Would you buy a 9kg BUCKET of Huel?

I envy this from Soylent users… :frowning: I would buy 4 buckets for a whole year.

Would you buy a bucket of Huel of 9kg each?
  • Yes, totally!
  • No, why the hell would I want so much Huel?

0 voters

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hmm - I wonder how much such a high volume product would degrade as its doesn’t appear to be in a UV barrier container. But to answer your question - no. I can see why people would though - the cost saving is significant.

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It’s a :-1: from me. Bags are easier to store in my small kitchen, plus I too wonder about degradation and shelf life.

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I already buy far more than 9kg at a time, and it’s in easy to store packs instead of one huge cylinder. I would be tempted by the cost saving.

It really is. They don’t appear to offer a bulk saving on the standard bags though.

They’re far smaller than Huel’s. This bucket is only ~5 bags of Huel, but ~20 bags of Soylent. Maybe they save a lot of packaging with the bucket?

I guess - plus the choice of their powders is limited so packaging costs already lower. If you’re going to buy a big bucket of one flavour then you’re going to be using that one flavour all the time.

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Anyway, I cannot vote for either option, because I do want that much Huel, but not in such an annoying form.

What about familiar pouches of Huel, 2,5-3 kilos each?

So double size? I don’t know. The current ones are a really good size for storage.

it may also be a sign of continuing problems they have been having this last year with declining sales and major downsizing of the company. there are of course some savings in bulk purchasing but margins are normally quite narrow so cutting your meal price by 45% (the second reduction in year I believe) sounds more like a fire sale than anything else.

Basically, they are half the size they were a year ago and had to take a federal loan in April from a scheme designed to cover payroll costs, debt interest, property rent, utilities and healthcare insurance.

@airiartev I declined to choose your second option because I find the wording totally offensive.

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Sure, why not. One thing we are not lacking around here is storage space. I would then just transfer some of it into a more user friendly container in the kitchen pantry as needed. I shop at Sam’s Club, which is a large warehouse store, for the same purpose of buying in bulk. I think you guys have Costco, a similar concept US warehouse store, with locations in the UK.

In principle I would. I have no idea where I would store it though. Depends on the dimensions.

Why Soylent having such problems? Isnt the market growing?

Hahahaha let me know if the title is now better. You know… I am from Spain and english is not my tongue language

Not in spain. We dont usually buy in bulk.

Maybe…but I doubt that 4 buckets would be enough for a year, at least if Huel is your only food.

Btw: Don’t worry about your English…not all people here are native speakers.

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Yes it’s a huge growth market but they have failed completely to capitalise on it. It will be because of many things but certainly not just one thing. From reports of I have read there certainly seems to be multiple issues:

  • Internal infighting: there has been lots of restructuring and both senior people and indeed whole departments being ‘let go’ or shuttered. This has not gone unnoticed by their customers and, because the internet exists, fuelled a lot of rumours and concerns about the company’s health.

  • Lack of transparency: this situation seems to be amplified by Soylents almost complete silence on addressing these reports or even publishing meaningful sales and revenues news.

  • Erosion of trust: Soylent, like Huel, has always relied on the support of their customers and their beliefs in the brands products. It seems clear to everyone that the company wilfully mislead both their customers and the press about their return to the Canadian market denying they had changed the formulation to do so. This was a ridiculous thing to do as it’s easy to fact check – while you might use smoke and mirrors in your PR – you can’t lie on the labelling and it didn’t take long for eagle eyed customers to debunk these claims. I really don’t understand why they did that but it certainly was a very damaging thing to do to their image.

  • Competition: they haven’t coped with it well and their PR and marketing has failed them badly. Their web and social media presence and customer engagement trails their rivals by a hefty margin. They also operate in a very limited market scope which further exposes them to competitive issues.

From a personal and professional observation, I would say there are other issues:

  • Branding: it’s quite subtle to the point of being forgettable but for people of a certain generation or avid sci-fi fans – It’s obviously a quite lazy nod to Soylent Green, a 1970’s dystopian thriller. In the film, Soylent Industries derives its name from a combination of soy and lentil, controlling half the world’s food supply selling artificially produced food. The introduce a new more nutritious food called Soylent Green, saying it’s made from plankton but people soon realise that its actually reprocessed human corpses. Honestly, in the marketing and branding world – considering that as a basis of your marketing a new food product – you’d run a mile from it.

  • Choice: the core powder product has only two flavour choices – Original or Cacao. If you don’t like one then you’d better hope you like the other. For their Bars, they have literally cut the product line to only 1 flavour – chocolate brownie. They have instead chosen to lean in heavily on the much more expensive and higher margin RTD range where they offer 10 different flavour options plus variety packs. With their new bargain bucket price (excuse the pun) on powders, the RTD are between 150 - 250% more expensive. This all seems to be a deliberate move to drive people to choose RTD – being coerced into making a choice reluctantly due to an actual lack of choice, never sits well with consumers.

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following on from all that, @Tim_Huel - have you guys ever considered doing a variety box of RTD’s? I would guess it’s much easier to do than with any other of the products in the range?

I was not referring to the title and your English is always very good. I was referring to option two of the poll. A simple ‘no’ or ‘not for me’ would suffice.

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Well explained! I didn’t know some of the internal issues.

I watched Soylent green when I discovered in 2013-14 this market and purchase for the first time Joylent (Jimmy Joy)