Hey, I really do not like plastic bottles, so the new Tritan bottle does not do it for me either.
Y’all very health concerned. So could you create a stainless steel huel shaker? I would buy it.
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What’s your reason for not liking the plastic bottle? What were you using before to make Huel?
We don’t have a stainless steel shaker on the horizon, it took us 3 years to get to our custom new shaker, and although that means a stainless steel one would likely be a lot faster (since it’s the 2nd time round) it’s not on the horizon.
Hi BigGay ! if you really need a steel shaker you should check out ShakeSphere shakers, they are really amazing!
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Yeah, why a metal one? Wouldn’t that just be the same but a heavier bottle?
And holy expletive, the prices of the linked metal shakers…
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Exactly. I don’t think most people are up for paying £55 for one shaker.
Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum is probably one of the few that can afford it.
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woah, didn’t see that. It’s worth noting, the objective of the shaker was to create something we could give to every new customer - that’s the Huel way and was the same when we worked on our v2.0 t-shirt and moved away from the Gildan - immediately this whittles down our options on what we can do with materials and features.
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The science is shakey, but plastics acting on estrogen receptors on my ovaries and such.
I prefer to go plastic free. I even bought a 70 euro water cooker because it was the only stainless steel option left.
As for the people commenting, 55 pounds for a shaker. That specific shaker has premiums on top and is double walled. I am fine with the regular huel stainless steel bottle, but made into a shaker. I am sure Huel can make it and sell it for 30 Euros and still make a profit. Double steel wall seems a little excessive. I’ve never broken one of the plastic bottles either.
This one is 11 Euros for example. I am sure if Huel makes a stainless steel shaker it will be surprisingly low priced.
If Huel does go through with it though. Perhaps make a shaker without any plastics involved around the mouthpiece and anywhere the mouth/fluids will touch it. I’d throw 30 Euros at it easily. I’d probably buy 2 for convenience sake since I do a double bachelor and am very busy.
The science of plastics acting on estrogen receptors were all in vitro, shaky ass studies. I normally know better. But for me it comes from the same health OCD as my preference for getting all my amino acids, the Omega 3’s and getting the biologically active variant of many vitamins such a 5-MTHF and stuff. Its why I chose Huel in the first place, y’all vegan and you put all the stuff I usually got from specific all in one vitamin bottles, into a drink high in protein.
And I’ve seen the shaky unproven science in regards of 5-MTHF. Even then I want to errr on the shaky side. I’ve seen the glycine studies and 5-MTHF serves a function in the same pathway.
If my OCD brain thinks it could potentially buy me a few more years on this hellish Earth, I am doing it I suppose.
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Many people tend to focus on a few specific beneficial aspects of stainless steel bottles but also tend to ignore the full lifecycle of the product and how bad it actually is. All the benefits are also cited over single use virgin resin plastic drinks bottles as opposed to reusable ones or bottles produced with recycled resins.
The production and distribution of a stainless steel bottle requires seven times as much fossil fuel, releases 14 times more toxic and greenhouse gases, demands the extraction of hundreds of times more natural resources and causes hundreds of times more toxic risk to people and ecosystems than making an equivalent plastic bottle.
The margin of increased energy consumption is vast by comparison – all through the production and distribution process – that’s before you even get into all of its toxic and environmentally damaging components such as nickel, chromium and molybdenum. While the final products may be seen as ‘clean’, their creation is very dirty.
It’s an inconvenient truth to be sure but one that many consumers either choose to ignore or are unaware of. I’m sure all of the people in countries around the world who have to live and work around the mines creating the raw materials for this would not thank you for your environmentally ‘friendly’ choice.
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Thanks for your thoughts! Interesting to discuss this sort of thing.
As I mentioned, this shaker isn’t for us to make a profit, it’s to give this shaker away for free to every new Hueligan. If we only sold these on site, very few people would buy them and the investment we made in manufacturing and tooling would not be able to to be recovered.
I don’t believe this would provide optimal function, the plastics allow the bottles to seal and prevent leaks. Metal on metal would likely lead to leaks.
Thanks @Phil_C for that insight. This was definitely a consideration, although I didn’t know the impact was so great, I would love to read more about that, do you have the references for this part?
I would enjoy reading this.
I have a stainless steel shaker. Unfortunately it fell out my locker at work, it didn’t break or spill the contents but it now has a lovely big dent in it. I never enjoyed drinking my huel out of it and i still prefer the huel shakers. I also found the stainless shaker to be heavier. I dont wish to experiment and drop my lovely new shaker as perhaps it would break. 
If the impact is that big I’ll opt for plastic bottles instead, despite the OCD around ovarian damage. Either way, my ovaries hella dead if I die an early demise from climate change. Which we probably will either way…
I own a 3080 as is and god knows people suffered terribly in order to mine said resources. I didn’t know stainless steel has chromium in it. And I don’t mean the browser firmware. But then it makes sense that its very polluting to make stainless steel accessories. I would also like to see references for that though since the ratios seem a bit extreme.
Maybe Borosilicate glass could be good? I’ve seen non-leaking borosilicate water bottles.
Stainless steel is nice and all, but glass is much less polluting. Borosilicate specifically is one of the strongest kinds of glass. If it doesnt ring any bells, its the see through glass stuff you bake lasagna in and can very well withstand being dropped.
