I am not a longtime Huel user, but I have went through 2 bags of v2.2 and was truly loving it.
When I finished both bags and recently made another order, I was met with v2.3 New and Improved. Straight away after blending and opening the lid, I was instantly hit with an alien smell when it comes to Huel, in my opinion and experience of it that is. As well as an alien taste of a very sweet, strong and sickly artificial vanilla flavour - I nearly threw up drinking it. It no longer feels like a healthy food. Also, the after taste for hours afterwards is so off putting, before it was a very light oaty taste, now it’s a full blown artificial taste in your mouth.
I contacted support and I can return any unopened bags of Huel for the original before this one, however, I am bitterly disappointed that I am stuck with a bag of powder that I don’t want or want to drink, hopefully some friends like the new and improved 2.3 and I can sell it to them. I am simply going to check every time I order to see if there are any changes to the formula, as I will not be testing out new versions on behalf of Huel for full price.
I realise there are other threads talking about the new taste and how awful some people are finding it, and I must say I am most definitely one of those people. I see others praising the new taste; I would like to meet them to see if their posts are genuine or not. I can only imagine the change in taste is because of people complaining about the blandness, as I can think of no other reason for this to happen. This straight away makes me want to stop Huel altogether if this is a typical company who constantly have to mess with their product instead of leaving it alone. I realise there is the original they are still selling, but this will only happen until enough people get on board with the sickly “new and Improved” and they will discontinue the old.
The point of my post is to ask the following questions:
Is Huel going to continually “improve” the formula as per customer feedback?
Will the 2.2 Huel that existed before the 2.3 New and Improved be available for many years to come or will this be phased out? If it is going to be phased out, I don’t see why it shouldn’t just be discontinued right now.
Why did Huel add more sugar and salt into 2.3 New and Improved? I feel that is counter-productive to the term “Improved” in relation to health, which is what I thought Huel was all about, even though there is more fibre I don’t think this makes up for the other additions.
What decision was made to add such a strong and artificial - almost metallic - taste to Huel?
It pains me to say that my feelings towards Huel have changed for the worse. If the bags I originally ordered are going to be phased out and replaced with artificial sugary nonsense I will have to say thanks, but cheerio, as I got into Huel because of it’s healthy aspect and I feel this will only get worse as time goes on.
I look forward to hearing staff member responses regarding this.
Why is it any less healthy? “Mountains out of molehills” comes to minds. You don’t like 2.3, fair enough. Return it for 2.2.
Huel have stated 2.2 will carry on being produced indefinitely, no time frames have been given as far as I can see.
A tiny amount more sugar and salt is hardly the end of the world and I’d still consider Huel infinitely more healthy than 90% of the population’s daily nutrition.
For the record: I love 2.3. I found 2.2 extremely sweet and far more artificial. 2.3, for me, tastes far more natural and oaty. Completely subjective, I guess.
I didn’t say it was any less healthy, I said it tastes less healthy. I can see the trend of replying without fully reading/understanding a post is still alive and well.
It is the end of the world when it has drastically changed the taste and kept essentially the same name as the previous product. The formula hasn’t changed much, but the taste has. If the new and improved was called “Vanilla Plus” or something similar then alarm bells might have went off, instead for all intents and purposes they’ve replaced it with a different product in regards to taste.
You’re thinking in the present and not the future. So they’ve increased sugar and salt in this iteration, in the next version they increase it a bit more, and the next etc etc.
It is subjective, although I respectfully disagree with your assessment that 2.3 New and Improved tastes far more natural and oaty, and you found 2.2 extremely sweet and artificial. That is factually incorrect when 2.2 does not have “Sweetener: Sucralose” listed in the ingredients, and the new and improved does.
My preference is also with the original, the issue is that I have a bag of Huel I’m not keen on and would rather not have if I’d knew the new one was going to be such a different taste, but essentially have the same name.
Not very happy with Huel at the moment because of it, hopefully that can be resolved in the future though!
