We would love for you guys to let us know a bit more about what made you stick with Huel. I know many of you have a selection of complete foods but with Huel was there a turning point that helped you to form a habit with Huel?
Drop your thoughts below on your own experiences! It would be really interesting to hear a little more!
For me - tried many alternatives but
-better price to quality ratio. (Looking at you, Ambronite)
-amazing taste (anyone tried mixing Black Vanilla with Peanut Butter FB? To me this is what heaven may “taste like”)
-great name and design, I’ll be honest with you, Huel has a big cool factor too - to me and my circle at least
-the versatility of the ingredients (adding fruits to the shake, baking with it, etc)
-Hot and Savory expanded the variety and made me stick with Huel for more occasions
-easy preparation and versatility (Is H&S a soup? A dish? You decide.)
-this community.
I like the ingredients of Huel, it adds variety to my diet as other complete foods use soy.
Contrary to other complete foods, the taste and texture of Huel improve while kept in the fridge. I don’t actually like Huel’s texture at all if it is freshly prepared and I use a mesh ball to remove the lumps. I’m not a morning person so every minute counts, I love it that I can prepare Huel in advance for the morning. Pre-covid I would prepare a Huel shake at work, put it in the office fridge and grab it as I arrive in the morning. I wouldn’t even have time to drink it at home. Funnily enough, I’m still short of time while working from home so that part hasn’t changed.
The texture is extremely important, Huel actually feels like a meal while other complete foods can be too thin or have a weird texture if I use less water. I used a different complete food before using Huel, that different complete food company making their shakes way too thin was the main reason why I tried Huel. I don’t want my meal to feel like I’m drinking flavoured water.
Huel keeps me full for a while. Some other complete foods just remove the sensation of hunger but don’t actually make me feel fully satiated.
The taste is decent although my favourite flavour (chocolate) was completely changed with the v3 update and to some extent I still miss the taste of v2.3 chocolate. At the same time I think that v3 vanilla tastes a tad better than v2.3 vanilla.
most prefabricated drinks are too sweet (huel too), but with huel there is an U/U version that is palatable in its pure form as well as can be used to fine tune the desired sweetness.
the flavour boosts give the much-needed variety with mixing and matching
feels pleasant in the body, esp. U/U
H&S makes for more than 1 non-sweet taste and therefore makes it easier to use huel for all 3 meals of a day than before (I need at least 1 non-sweet per day)
Most important reason: Huel works for my lifestyle.
More reasons (in no particular order) why I picked Huel and stayed with Huel for over 5 years now:
Huel prioritizes nutrition above most other factors, which is why it is among the best in the market. There are some recent worries though, such as using Tapioca Flour (empty calories, provides zero nutrition) to replace some of the oats in order to improve mouthfeel.
Huel has unflavored/unsweetened versions available. I almost did not stick with Huel back during version 1.0 before u/u was offered because vanilla was too sweet. I’m also not very fond of sugar nor sweeteners in general. I know U/U has low sales, yet I hope it will not be discontinued like granola was due to poor sales. It would certainly lose me as a customer, though I know I am a minority.
Huel listens to its customers. Back when I first came to this forum, I had many questions, comments and suggestions about the ingredients, forms of vitamins, amounts & ratios of everything, and lots more. Huel team responded to everything, and implemented many changes and improvements based on feedback. Remember pointless fluoride addition? Gone in next version based on feedback. Remember poorly explained sea salt additon? Gone in next revision (though Huel could certainly use perhaps a bit more salt, the amount would need to be better reasoned. However, it is the simplest thing to add on your own, so I don’t really care). Carrageenan? Gone. Kelp? Gone.
no gimmicky nonsense like “organic” or “proudly GMO-free” or “newest superfoods included” or “doctors don’t want you to find out this one simple trick to good health” and other fads. There are however recent worries about attempts to use “real foods” instead of confirmed bio-available vitamins/minerals, such as with kelp instead of iodine, acerola cherries instead of vitamin c, kombucha instead of some B vitamins.
Huel is suitable for vegans, yet doesn’t push vegan ideology. Or at least not in such a strong way that it would alienate those of us who do not agree with that ideology.
very good articles explaining the many aspects of nutrition that go into designing Huel. One suggestion would be to somehow include links to the individual articles from the Huel nutrition page, right now the articles feel not very discoverable by being in their own Guides & Articles section which one of my friends completely missed. The Guides & Articles section could be restructured a bit too, so that it looks less like a long list of articles. I’m no expert on this, perhaps my suggestion is bad, so don’t worry.
very simple product design, black on white, with no special graphics/icons/colors. Feels very professional and fits in a professional setting like mine. Reminds me of https://xkcd.com/993/ . The website is well designed from an aesthetic perspective too, though the shopping experience is still dreadful. Fortunately I don’t need to enter the shopping mode almost ever, because the subscription keeps on working.
