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 Since its introduction in 2013, the protein drink Soylent has become the go-to food substitute for many coders and venture capitalists in Silicon Valley. For $2 a serving, techies too busy to cook for themselves can pour the powder mix into a glass of water and imbibe a nutrient-rich, if bland-tasting, meal. It’s like a jock protein shake but for nerds. 
 
 But this summer, as the company was riding a wave of positive publicity into its third year, reports of illness started to surface. Customers complained of nausea and other stomach issues after eating newer formulations of its products. In October, Soylent maker Rosa Foods Inc. stopped selling its powder mix and recalled its protein bars. 
 
 The Los Angeles food-tech startup thinks the problem has to do with plants that grow on the ocean floor. The company believes an algae-based ingredient unique to the two new products was to blame for the illnesses and plans to remove it from future versions. “We are releasing new formulations of our powder mix and meal replacement bars early next year,” said Rob Rhinehart, Soylent’s co-founder and chief executive officer. “Our new formulations will no longer contain algal flour.” 
 
 The algae-based ingredients were supplied by TerraVia Holdings Inc. Customers of the South San Francisco company also include Unilever NV, which uses TerraVia algal oil in lotions and soaps. Mark Brooks, a senior vice president at TerraVia, said whole algal flour is safe and that Soylent products contain several known irritants, such as soy protein isolate and glycerin, that can cause symptoms similar to those reported by the startup’s customers. “Our algal flour has been used in more than 20 million servings of products, and we are aware of very few adverse reactions. In no cases was algal flour identified as the cause,” he wrote in an e-mail. 
 
 TerraVia shares fell 8.1 percent to $1.70 at the close in New York. They had declined 25 percent this year through Friday. The loss of Soylent's business is shaking some investors' confidence, said Jeffrey Osborne, an analyst at Cowen & Co. But he said the startup probably didn't account for much revenue. "Until the testing and validation and root-cause analysis have been done to figure out who's at fault for this issue, I think it is too early to make a decision about TerraVia," he said. 
 
 Algal flour is a fairly novel ingredient that serves as a vegan replacement for butter and eggs. Derived from algae grown in fermentation tanks and then dried, the powdery substance is typically seen as a low-risk alternative to soy, a plant-based protein that’s known to cause allergies in some people. Sustainably minded companies are keen to incorporate plant-based protein as a cheaper alternative to meat. 
 
 Any change to a product requires extensive testing before putting it on the market, said Benjamin Chapman, a food safety specialist and associate professor at North Carolina State University. Because customers reported reactions to Soylent so soon after eating, it likely has to do with a component of an ingredient, he said. Food companies must test a variety of factors when altering a formula, including the new ingredients themselves, the amount used of each, how they react with other ingredients and any changes after processing, he said. “When new formulations are made, you run the risk of adverse effects, especially if the new ingredient is not widely used,” Chapman said. 
 
 Startups pitching themselves as fusions of food and technology have been gobbling up cash from Silicon Valley’s top venture capitalists. Rhinehart began experimenting with meal compounds as a hobby while working on wireless networking at the business incubator Y Combinator. In 2013, he raised capital to turn his full attention to Soylent, which he named after the science fiction novel that served as the basis for the 1973 movie featuring Charlton Heston as a detective who discovers that a new type of food called Soylent Green is made of people. Andreessen Horowitz and Index Ventures are among those who invested $23 million into the startup. 
 
 Soylent prides itself on rapid product development—an ideal popularized by Google and Facebook Inc., and one that endears the startup to techies around the world. The product descriptions for Soylent read like release notes you’d find bundled with a new version of an app. In June, the company introduced what it calls Soylent 1.6, the “latest iteration in convenient, complete powdered food.” It touted a key addition to this latest version. “Soylent 1.6 is the first powder iteration to use whole algal flour and high oleic algal oil—innovative ingredients that are yet another step toward sustainable food production,” the company said at the time. 
 
 Soylent said it hasn’t received complaints from people who consumed its premade drinks, which also have high oleic algal oil but not algal flour. The issues reported by Soylent customers after eating the powder and meal bar resembled those facing Honey Stinger, a Colorado energy bar maker. It told customers in May to return or throw away its chewable protein bites after several reports of nausea and vomiting. The snack contains whole algal protein made by TerraVia. In July, TerraVia sent a letter to a distributor warning that it had received a “modest number of reports” showing that algal protein can cause “gastrointestinal distress,” according to a copy seen by Bloomberg. 
 
 Rhinehart said he didn’t know any kind of ingredient derived from algae could make people sick and never received a warning from TerraVia. Brooks said TerraVia didn’t tell Soylent because the startup uses a different algae-based ingredient from the one used by Honey Stinger. However, he said both are compliant with U.S. Food and Drug Administration standards. 
 
