This is so disappointing. Myself, friends and family ordered multiple boxes of caffeine-free versions every month, with myself doing so monthly since launch in Aug last year. Would always bring a bunch of cans to a particular friend who loves them every time I visited. This was garnering great reception with so many people who don’t usually have Huel… I don’t consume caffeine as stimulants just aren’t necessary, and the others don’t/can’t for various reasons like heart problems, intolerances, and avoiding too many stimulants.
As the trends of caffeine-free products, stimulant awareness and availability of intolerance checks all continue to rise, Huel goes the opposite way… This was a perfect product that got me to introduce many people to Huel who didn’t like Powder or RTD, and now the product that hooked them is discontinued, sending them back elsewhere. That’s a few Huel subs cancelled now and no more cans for me going forward, what a shame.
The drink simply does not need caffeine. It already has electrolytes, vits, mins, etc which gives a noticeable energy boost.
Would have loved to have seen Huel release this product without any caffeine mention in the first place, because I bet the success would have been the same. Speculative, but I absolutely bet the vast majority of people just order the caffeine version for the sake of it, rather than having any real opinion or desire to specifically choose that version, nor would they notice any difference. Tell me the last time anyone opted for a Red Bull because it specifically had a certain amount of grams of caffeine in it… barely anybody cares, they just buy it simply because it’s branded as an energy drink and it works.
Huel had the perfect position to market their energy drink as a nutritional alternative to junk energy drinks without relying on stimulants. I tried the new flavours which were great and was really looking forward to buying caffeine-free boxes of them.
Favourite Huel drink = gone. Sad.
