I think if we look to the states and the insane market penetration Soylent is getting, the time is about right - far as I can tell they’re in pretty much every major grocery retailer across the country.
It just needs some new marketing. The official stuff is all sexy fit people, and the only other people I see talking about it are boring tech bloggers who can’t stop talking about how weird it is and how they’re constantly shitting themselves.
Huel™ - It’s Nicer Than Expected And You Don’t Need To Be Attractive, Pug Face
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funniest thing I’ve read all day and so true 
Don’t you think the US market is a bit more advanced than the UK though when it comes to soylents?
A lot of people who just want to lose weight talk about it too, in fact I have started seeing a lot of that now.
I dont know what the stats are on Soylent’s sales but it appears they are no where near as popular as Huel when it comes to web traffic and social media interaction
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Nope 
Just look at the how things have progressed since the original soylent kickstarter. It’s pretty much one big Complete Food brand (Soylent) and a bunch of smaller niche products that do well but are no-where near the same scale.
Meanwhile we’ve got loads of brands in Europe. Huel is clearly the market leader in the UK but Feed dominates France, then you’ve got Jimmy Joy, Queal, Bertrand, Ambronite, Saturo, YFood - the list goes on - all surprisingly decent sized companies each with a diverse product range.
But when they go to the states a they all seem to struggle, not in competing with big S soylent but just getting enough sales to justify being there in general.
I’ve been tracking all the Complete Food products I can find through eatcomplete.co.
The idea might be American, but it’s been really made to shine over here, we’re definitely more receptive.
Your link is misspelled should be www.eatcomplete.co
I don’t necessarily agree that more brands means more sales or penetration. How do Huel sales in US compare with Soylent, bearing in mind they aren’t yet as well established. I suspect there are lots of factors that make it difficult for non-native companies to break through in US. The other brands you mentioned aren’t well known in the UK. I was interested to see Solo seems to have disappeared midway through this year. I quite liked their powders on the samples I tasted, both taste wise and nutritionally, but they were a bit untogether.
I think the main reason there are so many Soylents in Europe is that Soylent themselves took forever to launch over here. They developed an interesting product and published a lot of information about how they did it, but left a yawning gap in the market.
Lol, can’t even spell my own website, I need a weekend!
It should mean more customers though. I’m making assumptions but it’s logical unless we assume Soylent is much much bigger than any other CF brand. A few have come and gone but it looks to be a much more competitive sector in Europe supporting more companies better, hard to say for sure without skin in the game.
Solo’s an odd one, I didn’t try them because a lot of what they were saying felt like a bit of a blag. (Eg; I seem to remember they claimed no artificial sweeteners whilst listing (I think) - sucralose on the ingredients) but I heard they were going to rebrand shortly after the bar came out and then nothing.
Jimmy Joy is definitely well known in the UK though. Nowhere near Huel level of course but definitely to a point.
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Indeed. Rob Rhinehart is a massive believer in open source as well and released the recipe he’d created (and a few subsequent versions) that people over here took and ran with.
Yeah, that’s their main downfall, the product was actually quite good IMHO, better than many other, but the guys that handled their customer interaction were clueless and could never give straight answers.
I think they are second-most well known in UK. I’ve never tried any of their products though. Feed is getting some UK traction but again theis social media doesn’t always inspire confidence.
Feed are worth a try, they’ve some incredible flavours and the bars are near perfect. You need to be careful though, there’s some awful stuff in there too - I mean who wants a porcini mushroom flavoured drink? And the ‘garden vegetables’ flavour tastes like a greggs veg pastie.
The chocolate spread though, and the malteser things, are absolutely amazing.
Oh and if you want to try something you only have to buy one of them. Which is great for example, if you want to see what the bars taste like without buying loads of them (they’ve 8 flavours).
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To this day it is impossible to get Soylent in 90% of Europe. I think Brits can get it from Amazon.co.uk but I live in Northern-Europe.
Back to Sainsburys… has anyone noticed the bottles are particularly hard to get off the shelves? In my local they’re just a touch too tall so have to be twisted out, knocking over anything close to them.
@Tristan I would imagine thats down to the local stores decisions where to place them - chilled display shelves are usually a mixed depth arrangement - shorter to taller from the top down and the Huel bottles are pretty median in height compared to most milk based and yogurt drinks but yes, admittedly taller than most protein milk drinks that are normally in the same areas.
I found two bottles of vanilla in the chiller section of my local superstore, next to the milk drinks. I bought one of them. Will see how many are there next time I go in.
PS they were not hard to get off the shelf.
There was an interesting programme on BBC1 yesterday evening about Sainsbury’s “Inside the Supermarket” and showed quite a few insights into their ordering etc., although the bit I saw was particularly about seasonal ordering (Christmas/Easter) as well as a grim bit about stuff that gets returned by customers. I didn’t watch it properly as I was doing other stuff, but may revisit it on iPlayer. It is one of a 6 part series.
Actually this one tastes surprisingly nicely. I was skeptical, but I was converted. By far, in my opinion, the worst flavour is The Sports savoury one. All the others are meh to pretty good.
agreed on thje rest tho
Ha, we have very different taste buds!