 —With Craig Giammona 

 We finally know why Soylent Food Bars were making people sick. 
 
 The food startup believes an algae-based ingredient unique to two new products was to blame for the nausea and diarrhea outbreak among its customers, according to a new Bloomberg report. Gizmodo also previously reported that an algae-based ingredient could be the culprit because the new products contain more than older products. Now, our best guess has been confirmed by Soylent. 
 
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 In addition to identifying the offending ingredient, the company announced plans to release brand new meal replacement bars early next year. Soylent co-founder and CEO Rob Rhinehart told Bloomberg, “Our new formulations will no longer contain algal flour.” 
 
 The screwup began all the way back in August, when Soylent’s released a product called Food Bars it claimed offered “the same complete nutrition” as its previous products but in a “lighter, more portable form.” There were only two major hangups with the company’s claim. One, scientists agreed that Soylent didn’t offer complete nutrition, and two, Food Bars were making people vomit and giving them uncontrollable diarrhea. The company halted sales of its Food Bars with a specific ingredient it believed was making customers sick. 
 
 
 
 Ahead of the algae announcement, Soylent had already confirmed that its products were making people sick. In a blog post two months after the Food Bars launched, the company said it “noticed that a handful of consumers (less than 0.1 percent) who consumed Powder 1.6 over the past several months reported stomach-related symptoms that are consistent with what our Bar customers described.” Now, the company is blaming the entire ordeal on an algal ingredients used in the bars. 
 
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 The algae-based ingredients were provided by a company called TerrVia, which also supplies ingredients to companies like Unilever for lotions and soaps. TerraVia told Bloomberg that the algal flour is safe—denying allegations made by Solyent—and also said Soylent products contain other irritants like soy protein isolate and glycerin that can cause similar symptoms. 
 
 “Our algal flour has been used in more than 20 million servings of products, and we are aware of very few adverse reactions. In no cases was algal flour identified as the cause,” TerraVia senior vice president Mark Brooks told Bloomberg. 
 
 
 
 The algal powder sold by TerrVia is commonly used as a vegan replacement for butter and eggs and has been featured in protein bars before such as Honey Stinger bars, which also caused nausea and vomiting for some customers. The algal powder is derived from algae that is grown in a tank, then dried so it turns into a powdery substance that can be used as an alternative to soy in food products. It’s an easy way for companies to use plant-based protein rather than something more costly like meat. 
 
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 If you’ve experienced sickness after eating or drinking a Soylent product, you can still report it to the FDA here. But even if you haven’t experienced any issues, you still have to ask yourself whether you trust the food. In a pinch, Soylent might be good enough to tide you over, but we’d be skeptical of any claims about providing “complete nutrition” in the future. 
 
 We reached out to Soylent for comment and will update this post if or when we hear back from the company. 
 
 [Bloomberg] 

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 On Thursday evening, food replacement startup Soylent halted sales of its Soylent 1.6 powder amidst reports that it was making customers sick. Two weeks prior, the company paused sales of its latest product, the Food Bar, after Gizmodo reported that several customers had experienced nausea, vomiting, “uncontrollable diarrhea,” and severe dehydration after consuming the bars. Some customers were admitted to the emergency room due to their symptoms. 
 
 
 
 In a blog post Thursday evening, Soylent revealed that while the company was reviewing what happened with Food Bars, it “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.”Although the company wouldn’t say which ingredient is causing the illness, it has narrowed down its search, “given there are only a few ingredients that are specific to only [its] bars and Powder 1.6.” 
 
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 Soylent markets itself as “open source”—it is a tech company after all—meaning the full ingredient list of 1.5 and 1.6 products are on its website. The company claims that it did not see the same kind of complaints with Soylent 1.5, which suggests that some difference in the two formulas is what’s causing people to get sick. 
 
 There are many, many differences between 1.5 and 1.6—so many that it’s impossible to zero in on a problem without more information. That said, the most glaring one is the role algae plays in the formula. Since the company’s inception, founder Rob Rhinehart has wanted to produce Soylent using algae, a super efficient source of nutrients. He told The New Yorker in 2014 that his ultimate goal was “to design a Soylent-producing ‘superorganism’: a single strain of alga that pumps out Soylent all day. Then we won’t need factories.” 
 
 The difference between Soylent 1.5 and 1.6 shows how much progress the company has made when it comes to using algae. Soylent 1.5 has only 2.2 grams of Algal DHA Powder, but is mostly comprised of High Oleic Sunflower and Canola Oil powdered with Maltodextrin. Soylent 1.6, on the other hand, has 176 grams of Algal and Canola Oil Powder. 
 
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 But differences between the powder formulas doesn’t necessarily account for the bars getting people ill. Soylent powder may be open source, but the bars are far more mysterious. The company does have nutrition facts available for the bars. Whole Algal Flour is the fifth ingredient listed. 
 