Apologies for the long read, but just to clarify for anyone reading my original post – I am NOT saying that manufactured stainless steel PRODUCTS are dangerous, just the process of extracting and producing the raw materials needed to make it. Even though they contain carcinogenic and toxic materials – the manufactured products themselves are seen as being an inert material and perfectly safe to use and with many benefits.
As for their production, when it comes to facts and figures regarding plastics vs metals, these will vary wildly when you read reports depending on who has written the report and what their agenda/backing is.
One point that is common though is that the component materials mined and smelted for stainless production are conveniently ignored.
There are many reports such as this one:
LIFE CYCLE IMPACTS OF PLASTIC PACKAGING COMPARED TO SUBSTITUTES
that detail the massive impact on increased energy usage needed if we were to switch wholesale from plastic to plastic alternative packaging. In the US alone that would be the equivalent of adding the energy needs of an extra 3.5 million homes every year. Unless that energy was 100% provided by sustainable sources then this just compounds the problem.
When you read about energy consumption of plastic packaging production, the most common one you will see is relating to a bottle of water. These are ALWAYS heavily skewed as the numbers given relate to its full life cycle including oil extraction, material manufacture, bottle manufacture, shipping, filling, labelling, packing, shipping to retailers, disposal etc.
Its far simpler and more transparent if you can simply look at the mathematics involved in the manufacturing of the base materials and how much you get out of them. (these are readily available with a little research) While the energy used to create plastic resins varies depending on the plastic – it ranges from 55 to the worst (polystyrene) at 87.4 GJ/tonne and a CO2 output of 5.1 tonnes per tonne of resin, stainless has a fairly constant output including the core materials and steel production itself:
Iron: 22GJ/tonne
Nickel: 114GJ/tonne
Ferrochrome: 56GJ/tonne
304 stainless: 75GJ/tonne
Total: 267GJ/tonne
For your comparison, the global average family home uses around 100GJ per year increasing to 130GJ in colder climates.
So if we take a high density plastic such as food grade PP used in traditional shakers, that requires 73.4GJ/tonne. The finished bottle component weighs 77g meaning you can get 12,987 bottles from one tonne of material resulting in it having a production energy impact of 0.005GJ per bottle.
If we compare that to the Huel single wall (not insulated) stainless bottle you are approx.135g so 7,407 bottles from one tonne of material and 0.036GJ per bottle which is 7 times the energy needed to make one stainless product over an equivalent capacity HD plastic one.
If you imagine the distribution and delivery logistics of these products are almost double than a plastic one, then that further weakens their position as a good alternative. Typically, the combined energy needed for road freight container transport equates to 191 kilojoules per tonne per kilometre.
It’s also worth considering end of life scenarios – the carbon footprint of one tonne of stainless steel requires around 75GJ energy and 6.6 tonnes of CO2 emissions to recycle whereas plastic needs only 8GJ and 450kg of CO2 emissions
By far the largest gaseous emission in plastic resin production is CO2 due to its main ingredient – oil. Other gases released in smaller amounts are trichloroethane, acetone, methylene chloride, methyl ketone, styrene, sulphur and nitrous oxides.
If you combine the emissions of harmful gases in the production of virgin stainless (including its core components) they are far more varied and larger in amounts – some of the nastier examples would be:
- Carbon Dioxide: 24.8 tonnes / tonne of finished product
- Carbon Monoxide: 0.239 tonnes / tonne of finished product
- Methane: 0.66 tonnes / tonne of finished product
- NOx: 2.62 tonnes / tonne of finished product
- NMVOC: 0.34 tonnes / tonne of finished product
(benzene, ethanol, formaldehyde, cyclohexane, 1,1,1-trichloroethane, acetone etc.) - Sulphur Dioxide: 2.2 tonnes / tonne of finished product
Many advocates will also tell you that stainless doesn’t have any run off pollutants entering the water system and food chain – while technically this is true only in the context of the finished stainless production, it most certainly is not true of the production of its many core components such as chromium and nickel. These are major polluters with highly toxic and carcinogenic by-products contaminating the water and land around their production as well as presenting serious health hazards to the people fabricating it.
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I don’t think I’d enjoy drinking huel from a metal bottle. The plastic is good to keep the taste neutral, meal would add a taste to it I often don’t enjoy when drinking things
Well said. Steel shaker= virtually pointless excess energy/materials usage.
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I actually would prefer an insulated stainless steel shaker bottle for various reasons like it being odor-free and easy to clean and since most people tend to use Huel for on the go and as a convenient and quick-meal such a bottle would increase convenience as you can keep it in your bag and have a ready-to-drink meal without worrying about it spoiling due to heat or keeping an H&S warm in it.
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I have a metal bottle I drink my huel from but it has a plastic lid and straw so I guess I get the worst of both worlds!
One of the reasons we didn’t opt for a metal insulated shaker was that it would be HUGE. Currently the Huel shaker is ~900ml. This gives it enough room to shake thoroughly. But if you’ve ever seen double wall insulated metal bottles that are ~900ml they’re like artillery rounds. I think a lot of people would struggle to grip it and shake without launching it through the kitchen window!
Wrote some other points here too