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.
as @rikefrejut said, you might be confusing pro- and prebiotics. MTCC 5856 is a probiotic and will not be present in v3.1. The naturally occurring prebiotics fibre will be plentiful.
Iāve just done the same thing regarding ordering as much of the coffee as I can. Sad times when you have to panic-buy & hoard the post-apocalyptic food in a non-post-apocalyptic setting.
Thanks again, @JamesCollier for at least listening to the feedback. Much appreciated.
You guys are experts in your products, no doubt about that. But, as a marketeer, I wanted to create a table for a potential reshuffle in Huelās line of products for Huel Powder, in the hope that it can be simplified.
Premium (Black) Ā£2.49 per meal
Standard (The Original) Ā£1.99 per meal
Essential Ā£0.99 per meal
Protein Options
High in Protein Balanced
Balanced
Low in Protein
Carb Options
Low Carb Balanced
Balanced
High in Carbs
Gluten Options
Gluten-free Contains Gluten
Contains Gluten
Contains Gluten
Essentials
26 vitamins and minerals
26 vitamins and minerals
26 vitamins and minerals
Prebiotics
YES
YES
NO
Probiotics
YES
NO
NO
Antioxidants
YES
NO
NO
Artificial Sweeteners
NO
YES
YES
Batch tested by Informed-Sport
YES
NO
NO
CO2 Offset Add-on
Included
Optional
Optional
In the table above, Protein, Carb and Gluten are given as an option for the customer to select.
Also, a new option named āCO2 Offsetā is added to the Standard and Essential products, in which the customer can choose to contribute offsetting the productās carbon footprint. I am assuming this would be just a few pence per order ( but donāt quote me on that )
The Premium Line should ensure that the ingredients are the best the money can buy. Itās not for everyone, itās not a mass market product. Itās the Apple Studio Display of Huel Powder. Itās the Mac Pro of Huel Powder.
Itās impossible to have Huel without prebiotics, because they are part of the carbs used in the powder.
Itās also impossible to have Huel without antioxidants, because they also come from the carbs.
The informed-sport tests are pointless for everyone unless youāre a world-level athlete where your trainer requires every single food item (including apples at a grocery store!) to be tested for performance-enhancing drugs. No need to have it be a default part of any premium line.
I donāt like this as a customer at all. Iāve been using Huel on and off since the beginning, and Iāve always trusted and used it as Iāve bought into the brand. I could go in Holland and Barret and get their equivalent or lots of other places, but Iāve always trusted for the product type, Huel is the top of the line.
But when you see the company is prepared to remove ingredients, and an ingredient previously claimed might help against certain illnesses, in the name of emissions, thatās crazy.
Itās crazy because the UK as a whole is responsible for just 1% of global emissions. Now Huel is just one small company in the UK, if huel saves 15% of its emissions, this will have zero impact on the environment, itās like a grain of sand compared with every beach on the entire planet. I know companies love to push the āgreenā marketing to consumers, but I think your consumers would rather the old ānutrition firstā, which has clearly fallen at the way side.
Fair, but Iām just going to add my voice here - Iād rather there were incremental price increases in line with inflation, than reducing the quality and keeping the price the same. Hope you guys will consider this too!
Just because Huel canāt impact the environmental crisis to any greater extent than is possible right now given its market share, it shouldnāt bother and we shouldnāt care.
Nutrition wise, itās not better at all is it. Youāve taken things out. Itās cheaper for you to make it this way isnāt it, letās not make out thereās any other reason for taking things out that are of a nutritional benefit.
Yes, they produce all of their raw ingredients using Star Trek food replicators ā not grown, harvested, processed and shipped from various locations around the Globe at all.
āI know companies love to push the āgreenā marketing to consumersā
āItās devaluing a product to look good for marketingā
Denigrating Huelās efforts to reduce harmful environmental impacts as āmarketingā seems absolutely desperate. The most responsible companies make changes for more urgently consequential reasons.
Huel was already an amazing product for the climate, so while further reductions in carbon footprint are admirable, please consider the indirect carbon footprint of losing so many loyal customers with these changes, since you are giving them a lot of strong reasons to leave and very few reasons to stay.
The company has decided to give us no other option (at least if we do not want to, or maybe canāt for health reasons, switch to the lower carb black edition) but to consume a product that is without question of poorer nutritional quality and, in my opinion, no longer nutritionally complete after the removal of probiotics and lycopene. I think this reflects very badly on your brand, especially because you are charging just as much as before for worse nutrition.
Furthermore Kombucha and acerola cherries, although not essential, were healthy and indeed welcome and I am sure they encouraged a lot of people (I know of some) to try out the product and end up becoming long time users.
For customer retention, please consider keeping something in the same spirit as the previous formula (v3.0) available at a price that is sustainable for the company.
