Although I have had a great experience with Huel, their subscription and customer service is not ready to handle a food based business.
Since I started my subscription it has been a mess. First my order was not delivered, when I wrote to customer support they shipped it but charged me again, here we are 4 weeks later, I was charged a week ago and no word on when I will receive my next order.
I know logistics are tricky but transparency is not. How about an email setting the expectations right Huel? Soylent may not be as good as your product, but for replacing a meal it will do just fine AND, ships consistently well.
I found it gross. Like bottom of a spackle bucket gross. Even if i could get past the smell, it’s primarily Soy … which I try to avoid. It also have me some crazy sugar rush and niacin flushing.
Yeah it would be better if Huel arrived within 3 days of order … but you can shelf-store an extra bag or two and order before you get to the last bag. Yeah they could do a better job setting your expectation, but now you know it takes a longer time to get an order than you’d like. idk, I guess I have a different demand than others.
What I found most interesting is if you load up the Huel and Soylent main pages side by side, they look almost identical. Their look and formatting appear to be made from the same creator, just different colors.
Soylent is a ton of soy protein. For me, that means lots of soy farts. Also, that is a significant amount of added sugar per serving: http://files.soylent.com/pdf/soylent-nutrition-facts-1-8-cacao-en.pdf That has 15 grams of sugar per 400 calories. In a 2000 calorie Soylent diet, that is 75 grams of sugar. 2000 calories of Huel has 5 or 6 grams sugar.
On their main page, Soylent talks about their carbs. “A slow-metabolizing disaccharide synthesized from beets offers sustained energy without the spikes of refined sugar.” I’m not a biochemist, but I have enough basic knowledge of nutrition to know that a disaccharide is easily broken down in the human gut. Lactose and Sucrose are common examples of disaccharides. I call shenanigans on a “slow-metabolizing dissaccharide”. perhaps it is broken down slower than Sucrose, but that doesn’t make it “slow-metabolizing” in my book. It may technically have a slightly lower glycemic index than Sucrose, but it’s still probably higher than oats or any starches.
Slow-metabolized dissaccharide = low-tar cigarettes. Technically it is slightly less unhealthy.
The phytoestogen in soy is a problem too. Sure, it’s OK in small amounts - but there is so much soy in everything else we eat that I’d rather keep the small amounts to actually small amounts.
Plus, maltodextrin is the third ingredient in Soylent, and it has a glycemic index (GI) between 85-105. Maltodextrin doesn’t count toward the sugar count, just the carb count, but it’s basically as bad as sugar in terms of what it does to your blood sugar. Hence, Soylent’s glycemic index of 41, and Huel’s glycemic index of 27.
(I start rambling here, but I’m leaving it here, anyway, since I did all that calculating and typing…)
But, the glycemic load tells the story even better than the glycemic index. You calculate the glycemic load (GL) for a serving of food by multiplying the glycemic index by the number of carbohydrates and then dividing by 100. A GL of 1-10 is good, 11-20 is iffy, 21+ is bad. A 400 calorie serving of Huel has a GL of 10.2, and a 400 calorie serving of Soylent has a GL of 16. But, even that makes Soylent look healthier than it is because the 19 grams of carbohydrates in Soylent that aren’t isomaltulose (already covered by Deron) or soluble corn fiber are maltodextrin (GI of 85-105) or modified food starch (literally processed starch). So, to your body, it’s more like 30-34 grams of sugar than 15. The only way Soylent got the GI down to 41 was by putting so much soy protein and canola oil in there. If you eat sugar and peanut butter for lunch, you can get the GI down to 41 by having enough peanut butter. I don’t see why Soylent can’t just make their product healthy in the first place. You’d think something that’s going to make your blood sugar go crazy would taste better than pancake batter.
If Huel ever gets their crap together and ships like they should, they can corner the liquid food market when it comes to people who value nutritional value and glycemic index over taste and convenience.
TL;DR: I think we’re all in the same boat of just wishing Huel had Soylent’s shipping practices.
Same experience here. No response from customer service about being triple billed! And they have no phone number you can use to contact them. I am going to call my credit card company and have them erase the charges then I’m canceling my subscription to Huel. Great product, TERRIBLE service.
Thank you! I did not receive any reply to my email so I did not know this had been done.
What was the mistake that I made that changed the subscription quantity? As I said in my email it should be three packages every four weeks and when I look at my account it appears that that’s what it is. What was it that increased the cost to that to 3 times the amount of 89.10? I’m just asking so I don’t make this mistake again in the future.
Also, I’m assuming that you will be billing me for the correct amount which was $89.10 for the four weeks supply. Is that right?
Considering soylent is a serious mistake… They may have been around longer then huel but the ingredients in soylent are a serious concern… Obviously Huel has some growing pains but their product is superior. Look at the glycemic index differences. Maltodextrine is not good for you and prolonged exposure will raise your A1-C. (accurate measurement for blood sugar levels over the last 90 days)
I’m happy we were able to resolve the issue yesterday. A full refund was issued for the order and your subscription is corrected.
The mistake was made when you edited “Change product quantity”. When this is changed the system will multiple the amount of subscription you currently have.
The correct action you must select is “Manage Subscription Flavours” in the first screen after you log into your account at https://huel.com.
Sorry to hear about your experience. I have purchased single bags several times, and now am a subscriber… Have never had any shipping issues. I once asked for a missing scoop, and it was delivered to me right away.
I’ve been using Huel for almost a year, prowled the forums for just as long, and I had to join today just to heart this post. Soylent Green for the win!
Why is nobody answering my questions about shipping on your FB page??? Do you want customers or not? You can literally do what I’m asking from a f*$king phone? What is the problem over there??? The product sounds great but, I can pay a bunch of pothead teenaged millenials way less to do the same job you all seem to be doing. Logistics seem bad and customer service seems even worse.
