Huel Food Safety and Quality Controls

Here at Huel, the safety and quality of our products are our priority. Below is more information about our commitment to the health and safety of our product and our customers.

Quality Ingredients

For information on how our ingredients are produced, please see our article How Huel and the Huel Ingredients are Produced. All ingredient suppliers must go through a thorough screening process before we approve the ingredients for use. This process includes:

• Specifications: In addition to FDA regulations, we have our own specification standards that we expect our ingredients to meet, and suppliers must sign up to these standards prior to use.
• Supplier assessment questionnaires: We ask suppliers about their processes and how they operate. We will only agree to work with the supplier once we are completely satisfied with the information provided.
• Audits: We regularly visit our suppliers to make sure that they are meeting safety and quality standards.
• Accreditations: We ask that all our suppliers meet industry-recognized food standards such as GFSI, SEDEX, FDA, etc.
• Testing: We carry out independent third party testing of our ingredients, such as routine testing for microbials, allergens, and heavy metals.
• Incoming goods checks:  ingredients are inspected for quality prior to use in our products.

Quality Production

We work with a number of co-manufacturers to produce Huel products. It is important to us that our suppliers and co-manufacturers are able to meet the highest production. Huel is manufactured in accredited facilities that are FDA-registered, GFSI-accredited and follow Good Manufacturing Practices (cGMP). 

We have our own internal quality team who work with our suppliers and co-manufacturers. We set our own product-specific processing standards that make sure Huel products are processed in a way that ensures their quality, including the following practices: 

• We visit and audit all our sites
• All products have specific product-quality requirements, such as assessing their taste, texture, and color are up to standard, as well as other specific tests where appropriate (for example, gluten testing for gluten-free products. Products are assessed against these requirements throughout production. 
• If we feel that any product does not meet these requirements, the product will not leave our supplier’s facility. 
• Our quality team also tastes all of our products weekly at the Huel head office to double-check that products are meeting our quality requirements.

Heavy Metals

Huel is made from plant-based ingredients, which—like all plant-based foods—naturally contain trace amounts of heavy metals due to their presence in soil and water. Heavy metals are naturally found in the environment (e.g. in water, soil, and the air) they can accumulate in foods. However, the levels of contamination may also be increased through human activities such as farming, ingredient and processing, and storage. 

The heavy metals include arsenic, cadmium, lead, and mercury. We routinely test our products to ensure that they meet the strict heavy metal regulations set by both the FDA (Food and Drug Administration) and the EFSA (European Food Safety Authority). However, the levels in Huel are well below the limits set by health authorities and pose no risk to consumers.

We also visit our suppliers so that we can understand where our ingredients come from as part of our procurement procedure. ‘

Learn more details about how we monitor Huel and heavy metals here.

Pesticides

There are certain crops that are more likely to be affected by pests that could put crops at risk, and in an effort to preserve these crops, pesticides may be used. In order to ensure the safety and quality of our products, we adhere to all the regulations and monitor our suppliers on a regular basis. This includes not only audits but also with testing for pesticides in the final product. 

• We annually test all finished products for the presence of over 470 different pesticides. These are tested to extremely low levels, often to the limits of current testing methods.
• We visit our ingredient suppliers to see how our ingredients are grown and processed. We look at what pesticides they are using, and how they control their use.
• We check the levels of pesticides in all ingredients before we use them in any product.

Gluten-Free

Huel and our co-manufacturers conduct stringent testing and cross contamination measures to meet gluten-free safety and quality standards. Huel products that are gluten free include our Black Edition Powder, Huel Powder v3.1, Complete Protein Powder, Daily Greens, Ready-to-drink, Black Edition Ready-to-drink, and all of our grain based hot & savory options (this does not include the noodle or pasta options).

Gluten-free ingredients: Our ingredient suppliers for our gluten-free ingredients (such as our gluten-free oats used in the Huel Powder v3.1) are required to provide a certificate of analysis confirming that the batch of these ingredients contains < 20 ppm of gluten, as per industry standard. Only once this certificate is received and reviewed can the ingredient be used in production

Production of our gluten free products: Our gluten-free finished products are produced, when possible, before any non gluten-free products to minimize the risk of cross-contamination. On the odd occasion where non gluten-free products are produced beforehand, our Co-Manufacturers perform a thorough line clean down and gluten rapid swab the lines and equipment to validate the lines have been cleaned successfully and gluten residue is not present.

Gluten-free final product: Our Co-Manufacturers that produce Huel gluten-free finished products test all batches for gluten and are only released for sale once gluten is confirmed <20ppm, as per industry standard. We also test every batch to confirm product meets Gluten-free standards of <20ppm, before releasing to consumers

Allergens

We routinely test all ingredients to assess the presence of the 9 major US allergens. If we think that there is a likely risk of contamination, we will either look for an alternative supplier or we warn customers of any possible issue via a ‘may contain’ message. When we identify allergens in our packaging, we clearly highlight these on our packaging that says (in the UK)  “Contains” followed by the allergen name, or (in the US) “Produced in a facility that handles”.

In terms of labeling, we follow current legislation that requires the 9 major US allergens to be labeled where present. However, we recognize that people can suffer from allergies that are outside the US-recognized ‘key allergens’, so if you have any specific inquiries, please contact us.