New to JJ, coming from Huel

Community Introduce Yourself
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I recently flipped from Huel to JJ due to the recent big increase in price. I was eating Huel for breakfast and lunch since August 19. Having had a few first JJ shakes, I must admit I am not a big fan. I don’t think it’s unpallatable, but Huel to me is much nicer. Maybe I also need to adjust a bit to it. I currently have Active Chai Latté and Active Banana, as I like the big bags because it’s less waste.

The consistency is what strikes me as the biggest difference, I don’t really like the powdery, thick consistency that much, so I’ll probably have to tinker a bit with the water ratio’s. I also noticed that there was a more dense sludge at the bottom of my shaker (I make it and let it stand in the fridge for a bit to thicken up, like Huel), so I need to remember to give it a shake before I start to drink it :slight_smile:
I also have the feeling JJ is less sweet, but maybe that’s because I’ve only tried the Chai.
I do like the shaker more, it’s brighter and I like the fact that it’s small and cute (I ordered the small version).

Not product related per se, but I also have the impression the Huel communicty is more active and there is more information on the product composition, like heavy metal analysis, caffeïne analysis,… I would urge the people from JJ to have a look at the Huel website and also have that kind of information ready for their users :slight_smile:

So all in all, not love at first sight, but let’s see if it starts to grow. I’ll keep you informed :slight_smile:

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Welcome!

Glad to have you on board and thanks for the feedback :slight_smile: Keeping the costs low is something we take pride in as we believe that affordable and healthy nutrition should be available to everyone. The main reason we are able to do this is because we have in-house production and fulfillment. This way we can optimize the entire chain from raw ingredient to final product.

Let me elaborate on your points:

Consistency and Settlement in the shaker
This is because we don’t use thickeners (Xanthan gum) in our formula. We advice to drink the shake right after preparation. We use super fine oats so leaving it in the fridge is not really necessary.

Sweetness
Chai is definitely one of our less sweet flavors. I recommend trying the 5 meal pouches since they have a different formulation so the taste and sweetness is different.

Community
Our community is not as active on our forums but we definitely stay in touch through email surveys, reddit and other forums. But getting everyone on here to actively participate is something we are working on.

Nutrition
You can find information on here: https://jimmyjoy.com/pages/health-nutrition
We are constantly updating it and it’s something that’s high on our priority list.

We are working on Plenny Bar 2.0, Plenny Drink 2.0 and Plenny Shake 3.0 so I will pass your feedback on to our head of R&D.

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Thanks for the feedback! :slight_smile:

I didn’t know you advice people to drink it right away, I’ll try that tomorrow :slight_smile:
I don’t mind it being less sweet, as this probably also means less sucralose and anyway, life should be sweet, not all our foods :wink: Do you have any plans for more savoury (i.e. peanut butter, matcha tea,…) flavours?

I ordered the bigs bags of Active, as I’m used to it and want to reduce waste. But I didn’t really get the difference clear with the 5 meal pouches, except that the big bags don’t contain maltodextrine and contain more protein. Is this correct or are there other differences as well?

What I also liked more about Huel is that it had a bit of structure, so it really felt a bit more that you were eating something. But of course, this is a thing of personal tastes and is different for everyone. Lots of people comment that they find Huel “gritty”, so they are not a fan :wink: One good point for JJ though, it doesn’t stick in my teeth like Huel did, so after finishing my shaker, I’m not affraid to smile :grin:

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We do have peanut butter on the agenda but I can’t say when we will launch this since we have a few other things coming up first.

Main difference between regular and active is no maltodextrin, more protein, and less carbs.

We went for the super smooth milkshake like texture so it’s a matter of personal taste :man_shrugging:

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You nailed that for sure!

Over kleur en smaak valt niet te twisten :slight_smile:

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I actually for the most part switched to Huel, for the following reasons:

Consistency and Settlement in the shaker
This is actually the thing that I like most about Jimmy Joy, the solvability of JJ is much much better than Huel. I experience that much less water is needed, and Huel really tends to clump and leave a big portion on the bottom. I have the idea that Huel has for a big part hydrophobic elements in their formula which makes the clumps. Also for this reason cleaning the shaker is much easier with JJ. So for this part, I give points to JJ.

Sweetness
I find the taste of JJ much better. To me it’s much sweeter and the texture is much better. To me it is as nice as a milkshake! This is also something that gives JJ a headstart.

Community
This is something that bothers me indeed. The community of Huel is much more active. This follows from a much bigger customer base for Huel as well, of course. However, I feel like Huel gets much more checked, and also the heads of Huel are very active on the forum, answering every day to all posts, whereas JJ often takes weeks to respond to answer (see my question about Heavy Metals) and often tries to be nice instead of a scientific straight forward answer (and I thought we Dutchies were straightforward).

