How We Develop the Huel Flavors

Ever wondered how we choose what flavor to launch next? Come behind the scenes to see what’s involved when we develop new flavors.

We have a chat

First of all, our New Product Development (NPD) team get together and discuss lots of exciting flavor options. Of course, our ideas adapt and change as they are developed, but this first step is critical in the development process. These ideas could include anything from gaps in our flavor range, popular flavor trends in the market, and most importantly, feedback from our Hueligans.

The Huel forum is a great place filled with your insights and new flavor ideas. We use your feedback as much as possible to optimize the flavor of existing products or launch new ones.

We monitor the trends

When developing a new product, we keep an eye on the latest flavor trends and on what is popular with consumers. We also consider many other aspects. For example, sustainability is always on our minds, as well as the different taste of our customers all around the world.

Choosing flavor manufacturers

There are many companies that produce flavors (called flavor houses, or flavor manufacturers), so when choosing the right one we always consider the quality of the facility, of their processes, and of course of the product. Above all, we make sure they support our mission of making nutritionally complete, convenient, affordable food, with minimal impact on animals and the environment.

Creating flavors is a complex process. There are over 25,000 flavor molecules recorded in the flavor database that represent specific tastes and volatiles^[1]. Of these, 2,254 are derived from 936 natural ingredients and are separated into 34 categories^[1]. Understanding all of these and how they mix with each other takes a specific kind of expertise and years of experience. The flavor houses we work with have the very best flavor chemists with the right skill set to combine this knowledge with a new challenge such as Huel.

Drying liquid flavor

Flavor houses initially produce flavor in a liquid form. However, when it comes to creating dry products such as our Huel Powder, we need the flavors to be in a dry format.

Spray-drying is the most commonly used technique for the production of dry flavorings. During the spray-drying process, an aqueous solution made up of water, a carrier (e.g. maltodextrin and gum arabic), and liquid flavor, are dried into fine particles through a stream of extremely hot air which traps volatile flavor constituents inside the droplets (‘volatiles’ are substances that evaporate quickly in normal temperatures). Gum arabic is commonly used in combination with other hydrocolloids (substances which form a gel in the presence of water) such as maltodextrin, as a carrier in the encapsulation of flavors.

This process allows the flavors to be handled and applied more easily, and makes the flavor more stable to oxidation. The process of encapsulation allows for a high retention of the volatile flavor components, usually more than 80%^[2].

Getting the right balance

The most important part of developing our new flavors is selecting ingredients that provide the right nutrition. As you can imagine, these natural ingredients come with some interesting sensory attributes, such as green notes (freshness), earthiness, astringency (dryness/chalkiness) and bitterness. Taste is subjective and people react to these sensory attributes differently. So developing a new flavor is a balancing act: we always try to develop products that can be enjoyed by all our Hueligans.

Natural flavors of the raw materials

The flavor of our natural ingredients (oats, peas, rice, coconut, flaxseed, etc.) is subject to small changes due to natural variances as well as growing, harvest, and storage conditions. These tiny variations can have an impact on the overall flavor profile of our products which is why we have strict quality controls and checks in place to make sure the flavor of our products is just right.

Flavor types in our products

We’ve outlined the production considerations and flavor profiles of each of our products below:

Powder – We use powdered flavors in Huel Powder v3.0 and Huel Black Edition. The flavor houses use spray-drying to turn liquid flavors into powdered flavors.
Ready-to-drink – We use powdered flavors in Huel Ready-to-drink. Ready-to-drink is made using a powder blend mixed together as part of the manufacturing process. This blend includes ingredients such as oats, tapioca and pea protein, as well as the flavor components.

The fine tuning of the flavors can take up to a few months, so it is a very delicate process. This includes adjusting the amount of flavor and flavor enhancements until we get the right flavor.

Sweeteners

We use sucralose in our flavored Powder v3.0 (not Unflavored & Unsweetened) and Ready-to-drink products. There are limits on how much sucralose should be put into a product per recommended portion^[3], and even at 2,000kcal (the amount at which Huel products are nutritionally complete) our products are well below these limits. Read more in our Guide to Sucralose.

Huel Black Edition is sweetened using a small amount of organic coconut sugar and stevia.

Salt

Salt is a useful tool in the development of flavors as it can help to bring out certain flavor components of a blend, and can increase the perception of flavors that you find pleasant^[4].

The inclusion of salt can also mask unpleasant flavors, such as bitterness. However, we are always careful not to use too much salt as it will influence the nutritional profile of our products.

Product testing

Once our product developers feel they have created a great flavor, they share it with the rest of the team for testing (our favorite part). They conduct various taste tests including triangle tests, blind tastings, and Hueligan insights. These tests objectively analyze foods for taste, smell, appearance, and texture.

A triangle test is a type of ‘difference’ test that asks if there are sensory differences between two products. This test is particularly useful when a flavor is in the larger-scale trial, i.e. running the powder through a full manufacture process. This allows us to check if there are any batch-to-batch variances, so we carry them out in all cases when recipes are scaled up to ensure consistency.

In a blind taste test, the sense of sight is taken away from tasters, which reduces bias from seeing the product. This is an important test to conduct when looking at flavor alone by isolating the senses.

Launching our new flavor

Taking all these steps into account, launching a new flavor in our existing product range can take up to 26 weeks. If we’re developing a brand new product, the process may be extended as the NPD team need to understand how the flavor will interact with the new product formula.

Once the new flavor is approved by the wider team, we sometimes send the product to a small number of regular Hueligans to provide pre-launch feedback. When we officially launch to market, we eagerly await your feedback via the Huel forum and social media platforms. This helps us to create the best possible products for our Hueligans.

We welcome your feedback, so if you have comments about our flavors, please get in touch.

References

Flavour DB. Flavour DB Summary. Date Accessed: 10/30/19 [Available from: http://cosylab.iiitd.edu.in/flavordb].
Madene A, et al. Flavour encapsulation and controlled release – a review. International Journal of Food Science & Technology. 2006; 41(1):1-21.
US Food & Drug Administration. Additional Information about High-Intensity Sweeteners Permitted for Use in Food in the United States [Available from: https://www.fda.gov/food/ingredientspackaginglabeling/foodadditivesingredients/ucm397725.htm#Sucralose].
Breslin PAS, et al. Salt enhances flavour by suppressing bitterness. Nature. 1997; 387, pg.563.