Hol Food quietly re-formulate, re-tub and re-release

I don’t exactly live under a rock but if much has been said about this online then I’ve missed it completely.

Hol Food, Canada’s much loved single flavour meal replacement is back?with some big changes to announce. To be fair they were never ‘gone’ but they’ve definitely been quiet for a while as they focused on shipping meals and new product development.

So what’s changed that’s worth getting excited about? There’s a new formula, new tubs and, finally…. a new flavour!

The new formula switches nutrition around a little resulting in an incredibly smooth and creamy texture. Seems this is the result of the pilot programme?400 lucky subscribers were part of?a few months back and is said to be incredibly close to Soylent 2.0 (but from powder no less) and a lot less like the almost pudding density of their old recipe.

It’s still not vegan (more on that below), but many Complete Foods aren’t and there’s a lot of people that find whey protein more agreeable; both in terms of texture and digestion and with a decently sized customer base it makes sense for Hol to make incremental tweaks rather than big changes like a new protein source.

There are some big changes though. One is a move to 400kcal per meal (down from 500) which mirrors a lot of the other brands that are all seeing strong demand for smaller, but still nutritionally complete, meal replacements. For 100%ers that’ll meal one extra shake a day, for those that just replace one or two meals it means complete nutrition in an easier to take measure.

The 20% ‘drop’ in calories per shake means there are obviously lower per meal gram values for the main macro’s, with all but protein dropping.

Fat 12g 9g (-3g)
Protein: 30g 35g (+5g)
Carbs: 68 44g (-24g)
Fibre: 10 5g (-5g)

The 5g of extra protein has been well received by the pilot programme and in my mind, combined with the ‘new’ fat/carb/fibre levels makes for a much improved macro balance that I’d really like to be able to try here in the UK.

There’s less powder to mix per meal too (93g instead of 110g) and that brings me nicely to the next update: the old 28 meal 3.1kg tub is now a 2.8kg 30 meal tub with a new slightly cheaper per meal price of $2.66 CAD – so means less weight, more meals, and a lower price, so good news all round. Not to mention the new tub looks awesome compared to the old one. Not quite as stackable as the old format, but it’s claimed this is stronger so it’ll be safer in the transit should, ahem, anyone drop your package.

Then there’s the new flavour… Mild Vanilla. With very favourable reviews from product testers it’s described as a neutral flavour with just a hint of sweetness. It’s Hols’ take on the easy drinking mild flavour that most brands tend to launch with, but as a second flavour this nods more towards letting customers tweak their shakes and Hol seem to expect a lot of DIY tinkering with sweet and savoury additions sounding equally possible.

I mentioned the new formula staying with whey protein, but it seems there’s a none dairy vegan version of Hol Food coming ‘in months’ (so perhaps towards the end of the year) and, perhaps more excitedly asked if the Hold Food RTD was coming soon…

Card

With Soylent 2.0 still facing import woes; the first Canadian born RTD likely has a huge ready to go customer base. More on that when we hear it.

Find out more about Hol over here, or head straight to Hol Food’s website here.