THE BURNED OVER DISTRICT

Every hip SilVal cool dude knows what Soylent is and now some of them even know how sick it can make you. Fortunately the company is reformulating the offending protein bars and powder mix.

The announcement, posted on a company blog, affects two products: a new version of its signature meal-replacement powder, and a 250-calorie snack bar that has for months caused problems for customers.

“For the past several weeks, we have worked aggressively to uncover why people were having these negative experiences,” Soylent wrote. “This has included product testing, an exhaustive industry search, and discussions with many of our suppliers. Our tests all came back negative for food pathogens, toxins or outside contamination.”

In August, Soylent introduced the snack bar, priced at $24 for a box of 12. But two weeks ago, the company recalled the bars and offered full refunds after customers wrote online that they’d vomited, or experienced nausea or diarrhea after eating them. And in September, Soylent said that it was halting new orders on an energy drink, called Coffiest, after the product was not delivering the advertised amounts of Vitamins A and C.

The setbacks don’t seem to be a major deterrent for faithful Soylent customers, who by last year had placed more than six million orders for the meal-replacement products. Soylent fans have ordered so much of the powder that the company said recently it didn’t have enough inventory to fulfill its subscription-based customers. Soylent said that less than 0.1 percent of customers were sickened by the powder, but did not immediately respond to an email inquiry on Friday that asked for the total number of illnesses reported.

I guess if the company starts to take in a better class of people their product will improve.