Soylent: meal-substitute company admits products making people sick

The meal substitute startup Soylent admitted on Friday that another one of its products, Soylent Powder, is causing “a small number” of consumers to fall sick.

The news came days after Soylent Bar was pulled from shelves amid similar concerns. Soylent Bar was on Friday listed on the company website as “currently unavailable”. Soylent Powder, which uses the same formulation, was listed as “backordered”.

Soylent numbers the formulas for its products like a software company: “Powder 1.6” appears to be the culprit behind the current problems. Rather than revert to a previous release, the company said it would tinker with the design of Powder 1.6.

According to one complaint to the company about Soylent Bar, the current iteration results in a “bright green liquid/gelatinous substance on the inner wrapper”.

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Soylent takes its name from Harry Harrison’s 1966 sci-fi novel Make Room! Make Room!, about a dystopian future plagued by overpopulation. The novel was adapted into a movie, Soylent Green, in which overpopulation and food shortage famously have the same solution: cannibalism.

“During our review, we noticed that a handful of consumers (less than 0.1%) who consumed Powder 1.6 over the past several months reported stomach-related symptoms that are consistent with what our Bar customers described,” a Soylent spokesperson wrote on the company’s blog.

“Interestingly, we didn’t see similar complaints during the 1.5 formulation. This possible connection allows us to narrow the field considerably given there are only a few ingredients that are specific to only our bars and Powder 1.6.”

Earlier this month, a report in tech news outlet Gizmodo documented conversations online between Soylent customers who were experiencing gastric distress.

“Early in September,” wrote one customer, “I experienced intense vomiting about 3-4 hours after eating a Food Bar. The vomiting lasted several hours.

“I think it was probably the worst vomiting episode I ever experienced. I did not experience diarrhea.”