To be fair to Huel the changes in v2.3 vanilla’s flavour were so disliked that they kept the older flavour around as ‘original’, and fluoride was once added but then removed after forum outcry.
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I can’t wait for the announcement tomorrow that the festive flavour boost this year contains reindeer semen and unicorn tears.
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Reading back through, these two quotes don’t seem to marry up.
If the price change isn’t due to the new ingredients in v3, why isn’t Original going up as well?
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The most sensate post I have ever read in this forum, let’s see what the Huel team has to say about it.
I think you are right, natural is not always better is just marketing.
And yes hopefully next version is not gonna be organic or something like that, I’ve been several years in Huel now and I am a bit concerned, price now is getting more expensive but not my payslip, and don’t get me wrong I wouldn’t mind to pay this extra price but for any good reason rather than “being natural”, come on we are all here drinking powder which is far from being “natural”.
The fair thing is have both versions 2.3 and 3.0 and let the user decide if they want to buy one or the other. You have also no gluten and Sport versión, why don’t les us to chose?
The other thing I didn’t understand is why now 400k per meal are ok and the recommendation before was 3 scoops or 450 (when ideally is 500 calories) and now just 400?
I was very happy with my previous version.
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Then why the version 2.3 is cheaper than the new one?
Vegan societies in Europe, the Americas and Asia all promote photosynthetic creatures (neither plant, animal or fungi) as being fine and a good part of a vegan diet. It is acknowledged that in the collection of seaweeds and kelp there may end up with being some trace elements of marine life being caught up in the production (particularly urchins) but this is not seen as contraindicative to their basic definitions of veganism:
“The word veganism denotes a philosophy and way of living which seeks to exclude — as far as is possible and practicable — all forms of exploitation of, and cruelty to, animals for food, clothing or any other purpose; and by extension, promotes the development and use of animal-free alternatives for the benefit of humans, animals and the environment. In dietary terms it denotes the practice of dispensing with all products derived wholly or partly from animals.”
Therefore the main issue would be the introduction of possible allergens – either fish, shellfish or iodine allergies. People with fish and shellfish allergies rarely have bad reactions to photosynthetic ingestion but of course, anyone with any of these allergies should proceed with caution.
If you look deeply into almost any retail food or drink products you are going to find some animal trace elements in their you didn’t expect that are introduced either incidentally or deliberately – frosted cereals, figs, Guinness, bananas, pesto - you name it.
Given that this is the first price increase of powder since its introduction and the extra costs that have gone into its production, I would agree that it is a reasonable increase and no worse than an inflationary move if it is adjusted for that whole period. A cost of £1.60 a serving is still incredibly reasonable value especially when you compare it to other ‘meals’ over the same period:
- Huel 11.11% increase
- Big Mac 10.2% increase
- Fish And Chips 35.8% increase
- Beef Steak 16.6% increase
Honestly, for people to expect a business to never increase their prices and fully absorb their own constantly increasing costs is just ludicrous and naive. Price increases are never popular but as some have mentioned here already – smaller more regular inflationary increase would probably be an easier pill for people to swallow going forward.
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That sounds bloody delicious tbh.
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Firstly I object to saying ‘price is changing’ why not just state the truth ‘price is rising’
Secondly - “This is something I have thought long and hard about. Since I first launched Huel in 2015 we have grown a huge amount.” Economies of scale make things a lot cheaper not more expensive. Presumably Huel want an increase in profits?
This is a good point.
I think original is cheaper to produce anyway as it doesnt contain the same natural flavourings as the others (natural flavourings are expensive). But if this is the case, UU should also be cheaper (I’ve always thought this - UU is cheaper to produce so should be cheaper to buy).
Perhaps a way to keep everyone happy would be to also keep UU available as a v2.3 (as well as v3 UU), then anyone with allergens can stick to v2.3.
I don’t mind the price increase - this is to be expected really and I’m suprised this is the first price increase in so many years. I would like to see the price of UU come down though - it seems fair.
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that would apply only if you were manufacturing the exact same product in the same environment with suppliers who provide raw materials at a fixed an unchanging rate that can be subsidised with bulk buying power and with the same workforce and logistics. which never happens and certainly isn’t the case with Huel. You’re totally ignoring many variables in that statement that contribute to increasing costs such as improved quality ingredients, expanding infrastructure and manufacturing facilities, R&D investment, standard business overheads and head-counts, marketing, country specific certification and licensing, tax - the list goes on.
Let’s test your theory by looking at some of the raw material commodities Huel use and see how much cheaper they have gotten over the last 5 years.