Hi @Lister82 - sorry you’re unhappy with the flavour. We really took time to develop it and feedback was involved.
I’ll answer your questions directly:
Huel always continues to improve formulas and customer feedback is paramount in this
v2.2 Huel has already been discontinued; it was discontinued on the day we launched v2.3. However, the Original vanilla flavour is still available. We plan to keep it available indefintely. if people still but it, we’ll still sell it.
We didn’t add any more sugar and salt; neither are present on the ingredient lists of v2.2 or v2.3. I jigged a couple of main ingredients and this made really minor changes to the suagr amount; but this was so minor! And the salt amount was unchanged!
There was no decision made to do this; so we didn’t.
I really don’t know what else to say - we improved the formula and added a new flavour and kept the old one. You tried it and didn’t like it!
You asked for a matter to be resolved, but I’m not really sure what matter needs resolving!
Maybe you could mix in 75g of original vanilla with 25g of new vanilla (or however much you typically use) until it’s used up, so you get the preferred taste?
Many thanks for getting back to me and for answering my queries, it is very useful.
Regarding the sugar and salt. I only went by the ingredients list between the 2.2 and the 2.3 new an improved. The salt content per 100g did only go up by 0.1g which is fairly insignificant, but the sugar has went up by 0.3g; minor increases yes, but when when the number was 0.9g a 0.3g increase is significant per 100g.
I’m trying to see how the new and improved is so sweet compared to the 2.2. I realise there are others who think the new one is less sweet and more natural compared, personally I have no idea how that could be said considering the addition of the sucralose sweetener listed in the ingredients and more sugar per 100g in the new and improved.
The matter to be resolved is that I have an opened bag of Huel which I thought was what I bought initially, because it essentially had the exact same name, but for all intents and purposes is a different product in relation to taste. As @ElectroDan mentioned I could mix the two, but feel this situation could be avoided if the name had changed to “Vanilla Plus” or “Vanilla Extra” or a totally different name, and I know I’m not the only one with these thoughts on the new and improved. It has caused a fair amount of grief on my end for all it is, considering I will have to arrange a return of the unopened bag and wait for the flavour I want, which will take another week at least, and I was using it as my breakfast which I won’t be able to do so until then.
As mentioned I am not a long time Huel user, but my feelings towards Huel have certainly taken a major hit because of the decision regarding the taste change and keeping - essentially - the same name.
There are legal requirements on our labelling where we have to round (it’s also logical to round as, of course, ingredients to vary); with the rounding in mind and referring to my formulas, there is minute differences.
A flavour system can interact with sweeteners differently, and so it may be that the flavour system in Vanilla is giving a sweeter sensation. Personally, I find Original sweeter.
We did indeed consider what to call the vanillas at great length; we felt New & Improved was best. I dare say whatever we would have chosen would have been adversely commented on by some.
I’m really sorry that this nomenclature issue has majorly hit your feelings towards Huel. We will certainly take on board your comments.
Hi James just to say thank you for the free huel pouch after a misunderstanding in my order, I just informmed that I didn’t receive the new vanilla flavour v2.3 and I received the original flavour instead but I wasn’t bother at all as I am a regular hueler and I could have it in my next order… anayways thank you so much.
The other point I would like to share with the forum is that I think is the best flavour ever, I am really enyoing drinking it, I remember the first time that I tried huel long time ago, the flavour put me off, I couldn’t drink the whole shake as I found the taste… well it wasn’t my cup of tea ;)…
Then I tried to mix it with other stuff like raspberries, apples, bananas etc, then I got used to it with new versions as the flavour was more subtle… but I have to say that finally the taste can compete with the rest of the powder food, I love the new flavour, so please don’t discontinue it!!!
Congratulations for such a good product you have, very satisfied.
Back to the new and improved again today since my order came in yesterday, so thankful for this! Tried the new caramel with it as well as I bought the 1.50 flavour boost pack just to try it. New favourite flavour boost for sure.
