Soylent still doesn’t know what’s making its Food Bar customers so sick, but the meal replacement company isn’t taking any more chances. On Wednesday, Soylent announced it was halting all sales and shipments of the product and asking customers to throw out any remaining Food Bars “as a precautionary measure”.
“After hearing from our customers, we immediately began investigating the cause of the issue and whether it was linked to a problem with the Bars,” wrote the company in a blog post. “So far we have not yet identified one and this issue does not appear to affect our other drinks and powder.”
Earlier this month, posters on the Soylent subreddit began falling violently ill after eating the company’s Food Bars, experiencing symptoms that included severe stomach pain, intense vomiting and “uncontrollable” diarrhoea. Some even ended up in the emergency room, but as recently as last week Soylent continued to stand by the safety of their product.
“After these reports, we have retrieved remaining bars from our consumers and have personally consumed many of the remaining bars without adverse effects,” the company told Gizmodo in a statement last Thursday. “We have also sent them for further microbiological testing and all tests have come back negative. Based on this we remain very confident in the safety of the bars.”
Wednesday’s blog post, however, seemed to indicate that Soylent is now taking the mysterious illness affecting their customers more seriously.
“We are deeply sorry if any customer had any negative experiences after eating a Soylent Bar,” wrote the company. “Our customers place an enormous amount of trust in us each and every time they place an order. We in turn owe it to our customers to prioritise their health and well-being above all else.”