I usually order 8 bags of Huel at a time, sometimes with some extras like bars. The outer cardboard box that it arrives in is usually in a somewhat battered state, and this time it had holes at the corners. It seems the box isn’t strong enough for the ~15 kg payload. Can you use stronger boxes?
We really are terribly sorry about this! This is definitely not our usual standard and in situations where the box has had this much damage, we would aim to make a complaint with the courier.
As for the boxes we do try to use the strongest boxes possible, however, if the parcel has been shaken about more than usual then we can’t always prevent damage to orders if your order has been handled without care.
Please get in touch with the customer experience team either via live chat, email, or our social channels and we will make sure to look into this for you.
Can I ask was there any damage to your order at all?
I’ve chewed them out several times for this, one time the box was basically open. The latest orders have been closed but the boxed have looked pretty beat up.
there’s gotta be a fair amount of poor treatment by the courier service involved - I regularly get deliveries of 8 bags+ that have to go through a minimum of 4 flights with all the various cargo handling and transit - and never had a box thats been broken open or contents damaged in the 2 years+ I’ve been getting deliveries here.
This is typically the condition it arrives in - the extra taping is where the local customs office have opened it for inspection and resealed it
I live in London, and for me the box is always in a somewhat battered/damaged state for the ~15 kg deliveries. The contents themselves are fine though.
2 Likes
Perhaps for the larger up to 15kilo deliveries, they could look at double wall corrugate instead of single wall boxes. Single wall should easily be able to take the weight, but appears to be susceptible to crush from the side looking at your pictures. Double wall would help eliminate this for sure but obviously the cost of the box is doubled. They would have to look into how many returns or damages they have on these deliveries to assess if that extra cost is mitigated or if it is in fact poor handling by the delivery agents.
1 Like
The company I use for shipping boxes has a product called enviro boxes. They are single walled but with the strength of double walled - but cheaper.
The bigger the box you send the more susceptible to damage it is alas.
1 Like
I never really got their marketing on those – on one hand they say that it offers increased strength over most double wall boxes and advanced support over their own standard single wall and double wall boxes.
But they also sell double wall boxes that they say ‘have 2 layers of corrugated board, making them our strongest general-use boxes’
Reading between the lines, the Enviro box is just a much denser flute in the corrugate that saves about 7% of the materials over a double wall but bought in bulk, the largest enviro box is the same price as the same size double wall box. They are a little cheaper on smaller boxes/volumes though.
Yes it is a denser flute. I like them, their single walled are really quite flimsy to be fair, especially noticeable on larger boxes.
another (very easy) option would be to add self adhesive angle boards on the interior corners when a large heavy parcel is being packed - simple compressed board bracing that adds an additional compression strength of up to 150 kg vertically and 35kg horizontally.
that way they could carry on using existing boxes but just brace them as needed as the bursting strength capabilities seem fine but the edge crush strength doesn’t seem to be able to cope with DPD drivers 
3 Likes
Don’t think I’ve ever had an order where the box hasn’t been damaged. Tbh I don’t care that much so long as the product inside is ok.
Worst one tho was the courier just dumping it outside the door, upside down and damaged and so when I picked it up, bags of huel and boxes of bars went all over the place. Was like a Huel piñata party!
Pain in the posterior having to pick everything up in my fairly crippled state tho. Blinkin’ couriers eh?
Can’t live with 'em, can’t kill 'em. Sadly.
4 Likes
The boxes I receive are always a little damaged too, usually taped over with lots of tape by the delivery company.
The Huel pouches are usually fine, probably less than 10 pouches a year come broken (a large enough puncture on the side) and with the powder spilled out all over the other pouches and rest of the box.
I don’t know what Huel could do to improve that, delivery business is rough with all packages.
I too have had this problem with larger deliveries. One possible improvement would be a single shipment in multiple smaller boxes. My most recent order was for 11 bags and it came as a large (quite damaged) box with 9 bags in, plus a compact 2-bag box with 2 bags in. a more sensible split might have been 6 and 5 in two medium boxes…
As it happens in this case, both boxes were pretty crushed and I was surprised to find minimal damage to the bags (one has signs of nearly puncturing but hadn’t popped like I’ve had before so I’m just going to use that one first). I suspect the smaller box had been under the larger one in the truck.
I do wonder whether the damage en-route by couriers (or their sorting location staff) is effectively a protest at the difficulty of handling the combined size and weight of the boxes, or their lack of adequate support (equipment, time etc.) to handle them.
1 Like
if they don’t like lifting boxes or working under tight time lines then…they’ve probably picked the wrong job
Heh yeah, don’t start conspiracy theories, no one in the world would do that. They might grumble at the size but they won’t be wilfully damaging anything.
It’s just transit, it happens. 
The structure of the boxes is definitely something we’re investigating and trialling new variants. Luckily most orders aren’t at the size that you Hueligans are ordering, so this is less prevalent on those more common smaller orders. The point @rikefrejut has raised above is the big one for us, because that’s food waste. It’s happening less and less, but it’s still happening so coming up with a solution to mitigate these burst pouches is critical. Huel hate food waste.
2 Likes
I order 8 bags at a time because Huel encourages that with the pricing. Otherwise I might order, let’s say, 4 or 5 at a time. But in the UK 8 bags is £19 per bag and 4 bags is £21 per bag, so…
I order Huel for myself and a few of my friends, so my orders are likely larger than usual, and some of my colleagues make large orders too.
Sometimes it all comes in a Huge box, sometimes a large box and a small box, and sometimes it’s all repackaged by the delivery company into a different (non-Huel branded) box with a note to check if any items are missing.
I don’t report these damaged boxes to Huel, since I always check that the actual Huel bags are ok. If there’s a tiny puncture to the Huel bag, then I don’t bother either, since it should be fine and I too dislike food waste. The issue is with those holes/tears on the side, always in the similar spot, that I’ve received and my friends have too, where the powder spills out and makes a mess, and it makes the rest of the bag suspect from a health perspective so it cannot be consumed.
You get even better deal with 16 bags at a time, though it makes the box heavier and likely to experience rougher handling.
It’s not that common, out of probably over 250 bags last year, it was around 10 that were damaged this much. This year it was two bags for me that were torn (or two different order dates), so it is possibly getting better. And in any case, the food waste is so much smaller than with what we were all used to eating before.
4 Likes