• DTC Daily
  • Posts
  • Huel’s £214 M Playbook—Deconstructed

Huel’s £214 M Playbook—Deconstructed

Tech, ads, reviews, UI, and checkout—every touchpoint unpacked so you can build better.

Author

natasha Barwell
May 12, 2025

In partnership with

⚠️ Important: You may soon receive emails from our new domain @dtcdailynews.com

To make sure you don’t miss anything, drag us to your Primary inbox now.

Advertise to 35,123+ E-Commerce Businesses

Promote your tool, service or upcoming event - Reach Founders

In today’s newsletter

  • Huel’s £214 M Playbook—Deconstructed

  • Two sharp Ad angles to think about

  • How Crumbl turned cookies into cultural currency

  • DTC Gold for the day

In today’s AI Launch Codes (For Premium Users Only)

  • Create studio-quality 3D renders of your products from a picture shot on your phone

Let's dive into it!👇

Huel’s £214 M Playbook—Deconstructed

Huel isn’t just another nutrition brand.

The UK-based, plant-powered “complete meal” company pulled in £214 million revenue in FY-2024 and now sells through 25 k+ retail doors worldwide—while its DTC channel still hums.

If you’re building or scaling a DTC brand, studying how a nine-year-old startup reached that scale is time well spent. I spent the last week mapping every major digital touchpoint so you don’t have to.

Here’s what’s inside:

  • Full tech stack breakdown

  • Social, ad, and WhatsApp strategy

  • Review analysis (volume, themes, positioning)

  • Homepage, collection page, 2 product pages

  • Plan selector, cart, pre-checkout, and checkout flows

  • Demographics, UI decisions, button copy, and more

If you're building or scaling a DTC brand, this swipe file is worth your time.

-Ibrahim

Two sharp Ad angles to think about

  1. Big creators might come with better delivery data

    Running Partnership ads through larger creators (with more followers + more spend) could give Meta better signals. Think of it like the 2025 version of buying mailing lists, not just reach, but cleaner targeting.

  2. Persona-first hooks are hitting harder

    Less “If you struggle with…”

    More “If you are this person…”

    It frames the ad around identity, not just problems.

    But what if you mix both?

    “If you’re a busy parent who’s tired of laundry…” hits harder than either alone.

    Worth exploring both styles across different personas.

P.S.: These are just ideas for you to think about, and if you think it would be worth testing out for your brand, you should definitely test it out.

How Crumbl turned cookies into cultural currency

From fashion-drop hype to Kardashian-powered flexes—Crumbl didn’t just sell cookies, they sold status.
Watch how 4 bold moves turned dessert into a social media phenomenon.
👇 Tap to see the strategy in action.

DTC Gold for Today

1.High-value imports from China get a 90-day breather

The U.S. and China agreed to a 90-day tariff drop—down from 145% to 30% on many goods. But low-value ecom packages (under $800) are still excluded, which means DTC brands importing from China still face steep costs.

2. Small businesses are getting crushed by tariffs

Founders selling everything from card games to skincare say the tariff hike is wrecking margins. Some are cutting staff. Others are pausing ads or scrambling for new suppliers. Not a fun time to be importing from China.

Influencer code protection made simple

KeepCart: Coupon Protection partners with D2C brands like Quince, Blueland, Vessi and more to stop/monitor coupon leaks to sites/extensions like Honey, CapitalOne, RetailMeNot, and more to boost your DTC margins

Free Live Workshop - Get your Shopify store on the first page of Google using AI

• Set up your SEO command center within Shopify
• Run an AI-powered audit in 15 minutes
• One simple hack to speed up keyword research
• 3 lucky stores get optimized live during the workshop

📅 May 23 · 12 PM EST — Claim your seat

Create studio-quality 3D renders of your products from a picture shot on your phone

Your product page—whether it’s on Shopify, Amazon, or any marketplace—stands or falls on its visuals.

Replacing a low-quality snapshot with a sharp, professional photo—or even better, an ultra-realistic 3D render—can lift conversions by 30–40%.


But the catch is that hiring a photographer or commissioning 3D renders is super expensive.


So I’ve put together a simple, step-by-step playbook that turns an iPhone photo into a studio-grade 3D render in minutes using AI.

Iphone image to ultra realistic 3D render

Lets jump right in.

Here’s the exact prcoess to turn an iphone image into an ultra realistic 3d render.

Step 1 — Shoot a Clean Photo 📸

  • Set up: Place the product on a plain white background with soft, even light—near a window or under a ring light.

  • Take two shots:

    1. Full product — fill the frame and keep the horizon level.

    2. Label close-up — move in until every letter is tack-sharp.

  • Keep it raw: Skip Portrait mode, filters, and zoom; just tap to focus and shoot.

  • Save & label: Store the files as product.jpeg and label.jpeg.

Pro Tip:

This post is for paid subscribers

We built AI Launch Codes to help you scale smarter. We test AI tools, build workflows, and write prompts—so you don’t have to. But testing takes time, money, and effort. This paid upgrade helps us keep experimenting, while you get the winning playbooks delivered straight to your inbox.

Already a paying subscriber? Sign In.

Why You’ll Want It:

  • • Use AI to scale faster, cut costs, and boost efficiency
  • • Ready to use workflows, automations and prompts
  • • Real world use cases, no theory