Yup, nothing like before. It was awesome in 1.1
Thank you for your response, Mark. If you are genuinely committed to providing the best products, then it seems there has been some sort of mix-up with v1.2. The taste has noticeably declined, and a significant majority of the community appears to oppose these changes. You can see this feedback reflected in numerous Reddit posts about the v1.2 flavors as well as in the related discussions in this forum.
I sincerely hope these changes are reconsidered so we can return to the Huel Black flavors weāve come to love!
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I guess that would depend on the primary metric theyāll use - repeat purchases. I suppose that data can be skewed though - if there is a high repeat purchase rate from new customers who have no basis of comparison with earlier versions.
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I agree repeat purchases is a blunt tool to measure reaction to v1.2. Thereāll be those new customers, and also customers who are disappointed with it but keep on buying for want of an alternative, and those who are happy with it but stop buying for some unrelated reason. A customer survey would be needed to get a true picture.
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In addition to tracking repeat purchases, they likely place significant emphasis on average order values. It seems probable that removing those two ingredients and drastically reducing the flavor options is primarily a cost-cutting measure, despite the usual PR rambling about āimprovingā the product. I mean why would kombucha and lycopeneātouted as key components of a formula backed by extensive nutritionist researchābe introduced only to be removed later?
Unfortunately, I doubt Huel will be overly concerned about the negative feedback on these updated flavors, as long as it doesnāt impact their overall margins. If anything, these changes likely provide an immediate boost to short-term profits, even if the long-term consequences could be negative. With no strong competitors to turn to, most customers will likely remain loyal to the brand for now.
One can hope that theyād conduct a customer survey on this issue and take meaningful action based on the feedback. However, it seems unlikely that investors would support increasing production costs to improve flavorāan arguably subjective factorāwhen marginally reducing flavor quality (sweetener is a lot more affordable than, lets say, cocoa) could achieve noticeable cost savings and improve profit margins.
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Their ebita/margins are pretty modest so, playing devils advocate to that, it may also be the case that even if 10, 50 or even a 100 very vocal customers post negative reviews about a product on various forums - they may be an infinitesimally small percentage of the customers who do buy it and are happy (or indifferent) with the taste - so donāt bother posting any feedback at all. Time will tell.
Also purchase numbers isnāt always the best way of knowing how good something is when thereās little choice. I either purchase v1.2 or I go to somebody else. For me thereās nobody elseā¦
Anyway, just put an order through last night and I imagine Iāll get some 1.2 goodnessā¦?
I think youāre right, thoā maybe quality reductions are sometimes done to keep retail prices steady, rather than to increase profit. Not so much reducing costs as maintaining them against inflation to avoid price increases for customers. ??
Thats also plausible yeah. Maybe not a stretch to assume that slightly lowering the quality of the product beats a small increase in price in the eyes of most consumers.
especially when thereās not really any competition, and the product is special enough to be habit-forming. 
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Letās talk about product improvements. I understand many of you are not fans of the recent changes, so I want to provide some context and reasoning behind them.
Primarily, these changes were driven by customer feedback. We reviewed the complaints we received and analysed which flavours had the lowest retention rates. Using internal sensory data and various customer complaints, we made the current adjustments as previously mentioned in the chain a little higher up.
Regarding the Removal of Kombucha and Lycopene, this was separate from the product improvements. When weāre referring to improvements here we are more referring to the above points made previously in another thread.
Kombucha
Kombucha was originally included in Huel products as a source of B vitamins. However, the amount provided was not sufficient to justify its inclusion, especially as it added complexities to our supply chain. As you know, we are always working on making sure we can be as sustainable as we can when it comes to our products/ingredients and the inclusion of kombucha was not aligned with these goals. Additionally, kombucha introduced an allergen risk from yeast, which meant that some individuals were unable to consume Huel Black Edition.
Lycopene
We decided to remove lycopene from our powders because it was not making a significant contribution to the product. However, phytonutrients continue to be supplied by other ingredients.
With any refinement, the goal is to strike a balance between maintaining a high-quality product and avoiding unnecessary complexities. While the removal of these ingredients has resulted in some cost savings, these savings are immediately offset by the ever-changing costs of manufacturing and supply chains.
Hope this answers your questions 
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