Kombucha was providing some b vitamins, but to be honest nothing we couldnāt get elsewhere and it created a more complex supply chain so we took the decision to remove it.
I want to make it really clear that the prebiotics are staying. Prebiotics are fermentable fibres that are often good for gut health and these come naturally from the main ingredients. This is a mistake in our copy, apologies for the confusion.
It comes from the US and Canada.
With the announcement weāve focused on the biggest headlines and kept it short like most announcements. Itās one of the many benefits of the forum is to discuss these things!
Again, let me hold our hands up here weāve made a mistake with the copy. Calcium L-methylfolate is still being used and this is correct on the new bag labels you will get too.
We will be updating this page to show you clearly if any changes have occurred.
This isnāt true, one of the main reason we chose Bacillus coagulans MTCC 5856 is because of itās stability over shelf-life.
Thanks, youāve got it. Sustainability has been something that has grown massively in my role over the last 3 years and itās something we will continue to do better and better in.
Thanks for the feedback on this. Weāve not done as good a job with our comms on this as you should expect from us. Some of the changes highlighted have made Huel v3.1 look less favourable.
Just to highlight: the formula still contains various naturally occurring prebiotics (of course, theyāre naturally occurring from the fibre-rich ingredients!) and still contains L-methylfolate (not folic acid).
We will be updating this copy today and will be working through the other articles that need updating asap.
Once again, apologies for the miscommunication on this.
Hueligan from Germany here. I have bought into the idea of Huel purely based on your motto āNutrition over tasteā. Buying ātasteā is easy. Buying the right nutrition is not easy. Thatās why I believed in the mission of Huel, and started consuming both powder and Hot & Savoury as 2/3rd of my food consumption.
I have a question. Hand on heart, was the 3.1 upgrade a ācost cuttingā decision, an āenvironmental impactā decision, an āeven better nutritional valueā decision, or, a āwe must reach more customers with better tasteā decision.
Following the forums and reading the honest replies from Huel team has also been another reason why I stick to Huel, and I would like to see an honest response to my question above.
Honestly, itās a balance of all of the above. a 16% CO2e decrease of our ingredients is huge. I can understand the disappointment in losing lycopene and probiotics, but there are still prebiotics for gut health.
When it comes to the nutritional figures per serving (Iām basing this on Vanilla), protein has increased by 1g, fibre by 0.8g, sugar by 0.3g (a teaspoon is around 4g), saturated fat by 0.2g, while total fat has decreased by 1g and salt by 0.2g.
So when you look at the hard figures, you might focus on one nutrient that is of interest to you but I think on balance thatās an improvement.
Iād like to pay the premium price of Huel for the nutritionally best product out there. Just please make the best powder you can - that should be the priority! And I know thatās true so itās hard to swallow any change in the degradation of the productā¦
Sustainability is important yes but my money goes to the best first. Sustainability of the company is also important too! We dontā want Huel falling in this economy!
I would rather the directness of ātimes are tough, we just have to make some savings and that means a the product suffers a bit but weāre still alive and thatās the important thingā. rather than having the marketing of 1g here and there of sugar or protein.
The staff and service at Huel is still some of the best Iāve ever experienced. I wear my t-shirt proudly and support!
Thanks for your thoughts, we always appreciate the feedback.
If you check out the page Charlotte linked to in our first post it lists the changes, but hereās a list focussing on the ingredients:
Added - Faba bean protein due to itās better sustainability profile over brown rice protein. Guar gum that alongside faba bean protein results in textural clumping improvements
Removed - Kombucha, probiotics, lycopene and acerola cherries
Reduced - Brown Rice Protein- this contributes to reducing the carbon footprint of our ingredients by 16%
Massive thanks for your honest reply. Sad to see that it is āall of the aboveā.
āNutrition over tasteā. Donāt shy away from this. Never. This is what sets Huel apart. There are many other brands that come close to you on everything else but not to the nutrition.
If you started to cut down on nutrition, then, I will be more open to explore other brands.
A single customer might not make much of a difference to your bottom line, but I am hoping that Huel either revisits this decision, or creates a āPremiumā line of products.
Well, I thought the Powder IS the premium line, as you have recently introduced the āEssentialā line.
Well, Huel Black could also be the Premium formula but itās basically Huel Powder + more protein - less carbs / no artificial sweeteners. I am not sure if there is anything else.
Price-wise, Huel Black and Huel Powder Gluten-free is the same. They both are Gluten-free, so one has more protein and no artificial sweetener, the other has less protein and some artificial sweetener.
Not everyone wants high protein though.
Spelling this all out, I see a shuffle in Huel powder line naming.
good to know the prebiotics are staying - though iām slightly confused; @Dan_Huel you say you choose to add MTCC 5856 (due to its its stability) but @JamesCollier you say that the prebiotics are naturally occurring from the fibre-rich ingredients. Is the MTCC 5856 one of the fibre-rich ingredients here??
Iād also like to second the idea of a Premium line which didnāt skimp on the nutrition side of things. Black isnāt really premium as people have said, and it has too much protein to consume on its own for most people including me (I drink both Huel black chocolate and U/U powder together at a 1:2 ratio)
Why are you removing the coffee flavour as it is? I will probably have to look for alternatives in other brands, since significantly reducing the caffeine content and making it sweeter doesnt really work for me.
How do you determine that the changes have come from the majority and is in fact something that people care about or need or want, most of the time letās be honest you donāt ever hear from people that are perfectly happy with a product, you hear from people who take issue or donāt like taste etc. so how do you determine if the change is something that will appease the masses or do the opposite, if 10 people donāt like a taste or texture is that worth changing the entire thing to improve on if you had say 7million other people happy with it.
I guess when you see endless versions and variations being chopped and changed and things added taken awayā¦I can understand improving a product but I canāt help but feel like you change or try to improve certain products for the sake of it & very often to the excess, and does that alone as a company not cost you more money, you invest time and money getting something to a certain point and then change it again instead of certain people liking something and certain people donāt, then you change & the ppl that didnāt like it do and the people that did like it suddenly donāt, kind of an endless merry go round not for a huge amount of gain in my opinion.
I dunno with a product like huel and the price of it you spend quiet a bit of money as a customer finding a flavour of black/white etc getting one you do like and could keep drinking for the next 5+years no issueā¦then it gets changedā¦then you have to start the process again either not liking the new version or then having to cycle through flavours or editions tryna find one you do.
I guess as a consumer I get baffled by the endless versions because even if I did find I liked 3.1 I just know in 6 months or 12 months there will be a 3.2 appearing somewhere.
Interesting points there about changes. I tend to admire a company thatās regularly trying to make improvements, even if they donāt always please all of the people all of the time. Like I appreciate innovation and development rather than stasis and predictability, or even complacencyā¦ I suppose it depends on how curious we are to try different things, or how much we like sticking with the familiar. Different strokes for different folks.
