Introducing v3.1 šŸ–¤

Hi,
ehh, Iā€™m still sad after the complete rework of Chocolate Huel (the previous was absolutely amazing and Iā€™ve simply stopped buying the new one).
Iā€™m now afraid that similar thing is happening with Coffee - I agree with the others that there are too many sweet flavours already.
Currently Iā€™m starting my every day with 150g of Coffee Huel. I still have some hope that Coffee Caramel will be good, but Iā€™m not holding my breath.

Otherwise, I understand that you canā€™t satisfy everyone. Iā€™m still happy with Huel in general, and I was nicely surprised when received email on 3k meals.
Thanks and good luck, Huel team!

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I didnā€™t notice that. But that sucks.

Sounds like some of the ā€œimprovementā€ leads to a cheaper productā€¦

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ā€œHey look!!! We are better than Jimmy Joy because we add Lycopene and we use better folate form (L-Methylfolate)ā€

Some years laterā€¦ ā€œNah, letā€™s remove this sh*t, who cares about reducing risk of diseases?ā€ :man_facepalming: :man_facepalming: :man_facepalming:

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Eeeeek please donā€™t make chocolate any sweeter! Itā€™s excellent right now because itā€™s not too sweet!

I think dropping the kombucha sounds fair. I may be wrong but my understanding is that thereā€™s limited evidence behind its alleged health benefits.

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Very sad to hear about this ā€œimprovementā€, I agree with all above comments. I donā€™t understand why are you reducing the caffeine content in Coffee Huel, 30mg is basically nothing.

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Maybe these changes do reduce the nutritional benefits in some very minor ways, whilst improving environmental sustainability to a much greater extent, and if so that can be seen as a good thing, in the big picture.

How would we feel if Huel was improving sustainability whilst maintaining exactly the same nutritional content, and putting the prices up to enable it?

There are always trade-offs, and finding the balance must be tricky. Iā€™m thinking Huel will have got this right, and Iā€™m very glad that theyā€™re soaking up all the inflation in the system and holding prices steady.

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Who has been feeding back that the effectively the last none sweet flavour (that isnā€™t completely unflavoured) also needed to be made sweet?! If people want caramel coffee they can just order the black edition. I canā€™t see the new flavour not being sickly sweet, so I think this will be the end of my journey with Huel, as I only drink the coffee powder now.

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Kombucha was providing some b vitamins, but to be honest nothing we couldnā€™t 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 weā€™ve focused on the biggest headlines and kept it short like most announcements. Itā€™s one of the many benefits of the forum is to discuss these things!

Again, let me hold our hands up here weā€™ve 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 isnā€™t true, one of the main reason we chose Bacillus coagulans MTCC 5856 is because of itā€™s stability over shelf-life.

Thanks, youā€™ve got it. Sustainability has been something that has grown massively in my role over the last 3 years and itā€™s something we will continue to do better and better in.

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Hi guys

Thanks for the feedback on this. Weā€™ve 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, theyā€™re 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.

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Hueligan from Germany here. I have bought into the idea of Huel purely based on your motto ā€œNutrition over tasteā€. Buying ā€œtasteā€ is easy. Buying the right nutrition is not easy. Thatā€™s 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 ā€œcost cuttingā€ decision, an ā€œenvironmental impactā€ decision, an ā€œeven better nutritional valueā€ decision, or, a ā€œwe 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.

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Hey Jack, itā€™s nice to see you on the forum.

Honestly, itā€™s 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 (Iā€™m 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 thatā€™s an improvement.

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Iā€™d 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 thatā€™s true so itā€™s 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 ā€˜times are tough, we just have to make some savings and that means a the product suffers a bit but weā€™re still alive and thatā€™s 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 Iā€™ve ever experienced. I wear my t-shirt proudly and support!

Maybe a page of simple changes would be good? I read this page Essential vitamins and minerals in Huel but itā€™s not transparent enough. EG

The changes from 3.0 to 3.1:
-we have removed XYZ
-we have added more tapioca flourā€¦
-we had removed xyz and replaced it with xyz

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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 hereā€™s a list focussing on the ingredients:

Added - Faba bean protein due to itā€™s 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%

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Another example of a great company! A small forum suggestion, and minutes later a response with no faff! Rare stuff!
Thanks @Dan_Huel !! :+1:

Times are tough but keep making great things.

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Donā€™t forget the removal of lycopene.

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Apologies thanks! Edited.

Massive thanks for your honest reply. Sad to see that it is ā€œall of the aboveā€.

ā€œNutrition over tasteā€. Donā€™t 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 ā€œPremiumā€ line of products.

Well, I thought the Powder IS the premium line, as you have recently introduced the ā€œEssentialā€ line.

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I thought Black was the premium line, v3.1 the standard, Essential the basic. Seems like thereā€™s something for everyone.

Huel Premium could be Huel Black + Huel Greens and some minor tweaks to the formula :thinking:

Well, Huel Black could also be the Premium formula but itā€™s 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.