 Gizmodo first reported on the bars making people sick after finding many, many posts on r/Soylent and Soylent’s own message boards complaining of getting violently ill after eating the bars. Originally, Soylent wrote off the complaints by attributing the illness to “a certain subpopulation of individuals” who “may have an allergy, intolerance or sensitivity to ingredients such as soy and / or sucralose.” But after receiving so many reports, the company decided “to err on the side of caution and take [the] preventative step” of pulling the bars from the shelves, and offering refunds. 
 
 
 
 Besides possible allergic reactions or odd interactions caused by a combination of ingredients, it’s worth noting that products like Soylent drinks and Food Bars are especially susceptible to food borne illness, like any product that requires such an intensive process to manufacture. Eric Newguard, a food scientist with a PhD in Biological Systems Engineering who currently works as an operations analyst at Raw All Natural Pet Food, told Gizmodo, “Every time a product is touched (moving or processing), there is a risk that a microbial contamination can occur.” It’s unclear where the powder is produced, but the bars are made at Betty Lou’s factory in McMinnville, Oregon, so there’s a possibility that there was some contamination there. Gizmodo previously reported that many of the bars that were making people sick all shared a common expiration date, July 14, 2017, and identifying numbers before and after the expiration date. 
 
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 While BuzzFeed reported that Betty Lou’s had not undergone a health inspection since 2014, the Oregon department of agriculture confirmed to Gizmodo that Betty Lou’s underwent inspection earlier this year. In a message addressed to the factory’s “valued customers and clients” sent to Gizmodo by an anonymous source, the factory claims the illness “did not originate from our facility.” Betty Lou’s also claims it passed its safe quality food desk audit “with a score of 100% compliance” and that the results of that inspection will be released on November 8. Betty Lou’s has not responded to repeated requests for comment over the last several weeks. 
 
 It’s also important to note that even though Soylent is marketed as a meal replacement, the government classifies the product as a dietary supplement, meaning it’s regulated differently than food. The FDA’s website emphasizes that the agency “is not authorized to review dietary supplement products for safety and effectiveness before they are marketed.” Soylent says the company is investigating what went awry and will share its findings with the FDA. We have reached out to the FDA to ask whether the organization is currently investigating incidents of Soylent-caused illness. 
 
 This is just the latest dustup for the company, which has had its nutritional claims challenged since the release of its first powdered drink meal replacement in 2013. This also isn’t the first time the company’s been accused of being the source of health problems. Despite some early viral success owing to an aggressive publicity campaign, which claimed Soylent would allow you to give up food, experts were not convinced. Joy Dubost, a spokeswoman for the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, told Time in 2013 that many of the company’s claims about the nutritional benefits of Soylent “are not scientifically substantiated.” 
 
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 “The composition of what [Rhinehart] has made is not going to be nutritionally adequate. He has made a lot of assumptions, and it is not going to be sustainable by any means for a certain population or even for an individual,” Dubost said. 
 
 When Motherboard’s Brian Merchant toured the company’s factory in 2013 (manufacturing has since moved elsewhere), he spotted a bunch of rodents. He also reported that several packets “were infested with mold.” A cursory search of “mold” in the subreddit reveals dozens and dozens of people who have found mold on all sorts of Soylent products, especially its 2.0 product, which the company continues to sell. 
 
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 We have reached out to Soylent for comment and will update the story if we get a response. 
 
 Has Soylent made you sick? Have any theories about why? Or any other spicy Soylent scoop? Email eve@gizmodo.com.
– Over the past several months, a tiny fraction of consumers of a meal replacement powder and energy bar put out by the company Soylent have complained of pretty adverse digestive reactions, including vomiting and uncontrollable diarrhea. Since 2013 the Silicon Valley startup has been producing its nutrient-dense, just-add-water powder—"a jock protein shake but for nerds," reports Bloomberg—and suddenly, something didn't seem right. Soylent voluntarily stopped making Powder 1.6 and recalled the bars, and wrote last week on its blog that it was investigating which of its ingredients wasn't sitting well with the less than 0.1% of its consumers complaining. Now, the company is blaming algae. Soylent notes that complaints were not reported with its so-called 1.5 formulation; a key ingredient added to the 1.6 formulation and the bars is algal flour, and Soylent suspects that's the culprit. TerraVia, the company that makes the flour, begs to differ, arguing that it is very safe and has caused few issues though it's been an ingredient in 20 million servings of various products. It points a finger at other Soylent ingredients, like soy protein isolate and glycerin. That said, Colorado energy bar maker Honey Stinger has also recalled a product that contains TerraVia's algal flour due to similar complaints. TerraVia says the companies didn't use an identical ingredient. "Our best guess has been confirmed," reports Gizmodo, which suggested that algae is the problem earlier. (The company's CEO got in hot water over his "experimental living facility.")