Nutrition
This is my biggest point why I switched to Huel. Huel has done extensive research on their product. JJ only adds products that have been proven scientifically, but even with this they are behind the current recommendations (example choline and potassium, where they still use recommendations of 2011). Huel on the other hand also pays attention to not fully scientific findings, but also to science that is currently in the working, but adds it to be sure. Examples of this are phytonutrients and probiotics. Huel is very open about their nutrients and all the science behind it. They have much more information online, have all test results (including e.g. Heavy Metals), have much more nuanced additions in their nutritional profile, and they respond immediately to their community on questions. I feel like this is the major point that JJ lacks, and also why JJ is not growing as rapidly as Huel. Both companies have a different approach to marketing. Whereas Huel focusses on clean and scientific values, JJ gives more of a fun and lose vibe (e.g. when looking at their social media profiles and Youtube videos).

I do find ease and taste important, but since I am taking the complete food for 100% of my meals, I choose to go for the most scientifically and community proven solution and that is Huel. This is where JJ really can learn.

Btw, the (new) Plenny Bars are an amazing product, and I really enjoy those. I am looking forward to the new tastes of the new Plenny Bars.

Very critical post, but I feel like JJ can use this feedback to improve their product and service.

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I just read your post on the Huel forum :wink:

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But I agree with the openess, as I said in my first post. I have much more faith in the quality of Huel compared to JJ, just because Huel is much more outspoken about their ingredients, quality checks, why they do things,… Look for example at the message here on the forum about the heavy metal content, that would never happen at Huel.

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Community
We love our community and they influence many decision we make at Jimmy Joy so it’s very alarming to me that you say that we are not open about our operations. We try to be as open as possible on every level. My apologies for experiencing this otherwise. I will take this up with the team.

Comparison to Huel
Working on nutritional content and explaining why we do certain stuff is something we are aware of. Huel has 26 million in funding and 100+ employees -of which 15-20 on marketing alone. This means they have more resources and time to create marketing content. This is no excuse but being a bootstrapped company with a smaller team does have it’s limitations.

Nutrition
We believe that humor makes everything a little bit better but we do take this part very serious.We lean on meta-analysis studies from the WHO and EFSA. We also do our own research and keep a close eye on what is currently playing in the scientific community (innovations, new available ingredients, etc)

For more (nutritional) information regarding our products I would like to refer to our “Health & Nutrition page” https://jimmyjoy.com/pages/health-nutrition This is a page that we will update even more over te course of the coming months.

In the end both Jimmy Joy and Huel try to make the healthiest meals scientifically possible.

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The openness is mainly seen in that results of tests are not publicized on the website, limited (nutritional) information on the website, and limited responses in the forum posts. Also on the labels is not all information, for example information about omega’s and phytonutrients is missing. On the health-nutrition page is indeed information, but compared to Huel this is minimal (https://eu.huel.com/pages/the-huel-powder-formula-explained). It is great that you are planning to work on that.

I do understand the difference in sizes and funding between the companies. I am however wondering if it is a choice that you have focussed less on getting funding, expanding the market and the type of marketing, and wanted to stay small or if it has played out that way.

I was an early customer in 2015 and appreciate the idea and the hard work to have come to where you are now. I think you have come to amazing products, I do think however that some improvements can be made.

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Hi all
I justed ordered the taster pack to give Jimmy joy a try. I have been using huel since September last year but am struggling with their newest formulation. So I was over the moon to see that JJ offered a low cost taster pack! It took me ages to get the courage to order huel the first time as it was such a big initial outlay for something that I wasn’t sure I was going to like, so well done JJ this is an inspired solution.

I have tried the vanilla plenny drink and have just finished the plenny bar in my pack so far. I like them both, I never tried huel bars as the cost was prohibitive, again I didn’t want to buy two whole boxes to test something.

The bars are an interesting change for me, I found it difficult to finish and am totally stuffed right now! I enjoyed the flavour and the texture, but towards the end the saltiness was getting a little much.

I am excited to try the banana powder also included in the pack and am about 90% sure I will be putting in a follow up order for more. So it’s looking like bye bye huel, hello JJ for me!

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That’s awesome @Purplepanda! So glad to hear the products are to your liking, and that the sample pack made you want to try. We hope that this way lots of people will consider placing an order, just to try some of our stuff out :smiley:

I have the same with the Bar btw, it’s a bit much to eat in one sitting but it satisfies your hunger for quite some time!

Glad to have you on board, let me know if there’s anything I can help you with or if you have any questions you’d like answers to :slight_smile:

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@ROAG Sorry, but how is there sludge on the bottom of the shaker with JJ? I use 3 scoops on 300ml and it desolves like a charm!

Do you maybe put first the powder and then the water? Maybe thats the reason for your slufgy bottom experience.

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3 scoops on 300ml? That must be quite sweet, right? I will try this out later tonight :grin:

I usually go for 3 scoops and 450ml and find the consistency nice, for the active formula I might even go to 500 or 600ml :slight_smile:

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Don’t forget it’s best to add a little bit of water before adding any powder, this will help to make everything dissolve and make the shake nice and smooth :slight_smile: