I love the <i>idea</i> of Soylent, but this has happened so many times now. It's not just the mold and the lead and the manufacturing defects, but the fact that often these were the result of decisions-- like not putting a foil cap on a liquid food product-- that people with experience in the food industry would never have made. I hate to give in to stereotypes, especially of my own industry, but Soylent really gives the impression that they're a bunch of Valley brogrammers just barging into an industry to "disrupt" everything, but without knowing how to do so without killing people.<p>Does anyone know if there's a product that's "Soylent, but by people who know what the hell they're doing"? That's what I want to buy.
Good on them for a fast and voluntary response. It is terrifying as a business owner for a 3rd party to effectively have the have physical responsibility while you have fiscal responsibility. Not a huge story however, this happens to every food company.
What worries me most, and why I stopped Soylent, is that the quality is not in their hands, but in the hands of their suppliers. Do they test everything that they receive to confirm that it is what the supplier says it is?
The way some processed food categories are evolving places them close to drugs in terms of risk. In drug manufacturing they use so called batch topologies to trace back individual components for risk management, audit and process improvement.