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Flaxseed – the lowest commodity cost of this since Huel started was $7.37/bsh, by 2019 that had increased to a peak of $10.10 – a 31.25% increase
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Brown rice - the lowest commodity cost of this since Huel started was $357/metric tonne, by 2019 that had increased to a peak of $430 – an 18.55% increase
In fact, the only regular ingredient that is showing a consistent cost reduction is natural vanilla flavouring. The small amount of which is not going to make any big impact on the total pack price of a bag of Huel.
The only way Huel could have realistically maintained the same retail price would have been leveraging increased bulk buying power and finding efficiencies in manufacturing and logistics. These are finite options though that plateau out and can only offset commodity increases to a degree.
Another increasingly popular option with brand owners these days is to optimise their packaging by reducing their ink usage, pack commonality and materials used. This isn’t an option for them in this case as Huel packaging is already fully optimised in this respect. They are also hard at work behind the curtains on improving the sustainability of their flexible packaging in conjunction with some of the industry’s big innovators. This research work doesn’t come cheap – nor does becoming an early adopter of the materials.
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And it’s still totally vegan. /s
I hope all you vegans never eat salad or salsa, or anything basically, because if you do you’re sure as hell eating quite a few insects.
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Tying in with what @hunzas already mentioned, this is a purely legal notion. Yes harvested kelp might contain traces of fish,… because of the way it’s harvested. But you can say the say thing about the oats, harvesting them harms mice, voles, birds, insects,… Because it’s not a certified allergy, it doesn’t need to be stated. Otherwise all vegan products would say something like “might contain mice, insects,…”.
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I only consume oats that have been hand picked by very gentle children wearing hoverboots.
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Child labour?!?
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Pfft you can’t care about every damn thing.
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As Christina has said there absolutely is a risk of serious harm due to allergens. I realised I kept saying 14 major allergens but not explaining them. They’re the most common foods/ingredients that can cause an allergic reaction. Even tiny amounts can cause a reaction which is why you can’t have nuts on a plane when someone is allergic. You can be allergic to pretty much anything even sunlight and water hence the list of 14.
Haha I do!
It’s a growing area however, it’s likely to occur in open waters and so the allergen issue is still present.
Sorry, I can’t say but if you check out here you can see the nutritional information and above is the ingredient list which will show you the inclusion relative to the other ingredients (the ingredient in the largest amount is first).
@dharkhig Thanks for sharing, really interesting articles.
Completely agree that the farming of kelp and other sea “crops” needs to be sustainable just like on land and there are good and bad approaches to farming kelp. Kelp can be an incredibly sustainable crop we just need to ensure it’s managed in the right way.
Cool suggestion but I think it may impact peoples’ work if they decide to have Huel for lunch.
What you’re looking at there is probiotics after the use of antibiotics, which is a really specific case because antibiotics wipe out a lot of the microbiota present. However, probiotics could be beneficial in this area, it varies massively between species though. More here and here.
The EFSA has really strong criteria for probiotic claims and there’s debate whether they’re being too harsh or not. Probiotic and gut microbiome research is in its infancy so there will be a lot of discussions around them.
We of course listen to you guys and we have in the past, otherwise there would be no point in this forum.
I’ve already replied, you can see the comment further up this thread.
It’s really worth reading our article on this which explains everything.
I mean both are true.
Nope. There’s more to calculating price than economies of scale: better quality ingredients, supply chain, more employees for better customer experience and so on.
I’m aware of everything you say but on average taking into consideration considerable growth of business and experience of company feel there shouldn’t be reason for price hike. M
I’m personally ok with kelp (I use it for cooking) and acerola (as mentioned it might contain some additional beneficial stuff).
Kombucha is a more interesting subject here. It would be great to know whether it really (and how much) contains caffeine and yeast. That might really be problematic for some.
What I really dislike is the inclusion of tapioca. This is a step back and not a step up. Oats are a complete food (you could say natural, as you seem to be really into that) and tapioca is just plain starch (which you could argue is unnatural). This for me is a huge reduction in quality.
The reason for the inclusion of tapioca seems to be the change of consistency. I really like the current consistency, if Huel will be smoother now then I will really dislike that.
It probably has to do with the tapioca content but now Huel includes more carbohydrates, less protein, less fibre and more salt. This is also a step back. Even if this is not a huge difference, but it is and in the wrong direction.
If you are going to change the formula then why not make it better? I would like to see some Omega 3 from algae oil (but as someone mentioned some people had issues with that so that might not be the best idea). You are mentioning prebiotics but there was actually no change there. Why not include some additional plant based prebiotics?
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