@LaurenMcG I’ve just taken a look at what you are selling on eBay, essentially your own mix which includes Huel:
“Ketogenic Huel__Complete Food Meal Replacement Powder - Keto Huel - 500g” Ingredients: - 50% Huel Vanilla v2.3 - 35% 90+ Vegan Protein Powder - 15% Jeeva Coconut Flour Delivered in a clear, resealable plastic pouch.
I’m not an expert on ketogenic diets, so can you tell me, are you a qualified nutritionist specialising in ketogenesis? From the research I have done into ketogenic diets, I’m not sure this mix would actually put you into keto due to the high protein content.
I’m not criticising, just want to know if this has been created with expertise, and tested to actually be a ketogenic diet?
In terms of it being a ‘complete food’, my feelings are that it is not.
Huel on its own is a complete food. Your recipe would no longer have the correct levels of vitamins, minerals and micronutrients to be classed as a complete food (in my opinion).
If it was this easy to create a ketogenic version of Huel, I’m sure the Huel nutritionists would already have done it and put it on the market.
I know @JamesCollier provided some low carb hacks, which you have sort of copied, so I’d really love to know what he and @IcyElemental think of this, not because I’m criticising - I am genuinely interested in a keto version of Huel and am interested to know if this recipe would genuinely put you into a state of keto, and if it would still be a complete food.
(sorry to say though - I would just make it myself, which I have done, with James’ LCHF recipe).
I don’t want to start another debate on whether keto is good or not, I just want to know if the recipe you are selling is genuinly ketogenic and can genuinely be described as a complete food.
Thanks for the curiousity As I described above, I’ve just used the low-carb hacks on the Huel website. I included the brands for people to research and calculate themselves, but thought it would be more useful to work out the macronutrient values, which has now been included in the listing, with references and credit welcome to more improvements!
I think if you are selling it with a description of “Complete Food - Ketogenic Huel” you need to be sure that it would actually be a complete food, meeting all your nutritional needs, whilst keeping you in a state of ketosis. I am concerned that your listing states it is “new in original retail packaging”, which it is not. And also that you are calling it Ketogenic Huel when its not.
If you were to sell for example one bag of unopened Huel, one bag of coconut flour, and one bag of vegan protein, plus a recipe card, as a package, this would be more ‘honest’, and you would need to credit James really for the recipe plus link to his blog on this so the buyer can read the full description of the recipe and then make their own informed decision on whether this is a suitable diet for them.
I totally get what you are trying to do and think it is a great idea, but it takes way more time, research and expertise to actually develop a nutrionally complete vegan ketogenic meal replacement.
I like your idea (in the other thread) however of opening a retail store stocking a variety of complete food products.
This is really good advice Christina! I’ll update the listing and seriously consider your suggestion - it’s a great idea, more transparent and gives more credit to James and the Huel team. <3
Thanks again, and for your encouragement on the other posts idea welcome to more suggestions x
I like the idea of Christina but please bare j.mind that huel is a registered trade mark. You cannot use that brand name without their written consent.
Your ebay advert as it currently stands isn’t right. You have used, likely without permission, Huel’s photos of their product alongside the title “Ketogenic Huel 500g - complete food meal replacement protein powder” which implies from the title it is a ketogenic version of Huel, made by Huel, which it isn’t.
Selling unopened products is the only way I can this this working at all. If you start opening various complete foods or other powders and mixing together your own this that and the other there will be no traceability or liability anywhere. If a customer becomes ill or one of the ingredients is contaminated you will have no way to find out which one and none of the manufacturers of the ingredients will accept any liability the moment you open their product and mix it with another product and repackage it.
Acting as a coordinated distributor of sealed products based on certain recipes you propose would in theory work but it would be very easy to just take your recipes and buy the raw ingredients yourself.
Thanks for the input Is mixing ingredients different to what Huel and other food manufactures do to create their products, if I have the appropriate safety certificates?
