First, thank you so much for your patience and continued support of Soylent as we spend all of our time making sure that Soylent is healthy, convenient and delicious.  At the time of our last update, RFI had placed orders for most of the ingredients required to manufacture Soylent, and we’re happy to report that in the past month the remainder of the ingredients have been ordered, and most of the macronutrient ingredients have arrived at their manufacturing facility.  They are currently undergoing stringent QA testing.

About two months ago, we said that Soylent should start shipping out by the second week of January. Based on the nutrition profile of the product we were confident that Soylent was was ready for manufacturing and we were waiting to try the final sample. Unfortunately, that sample wasn’t at the level of quality we expected and couldn’t deliver a product to you that we did not ourselves enjoy. The sample was too sweet, a little chalky and much too thick.

We have spent the past six weeks working with the applications team at RFI to fix all of the problems with that sample while maintaining the nutritional quality that we require from a staple food. By modifying some of the applications ingredients (applications post coming next week) we were able to tune the product to the level of flavor neutrality that we have been promising. We switched to a higher quality rice protein and essentially eliminated the chalky texture that many of our beta testers have remarked negatively upon. Working with the applications team at RFI, we determined the mass of the oat flour in Soylent was the culprit of an intolerable stickiness and needed to be reduced. We have tasted the final sample and we are happy to say that Soylent tastes great and we can’t wait to get it into your hands so that you can enjoy it and provide us with your feedback.

Unfortunately, since the purpose of the vitamin pre-blend is to fortify the existing nutrition provided by the other ingredients to ensure Soylent provides 100% of the recommended daily intake of essential vitamins and minerals, the modification of the macro ingredient amounts described above prevented us from being able to finalize the composition of the vitamin pre-blend and place an order with its manufacturer until the middle of December.  The pre-blend has the longest lead time (6 weeks) of any ingredient, and was the last ingredient to be ordered, so once it arrives and is tested, blending & packaging can begin immediately.

RFI has assured us that the full Soylent production run will be complete and ready for packaging by the third week of February and that all of the domestic orders will be shipped out by the end of March.  Fortunately, we will be able to begin shipping orders as soon as they come off the production line, at this time it’s looking like shipments to early backers will begin in late February.

We are disappointed that the manufacturing process has not proceeded as rapidly as we had hoped, and understand that this news is disappointing to our supporters.  We feel strongly that producing the highest-quality product should be our primary goal, and one that serves everyone’s best interest.  Now that Soylent 1.0 has surpassed our standards for nutrition and flavor, we can’t wait to hear what you think of it and can begin to look forward to the exciting work of Soylent 2.0.

Thank you for your continued patience and have a happy new year.

Matt Cauble & Julio Miles