessible Huel Option

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1

Fellow Hueligans,

I’d like to propose a change to hot and savoury products that could better fulfill the company’s mission of creating nutritionally complete, convenient, affordable food, with minimal impact on animals and the environment

The Problem

While Huel’s Hot and Savory products provide excellent nutrition, they’re becoming less accessible to budget-conscious consumers. According to Huel’s own updates, they’ve been continually facing “increased ingredients costs” and making changes to “mitigate some, but not all” of these costs (Huel Forums, April 2025).

The current approach of pre-packaging pasta with nutritional powder creates several issues:

  • Higher product cost
  • Increased shipping weight
  • Inconsistent mixing (as Huel acknowledged in their December 2024 update)
  • Limited customization options

The Solution: Hot and Savory Powder Only

I propose Huel create a “powder only” version of their Hot and Savory products - just the nutritional seasoning, protein, vitamins, and flavor components without the pasta or grains.

Benefits:

  1. Cost Savings: Pasta is inexpensive at grocery stores (often under $1/lb) compared to the premium paid in Huel products. This would make the nutritional benefits of Huel accessible to more people.

  2. Environmental Impact: Shipping just powder instead of pasta+powder would reduce package weight by approximately 50-60%, significantly lowering carbon emissions from transportation.

  3. Customization: Users could choose their preferred pasta type (gluten-free, whole grain, protein-enriched) and portion size based on their dietary needs.

  4. Consistency: No more issues with “some portions heavy on pasta, and others heavy on sauce” as mentioned in Huel’s December 2024 update.

  5. Reduced Packaging: Smaller packages would require less material and storage space.

  6. Accessibility: Lower price point would make Huel’s nutrition accessible to more people, better fulfilling the company’s mission.

Implementation

This could be offered alongside current products, or replace hot and savoury bags with pasta available only in pre-made pots allowing customers to choose between convenience (pasta bag/pot) or cost-effectiveness (powder only). The powder could be packaged in similar resealable pouches with clear instructions for adding your own pasta.

For those concerned about nutritional completeness, Huel could provide simple guidelines for pasta amounts to maintain the intended nutritional profile.

What do you think, Hueligans? Would you be interested in a more affordable, customizable Hot and Savory option that lets you add your own pasta?

2

Assuming that Huel make profit from the pasta they currently buy and then sell to us, wouldn’t they quite reasonably need to make up for that lost profit by increasing the mark-up on the H&S powder? So we’d pay more for the powder, and still have to buy our own pasta. That’d cost us all more. I can’t see it.

Unless you’re asking that Huel reduce the company’s takings, and we ourselves divert the balance on to whoever we buy our pasta from? That seems like a lose-lose proposal: less income for them, more hassle for us. The only benefit would be for the third-party pasta retailers.

3

Most pasta doesn’t cook in 5 minutes either, so it would be a real PITA

4

I feel like I’ve just read a Dragons Den pitch.

The mission statement, I like where this is heading.

Yes, we have faced increased costs; however, we’ve done a lot to keep them down, ensuring there wasn’t a significant markup on these products. When we brought them to market, we kept them at the same price as our Hot & Savoury pouches.

I have to disagree with some of these points. We’ve discussed the higher product costs many times, and we’ve been very transparent about the steps we’ve taken to mitigate them.

Increased shipping weight isn’t an issue. Take our Cajun Pasta sachets, for example: including the box, they weigh 721g, but individually they weigh just 103g, so they’re not particularly heavy to carry around. I’m currently waiting on the weights of the original pouches so I can draw up further comparisons, but I don’t think they’d add much, might even take some off!

This new format eliminates the issue of inconsistent mixing, allowing you to get the perfect portion every time.

Customisation of our Hot & Savoury range is still possible. You can still add chicken to your Madras or sour cream to your Mexican Chilli, it hasn’t been removed and is very much still available to you.

Cost Saving – I think this would likely result in an increase in cost. For instance, if you prefer a specific type of pasta, like Su Filindeu (one of the most expensive pasta shapes), compared to something like fusilli, you’d end up spending more by buying it separately.

Environmental Impact – Again, introducing more packaging by purchasing pasta separately adds up. You’d have the packaging and delivery for Huel, plus the packaging and delivery for the pasta. I’m not certain about the exact carbon impact, but I can look into this to support the original point.

Customisation – This remains unchanged; you can still customise your Hot & Savoury by adding your own ingredients. The only difference is the pasta shape. Sure, it would be fun to have alphabet spaghetti, but the pasta types we’ve selected are the ones that work best with this product. For example, we tried Ziti, but found the powder would get stuck inside the tubes or wouldn’t cook evenly, resulting in a poor experience. That’s why we went with the pasta we did. Granted, some may enjoy crunchy pasta, but we have to focus on what works best for most customers and deliver the best experience possible.

Consistency – This is one of the key issues these new meal packs have now addressed.

Reduced Packaging – I wasn’t entirely sure what you meant here. Are you referring to individual sachets of powder, or a single large one? If it’s individual sachets, you’d need to carry both those and the pasta separately, which would take up more space, wouldn’t it? Plus, you’d have the packaging of both to dispose of.

Accessibility – Totally understood. This is always a complex issue and people will have different views. Of course, we’d love to make these super affordable, but the reality is that it’s not feasible. That said, we still believe that, for a nutritionally complete meal containing all essential vitamins and minerals, this is a good price point. If you were to buy all the ingredients separately to make a nutritionally complete meal like Huel, you’d probably end up spending significantly more.

That being said I appreciate you reaching out and sharing this with us. We love hearing from you all and what you’d like to see so don’t think you’ve been ignored! :raising_hands:

5

Maybe Huel soup would be appealing? All the ingredients of H&S but finely milled. It’d be complete, but people could add extra pasta or whatever if they wanted. Croutons. Dumplings. Chips. :blush:

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6

When you put it that way, I’m thinking how this could be done along side our current powder range, giving you more savoury powder options rather than H&S varieties.

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