Just received my latest delivery of RTD chocolate. Noticed the bottles now have a white cap and didn’t think much of it until I just tried a bottle. Has a strange artificial after taste. Don’t like it! Anyone else noticed a difference or are my taste buds off today?
I got chocolate RTD just yesterday and I still have black caps on them (EU).
I got my delivery on Saturday… wondering if I can return it. Not sure I can get used to that taste
I received the bottles with the white caps today. i’ll have one in a bit and let you know if i think the flavor has changed. (UK)
Just had it and i’m not sure if there’s much of flavor change. I think it tastes more nutty but that might just be me.
I just received my vanilla bottles today with white cap instead of black… still tastes good here. (In the past I returned some when we switched to the foil capped ones due to the flavour) - it might just be all in my head, but it seemed a bit smoother? Can’t comment on the chocolate ones sadly, but vanilla still good.
Just had a 2nd delivery of Vanilla RTD today and it’s the older black cap bottles - so might get either 
I had my white cap order of both chocolate and vanilla arrive yesterday. I’m yet to try the vanilla but the chocolate has certainly changed again. What a shame! Its not as bad as the last major change but its not as nice as the previous orders. Trying to work out whether it’s drinkable? I wish Huel would communicate changes like this so we can decide before purchasing.
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Heyy! Thanks for the message, let me answer your queries!
The RTD is now going to have a white cap, this is just a design preference change. You might receive black or white, but the black lids are being phased out.
There has been no change in flavour. The RTD is identical. I believe what you are likely experiencing is placebo, having seen a different lid you were expecting a different flavour. However this isn’t the case.
I remember about 4 years ago we removed colouring from our Strawberry Flavour boost (now Berry Flavour Boost). A Hueligan got in touch and said that we had filled their FB pouch with the wrong flavour, it definitely wasn’t Strawberry. We panicked, because machines filling products with the wrong product would be a huge and worrying systematic error. We asked them to send the pouch to us ASAP so we could verify. The pouch arrived, filled with white FB, and to us smelling richly of strawberry flavouring and after mixing it, tasting exactly as it was meant to. It was Strawberry Flavour Boost with no colouring, but this Hueligan was adamant it wasn’t the same!
On that note, if you truly do believe the flavour to be different (maybe test side by side if you can), then please contact the customer experience team and they can help you out!
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I completely concur with you Creitin- something HAS changed over time.
Perhaps it’s not the ingredients, but something in the production method or formula maybe that change the texture which might affect the taste?
The reason I ‘know’ something changed is because in the original bottles there would ALWAYS be a sort of ‘curd’ or ‘crust’ of the Chocolate RTD Huel stuck to the lid, which I rather enjoyed licking off before consuming the contents of the bottle. It also tasted more ‘chocolatey’. This ‘curdling’ stopped abruptly at some point and no longer adhered to the lid (bottles were same size at the time), so I knew something had changed. I still enjoy the Choc RTD and drink up to 3 of them a day so it’s not a complaint as such, but I could swear that they now feel smoother and taste less chocolatey than they once did; I don’t actually like the smoothness, it’s just feels a little too silky now.
If I’m imagining it or have just gotten too accustomed to the taste then I can accept that as the explanation, but it doesn’t explain the lack of ‘curd’ that there once was on the lids!
Anyway I am still a fan and I REALLY appreciate having the new banana flavour to mix things up, it is a great ‘summer vibes’ option. Can’t wait for more flavours, as 90% of my whole diet is RTD.
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We changed manufacturer last year and stock from this manufacturer has been in circulation since around the end of April/beginning of May. Since then, no changes have been made to the product at all apart from the colour of the lids recently!
I think this will vary batch for batch and how it’s stored - I definitely still get some with the “curd”. More so Vanilla than Chocolate, though. This is similar to when you open a yoghurt, for example.
We’ve opted to make RTD as silky smooth as possible to offer a completely different texture to our Powder ranges as a lot of people find that too grainy/bitty, but it’s interested to hear you’re not a fan, so thanks for sharing!
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Ah so there WAS a change in manufacturing in the past, I guess I preferred the old manufacturer’s version. I’ve gone through about 50 boxes of the stuff since Aug 19 - the thicker ‘curd’ (which I enjoyed) most definitely ceased at a specific time and never resumed, but as you say perhaps that’s do with the storage rather than the recipe, I did wonder about that. It seemed to taste more chocolatey and a bit richer, or maybe just felt more satisfying on the tongue, which I do miss.
It’s amazing the power of suggestion colouring has in food. I drank an entire chocolate Huel once thinking it was a vanilla one. It was only when I noticed the label afterwards that I realised it was supposed to be chocolate.
It’s one reason I always disliked the Huel branding and packaging. I always feel like I’m about to drink swedish cement.
Appreciate the reply!
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Hmmm…
I saw the white cap but noticed v1.0 and did not think any more about it until I tasted it. When I first posted I really thought that my taste buds may just be off that day. I have found another carton in the back of my cupboard with the black cap and I tried the taste test - blind test in two identical glasses. I could already smell the difference before I took a sip! There’s definitely a change in taste, not just in my head. I have no idea how this is still v1.0. It is not. The previous one is thicker and has a great chocolate taste. The new delivery is not as smooth and I really don’t like the taste, particularly the aftertaste. I will return the other boxes, I can’t drink this.
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So sorry to hear you’re not a fan and wish to return it. I have some words here from one of our Technical Managers who looks after RTD from a quality and technical perspective:
“The product inside the bottle is exactly the same as before when the black lids were used so there is no difference from the previous bottles recipe. The only change is the use of white lids instead of black ones.”
As Tim mentioned, feel free to contact the CE team via team@huel.com should you wish to chat further!
I can 100% taste a difference! Been having this product for a long time.
Yes. The blind side by side glass taste made it obvious to me.
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Either the ingredients have changed and Huel are lying about it (seems unlikely), the new lids are somehow changing the taste of the product (seems more likely), or we are all delusional!
I also thought absolutely nothing of the new design - just thought the design had been updated which happens frequently, but when I tasted it I was amazed the difference. My first thought was that this was an old version when I saw the “v1.0” but then searching online I realised that this was the current version. Definitely not a placebo in my case.
Is it feasible that the different manufacturer might be related to the different taste? This seems just as feasible to me as the placebo effect.
We’ve been using this manufacturer for nearly a year now, whereas people are only seemingly noticing a change in flavour since the lids.
There really isn’t a lot more that I can say apart from that I can confirm the recipe hasn’t changed whatsoever with the new white lids - this information has come directly from the NPD and Technical teams.
I’ll drop you a private message to chat further!