Yahoo Finance Silicon Valley favorite Soylent is asking customers to throw away its food bars after bouts of illness
Soylent Bars were touted as the “latest advancement in convenient, complete nutrition” when they were launched by the meal replacement company Soylent last month. Now they appear to be making people sick.
Several customers have complained on Soylent’s health forum and on Reddit of experiencing vomiting and diarrhea after eating the 250-calorie food bar.
Soylent said in a statement on Wednesday (Oct. 12) that while only a “small number of customers” had reported experiencing gastrointestinal issues after eating their bars, they would halt sales and distribution as “a precautionary measure.” The announcement advised customers to get rid of any existing bars and offered refunds for people who purchased the product. “Right now our sole focus is getting to the bottom of this,” Soylent’s brand marketing manager Conor Parker said in an email to Quartz.
This is not the first issue Soylent has had to deal with this year. In September, the company had to temporarily cease shipment of its coffee flavored drink, Coffiest, and replace its nutrition labelling after levels of Vitamin A and C in the powdered drink were found to be inconsistent. Earlier this month, it had to delay shipments of its revamped drink, Soylent 2.0, after discovering mold in some of the bottles.
Soylent has found huge success in Silicon Valley since launching its first meal replacement drink, Soylent 1.0, in 2014, but the company’s claims about the nutritional value of its products have been met with skepticism by some.
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