excellent customer service. Whenever I had any issue like missing parts of packages, lost orders, leaky shaker, punctured pouches, email customer service immediatelly understood the issue and solved it without any problems. I have nothing negative to point out, customer service are doing a great job.
great forum with many resources from other Huelers and an active Huel forum team.
price used to be very competitive, so I could suggest it to many others without coming off as a very rich person talking about something inaccessible to the common person. My wish would be for Huel to be financially accessible to absolutely everyone (starting with Europe and NA), and not just as one meal of the day, but every meal. Right now, most still can’t afford the best nutrition, and Huel certainly falls in the category of best nutrition available. We’ll see how things go with brexit and unavoidable price increases…
It’s free of soy or maltodextrine and vegan. And with respect to the ingredients it gives a good price-quality-ratio. Especially the addition of various not strictly essential antioxidants like EGCG or zeaxanthine is a huge plus.
And I like the community and the team. It feels more personal than with other brands. And it’s true, you do listen to our wishes and suggestions.
@ rikefrejut: You never need to enter the shopping mode? Is Huel available at supermarkets in your country?
Actually this would be one of my suggestions: Offering Huel at local stores, not only online. yfood for example was very successfull with this strategy in my country. There seem to be lots of potential customers who are “recruited” if they just have to put something into their shopping basket.
Balanced, healthy nutrition.
Variety of flavours.
Good shelf life.
Convenience!
Edit: Can’t believe I forgot these! Brilliant customer service and (mostly!) excellent forum!
I used to make purchases by subscription but eventually switched to less frequent but larger quantity one off purchases - this was an economic decision as it reduced my outlay on shipping and import duty…
Huel was the first complete food I heard of, and although I have tried others, I find nothing to rival it in terms of taste, quality of ingredients and price point. Customer service is good too, although I’ve never had any serious issues requiring their input.
The new h&s adds something more to the mix. I primarily use the powder, but H&S is featuring more. I wasn’t a great consumer of the granola and I only eat a bar maybe 2 or 3 times a month.
I was originally attracted to Huel because it was vegan; and took a while to order originally because I was worried it would make me gag like some vegan protein powders. Luckily it never did. I liked it straight away and it has improved in taste, texture and mixability in the past 4 years I have used it.
I consume Huel meals at least once a day, normally twice, and for periods I do use it 100%. I don’t really get bored of it, and until we get to the point where I can have one pill a day for my nutritional and calorific needs I’ll probably stick with it.
I have the subscription, so Huel comes automatically to my doors on a regular (ignoring delays) schedule without me having to do anything (except have money in my account).
I don’t know. I’ve not been to a supermarket in ages (even pre-covid), I always did my shopping online. I remember reading that the RTD should be available somewhere in some physical shops though, next to all the various sandwiches and ready-meals.
Subscriber. I do make one-off orders from time to time, usually when making a gift/care/emergency package for someone else, or when making an order on someone else’s behalf.
You’re not alone in that dream, I too wish for that future.
The subscriptions are a good invention, yes. Nevertheless it happens that you’re in a group and have to buy something like a drink. Alcohol, caffeine, of course you can buy it on the internet but then it would be many deliveries, and if you’re not at home all the time this may be a problem. And sometimes there are delays.
Most of the stuff has been mentioned before already, but for me these points stick out:
Good price/quality
Broad choice of flavours. Also love the U/U as a means to reduce the sweetness of the other tastes and to decrease artificial sugars intake. The U/U is indespensable to me.
Good customer service
The community and the very knowledgeable huel staff here
Huel’s receptivity to constructive feedback from its customer’s base.
Most important: nutritional values that work for me. That said, I really like Huel for the texture and flavors - so much that I actually never tried any other meal replacement powder. (Any RTD I had from other brands tasted worse than Huel RTD, so I extrapolated from that :))
Additionally, the delivery is fast, the customer service is great, the company itself seems reasonably transparent and receptive to customers’ feedback, and, as a nice bonus, Huel is vegan.
less hair loss more weight loss, gave up drinking. better gym motivation better gym attendance more positive thinking it all matters but one feeds the other
I was a vegetarian who hated vegetables. I was taking multivitamins along with protein drinks while working out. Huel seemed a great idea to get calories, protein and nutrients, with less worrying about what foods to buy. Even more so since going plant based diet only.
Type 1 diabetic: I use Huel to manage blood glucose levels, particularly at lunch time at work. I mainly use RTD (tasty and super convenient). Provides a nutritious meal with carbohydrates listed for easy insulin dose calculation. Prevents me buying and consuming rubbish sandwiches, crisps etc. T1 is all day, everyday - checking, calculating, injecting, correcting so to know what dose to give of one meal each day without having to think makes life a little easier.
A knock on effect is calorie control too. Working from home during this year I realised I needed to adjust my intake as I am much more sedate in home office. Huel also provided a source of good quality food when panic shoppers stripped supermarket shelves in the Spring.