I’d like to try a new flavour, but I am not sure which one to choose. For exactly the same reason - I don’t want to throw a relatively expensive and high quality product.
It definitely has to be something that’s not so sweet, or where the sweetness from the sweetener is masked. I’ve considered unflavoured/unsweetened, but for white edition it did not work for me - my impression is that it is even grittier than the other flavours. What is your experience with black edition unflavoured, or which other flavours would you recommend?
(I don’t want to use the white edition any longer, as the gluten-free edition has the same price as black edition; and I am convinced that black edition is the higher-quality product)
I too think that the Black Edition vanilla is a really great choice. You can use different flavours with this and as previous post, not too sweet. I use instant decaf coffee in mine.
I am keen to experiment with berries in it as we grow a variety of berries in our garden.
Has anyone else tried this with say, raspberry or blueberry?
The problem is with the cost of living crisis going on, telling customers they need to keep trying a product to build it into their routine doesn’t cut it. I personally have wasted about 6 bags of different flavours over the years wanting to try and find something new to add variety to my huel routine but in the end just buy vanilla now as its the safe option. I have had 4 friends give up on Huel just because they didn’t like the flavour they bought even though they tried it several times and because they feel they wasted all that money it puts them off so its just a barrier to entry for them. For me personally who is someone who liked Huel the first time I tried it and didn’t have to wait to build it into my routine I would actually purchase more huel if I could sample some of the new flavours but Huel obviously thinks differently. They can package flavour boosts in small £5 bags but don’t seem to be able to do the same for their main products so am afraid I don’t see the argument here. Would happily gamble £5 for 1 portion of a new flavour to try but not nearly £30.
as they did it before, I don’t think its a case of not being able to - it just didn’t work out previously for whatever reason - and wasn’t sufficiently popular - I really don’t know why. Who knows, perhaps with the new packaging coming on stream it maybe would be a more attractive product for people who were previously put off by the MLP bags not being recyclable. just a thought.
Even if it wasn’t popular, its a gateway offering to get a life long customer or in my case a higher spending customer. I work in marketing and removing barriers to entry is paramount to growing your business so even if its not cost effective in the short term, you have to think long term. “Huel isn’t something people generally try once and love it straight away, it’s something that needs to be built into people’s routines to find the full benefit of Huel” is the quote that Huel gives for not doing it but in a world where impatience is commonplace, people just don’t have the time to persevere with building Huel into their lives if they don’t like it at first, they just move onto something else. With more competition coming into this market, I see it as a missed opportunity to get ahead but what will be will be.
Loss leaders only truly make sense when you have a guaranteed revenue stream that is generated directly from their sale – such as Sony or Microsoft selling their consoles for a loss - knowing they will recoup that loss many times over from subsequent software sales for example.
Personally, I would like to see something made available to let people try the core products but I guess, for a company the size of Huel, it would have to be in a viable and sustainable way.
One thought would be a scenario where you have a branded container containing the 4 best sellers of Black and V3 in 200g pouches – the container acting as an enticement to buy larger volumes going forward and use it to decant the larger bags of powder into. The 2 meal packs could also be sold as single basket add ons (for travel convenience or trial purposes) on regular one off or purchase subs - with the container offered in the accessories section for existing customers. Something like this:
‘gifts’ are often better enticements than most other solutions to buy products - especially in branded foods. it’s a fairly common value added method especially in volume dry goods like cereals, pastas etc.
Yep as Phil says, it’s not that we can’t do it, but for the reasons everyone has stated we aren’t going to be releasing samples. I’m sorry Sam. I’m also sorry that you’ve tried 6 flavours and didn’t like any of them, that feels quite uncommon, hopefully now you’ve found your flavour.
I guess my other thing to say, and I really don’t mean this in an arrogant way, we are always listening to feedback, looking at the numbers and working out what the best solutions are to make you Hueligans happy, and also make sure we maintain a viable business model. However, I guess my retort to your comments about being a barrier to entry is that Huel as a business is going quite well. Again, I really don’t mean this in an arrogant way, just that the business model right now is working. I’m sure you would say it would go even better if we offered samples and you may be right. However, we have trialled samples before and it didn’t work for us and often didn’t work for customers (for reasons you have quoted), so it’s difficult to justify again - why would be just do the same thing again and hope for better results?
That’s why we are offering new ways to sample Huel. Like our Bestseller Bundle and our new section of the site Build Your Own Bundle. These are working for both the customer and us.
Hope that all makes sense, this is something we have discussed at length, so hope my answer doesn’t come across dismissive. It’s just something we have talked about a lot!
Tim, no I don’t feel you are being dismissive, you finally came out and gave us the real reason, not some marketing speak about building huel into your lifestyle. Not saying that is wrong however the real reason is a business one and if its currently working well for Huel then keep following the business plan you have. Maybe when other people ask this question, reply with unfortunately due to economic reasons we aren’t able to offer samples at this time rather than distract with the huel lifestyle angle. I would rather hear honesty than marketing spin especially in this day and age of British politics.
And in answer to your question, yes I have found my flavour - standard vanilla, the one I started with. The 6 bags wasted were across hot and savoury (3), Black (2) and unflavoured (1) so not just one type of huel.
well, as the devils advocate - time has passed - and Huel is a much different entity now, both in it’s situation and it’s cultural perception so, at what point are past misfires reassessed? I fully agree that the current strategy is working, but thats not to say it will continue to do so? there’s a constantly revolving cool cycle which is barely possible to roadmap. this isn’t meant as an antagonistic response, just a litmus test on the openness to try something again - under different parameters.
