The shaker bottle is a joke

Hey @Sivar, welcome to the forum. Thanks for the feedback.

Sorry, what do you mean by ‘pins’? You mean the mesh of the grid/ice barrier?

It’s worth noting that the odour-resistance properties of Tritan plastic are far superior to those of our old Buchsteiner shaker. With proper care you shouldn’t be able to go a very long time with no odours.

  • Don’t leave for extended periods with Huel residue in
  • If this isn’t possible, at least rinse the shaker after use
  • Try to avoid adding to a dishwasher with many dishes with tomato based sauces present (e.g. you’ve just cooked a bolognese)

I would reiterate my above points and say that the Tritan shaker is much better than before, although granted not infallible.

That would certainly be cool. Although I can see a number of issues with such a shaker (such as weight and size being too big for some) the main issue when we were designing our new shaker was cost.

The shaker is an item which is given for free with every order of Huel v3.0, Black Edition or Complete Protein. As a result we were limited with the materials we could use, and we did look into many. At no point were we looking to produce a premium item only available on site for purchase.

We forecast that the amount we sold would not exceed the cost of such complex machinery and wouldn’t have been high enough numbers to work with the best manufacturers and designers. i.e. we wouldn’t have produced/sold enough to get the best factories out of bed!

Hope that makes sense!

p.s. I’ve moved your topic to an already existing, recent thread around the same topic.

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I’m not so sure on that as creating food grade stainless steel requires an enormous amount of resources and energy. @Phil_C who works in packaging wrote a bit about it a while ago :

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Sorry, if I made some mistakes, English is not my native language - I meant the rubber loop in the new shaker, that one connected to the cap. In the old shaker, on the other hand, it’s the part that connects the lid to the cap. It is nothing that makes the product unusable, it’s just annoying :slight_smile:

Yes, that sadly makes sense - I guess I will have to search for metal alternatives elsewhere. I bet I will be able to find some products that will work with Huel.

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Thanks for pointing it, I was not aware of the problem :slight_smile:

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No need to apologise, I just wanted to confirm the part which was broken for you.

I have seen this a few times, I’m going to check in with the team to see if it’s an issue which is being looked into.

For now, I believe we have spares of those parts and if you email the customer experience team they should be able to replace your lids - if they still have some.

Let me get back to you!

Edit: Fun nerdy shaker testing updates inbound for you! @Sivar

So the team has been well aware of this problem and have already designed and implemented a change which will be feeding through to new bottles shortly.

In a nutshell we have done two things:

  • Made the area where the lanyard/loop connects to the cap bigger
  • Added a radius (curve) to the vertical joins between the lanyard and cap to make it harder to initiate a tear

So now it looks like this.

We tested this new design to see how strong the new one is. All new cap/lanyard/loops passed the test, whereas all the old lanyards failed. So that’s a win for this new design.

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How is that lid different from the old lid? I got my bottle like threeish weeks ago and the lid looks exactly like in the picture from the top.

The changes are subtle: a small rounded corner where the loop connects to the cap, instead of a almost 90º angle. From the top view, you can’t see the bigger area, since it mostly is thicker, and not larger.

Stronger and with subtly sexier curves too!
Way to go, shaker cap-loop. :+1:

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Cool! Happy that you made it better :slight_smile:
Do you know when new shakers will be available in store, so I can buy one with upgraded cap?

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Yes super subtle, but they’ve tested whether this design tweak improves it and it seems to. They basically have this machine that pulls the lanyard at a few different angles to replicate the twisting forces the lanyard goes under, at around 40 newtons of tension (like 4kg hanging off it). They do that 5000 times.

  1. The old lanyards all fail
  2. The new lanyards all pass

I’ll find out when the changeover date could be, but it will depend. Let me get back to you.

Edit: @Sivar Unfortunately we don’t have any trackable way to say for sure when the changeover will happen, but we can do couple of things:

  • the team will find out more details on the exact shipments with the new lanyards arrive at our distribution centres (DCs) and see if I can get a more accurate estimate by them
  • ask the DCs to send a photo of the shakers currently being sent out so we can visually check
  • we do have spare pieces that we send out to anyone who loses their lid or has problems like you have. However right now they are all the old ones, so we will see if we can replace them with the new ones, but could take a few months.

I still exclusively use the old (Buchsteiner) shaker despite having a couple of the new shakers too. Its three wins versus the new design are:

  • Much easier to see liquid levels, plus the 100ml markings make it easier to use for other things, including Complete Protein.
  • Wider mouth means less spilled powder to clean up, particularly with the widest (2nd or 3rd generation, I’m not sure) scoops.
  • Lip at the join between lid and cup gives you something really solid to hold onto when you’re shaking the bejaysus out of it.

I agree that the way its attached cap slingshots Huel across the room is pretty annoying, but you do develop coping strategies.

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I agree with the different comments above.

I like the new sleeker and rounder design, the older design (I just learned the term Buchsteiner - or is it the brand name?) looked too “protein shaker”-ish (I associate protein shakes with bodybuilders/gym rats, which I am definitely not!).

I also prefer the separate lid (although people’s comments about losing it make sense), I really like the rubber feel. I wish it was bigger (in height) so that it’s easier to grab for screwing it.

And please add measuring lines for making Complte Protein shakes - or anything else!

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The other shaker is the brand name.

Funnily enough one of the reasons Huel made the new shaker was because of the protein shaker look of the old one and they wanted something different.

I personally prefer the new shaker. I’ve never had an issue with the lack of measuring markers but I agree if they were there it would be an overall positive thing.

I also agree that it’s more fiddly to scoop into without making a bit of mess. Weirdly I seem to have more issues with the static causing it to flick off the scoop than I used to. I’m not sure why that is as same kitchen, same scoop, and I’ve not seen that they’ve added jumping beans to it.

No idea why having a removable lid is a big deal. No water bottle I ever used has an attached lid and I’ve never lost one. I don’t generally drink Huel on the hoof but in one place where putting the lid own and picking it up again is a perfectly reasonable thing to do.

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I wonder if the attraction of an attached lid is the potential for one-handed operation, for those who don’t care about the need to keep both hands on the steering wheel.

Phooey to all that!

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I do care about 1handed operations, but while at the gym, carrying around my phone as well

I think someone recommended that blender on the forum back in 2018, and it has been a o to for everyone since, I just bought my second one.

snigger-dog

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Am I reading this right?

I always wash my new shakers by hand but they can go in the dishwasher? All of it?

I’m talking about the one for Huel black/white editions.

Yes, but as is the case with any product marked as dishwasher safe plastics, you should follow your manufacturer’s instructions on where they go inside of the machine and what wash cycles. Usually – this is on the top most rack, the farthest away from direct heat sources.

Shaker works fine for me and it mixes it perfectly. Make sure you use correct amount of huel powder and use water straight out of tap which comes nice and cold (unless adviced it’s not safe in your area).