Do you have the appropriate safety certificates? I hope so, because you are already selling your product on ebay.
If you are going to mix together products then you will become a manufacturer. I think there’s a bit more to it than opening some packets, mixing stuff together in your kitchen, re-packaging it and selling it on ebay. Here is a link to an article Huel have written on what they have to do to get the certification for the ingredients they buy. https://uk.huel.com/pages/food-safety-and-quality-controls
You have definitely jumped into this far too early. You haven’t done your homework on the logistics of this business, you haven’t decided on business model (mix and match or sell unopened products), you haven’t (it seems) even spoken to Huel yet about your plans/ideas and you haven’t decided on a company name. Basic stuff like using another company’s registered trademark and photos without permission is having to be pointed out to you on a forum. And your ebay advert is wholly misleading and is still online with all the same issues which were pointed out to you hours ago.
I really think you should take your advert off ebay and have proper discussions with Huel before going any further.
You’re not just mixing ingredients though, you are taking a patented product, adding other ingredients and then selling it on as a new version of that product. You state on your other post that you have permission from the brands and their support but perhaps what you have is their permission to resell their product as a distributor? Or perhaps in the case of a raw ingredient ie flour, perhaps you have permission to use this raw ingredient in a product you are planning to create and sell. What I’m fairly certain you will not have is permission to sell a ‘new’ version of Huel.
I’d also like to point out that what you are calling a ketogenic version of Huel is definitely not ketogenic. I have looked again at James’ low carb hack (note he calls it low-carb not keto) and he gives two recipes: one for higher protein and one for higher fat. The version you are recreating is the higher protein version. The higher fat one could possibly be keto but as James is a qualified nutritionist and still does not claim this to be a keto meal, it is unlikely to be so.
Also, you have substituted the dessicated coconut in James’ recipe, with coconut flour (which maybe is intentional so as to not copy his exactly, or perhaps is an unintentional / misinformed mistake).
Dessicated coconut has a much higher oil and therefore fat content, which is why it is used in the lower carb, higher fat hack. Coconut flour is made from the meat after the milk has been extracted and therefore is drier and has a much lower oil ie fat content, and therefore would not be a suitable ingredient to make a LCHF meal.
If you took a mars bar, unwrapped it, stuck some peanuts in the top and called it “Peanut Mars” you might possibly get away with selling it at your kids’ school’s charity bake-sale, but you certainly wouldn’t get away with selling it as your own product in a legitimate store, as a legitimate business.
At least with peanut mars there wouldn’t be any grey area over the presence of peanuts. What she has created and called keto-huel sounds like it’s not even keto.
@ChristinaT and @Coup Thanks for jumping in and wording this so much better than I’ve been able to up until now. I’ve had a short inbox conversation with @LaurenMcG trying to convey the same message you guys have been now, but English isn’t my first language so you guys have done a much better job of wording it. <3
Now that I’m not the only one saying it, I do hope you take the posts and eBay ad down before the Huel staff comes back, Lauren. Having this up won’t do you any favours if you do decide to switch your idea into a basic distributor kind of thing.
Happy to have helped. I still recommend you check with James and Huel however, that it is okay. Its great that you are now crediting them for the recipe (if that’s what you mean - although you would need to switch the coconut flour for dessicated coconut for it to be James’ high protein recipe) - but even with credits and references to them, you need to check they are okay with it. They might not want to be associated with someone selling opened and repackaged samples of Huel…
@LaurenMcG
I still have some concerns, but I guess that’s between you and any of your potential customers:
-You’re still calling it ketogenic when its definitely not
-You’re still mixing it with flour rather than dessicated coconut
-You’re still using a picture of Huel as your product image, implying it is made by Huel
-The listing still states it as ‘New in original retail packaging’ when it is not
As I described above, I’ve just used the low-carb hacks on the Huel website. I included the brands for people to research and calculate themselves, but thought it would be more useful to work out the macronutrient values, which has now been included in the listing, with references and credit