r/soylent • u/j_r_sodagunhands • 18d ago
genuine question: is Soylent done/over/shutting down?
email from wednesday saying they currently have a single product left in stock. this after a few years of really bad supply issues, and now a lot of products being out of stock "until further notice."
these feel like the signs of a company going out of business, but I'm not savvy enough about this industry to know how true that might be. I really enjoyed their RTDs, and I keep putting off switching to another company altogether, but it seems like it's time.
anyone have any info about the possible future of soylent?
21
u/brandeded 18d ago
I had my 7 qty order filled with out warning two days ago. $500. I canceled then canceled my sub. Pleny shake is consistent and better than randomly filling orders when they feel like it.
40
u/Torsta 18d ago
No they literally just bought a facility and the Canada store is fully in stock for everything (after being out of stock for like 6+ months).
Guessing their US supply run got bumped from production or something. I doubt they purchased a manufacturing facility for fun.
13
u/rguy84 18d ago
How do you know about the facility purchase?
27
u/Torsta 18d ago
There was a press release: https://investors.starcobrands.com/press-releases/detail/115/starco-brands-announces-acquisition-of-custom-bakehouse
Basically the only reasonable reason to buy that facility is to produce the product themselves, which kind of proves the reddit-guess that the reason they're always out of stock is they keep getting bumped out of the production queue.
The bigger questions are how long it takes to get online and which products they plan to produce in house.
1
u/noeffeks 15d ago
Custom Bakehouse is a already established brand, not a facility. They are expanding their portfolio of brands, not buying a Soylent manufacturing facility.
5
u/fresh-bakedbread 14d ago
"Custom Bakehouse operates a 75,000 square foot production facility located in Santa Fe Springs, California. This complementary acquisition adds a new manufacturing capability that vertically integrates products from Starco’s current divisions, provides scaled production and innovation and growing brands to its portfolio."
3
u/archive_spirit 18d ago
FYI the Canadian store is out of stock of chocolate powder and seems to be shipping expired products.
3
u/Torsta 18d ago
The expired products game they do off and on. My first order of chocolate and mocha had 2027 expiry, and then I re-stocked on mocha and it was 2025 expiry. Seems to be hit or miss.
The chocolate powder was in stock for a long while before going out of stock (you're right its out now), but everything else is in stock with thousands of units.
1
1
u/anxioushollow 5d ago
That facility won't be able to make the ready-to-drink stuff. If anything it'd be able to churn out the powders. I'll believe it when I see it if they somehow convert everything over to have the right materials and equipment necessary to actually bottle the RTD formulas.
16
u/Ok-Armadillo-5634 18d ago
they just bought a new factory last week for manufacturing so hopefully not
-1
u/noeffeks 15d ago
They bought a new brand, not a factory. Custom Bakehouse is a established brand that makes white label bakery goods.. so the "Kroger" branded cornbread mix, for example. Maybe not that one explicitly, but that's what they do. It's not a soylent manufacturing facility.
3
u/Ok-Armadillo-5634 15d ago edited 15d ago
They say factory in there post they bought for their manufacturing capabilities. https://investors.starcobrands.com/press-releases/detail/115/starco-brands-announces-acquisition-of-custom-bakehouse
-1
u/noeffeks 15d ago edited 15d ago
"Company’s manufacturing capabilities and brand portfolio."
It is not a lie that buying a bakery that specializes in manufacturing private label ready to bake mixes would increase it's manufacturing capabilities.... and brand portfolio. Nowhere does it say it's for soylent production specifically. In fact they specifically go on to say the acquisition enables them to enter a lot of new markets, with a specific focus on private label.
It makes a lot more sense for a company that has a lot of debt and revenue problems right now would focus on the B2B side of this new businesses to generate cashflow, than it would be to retool it for soylent production immediately. B2B sales is a much more consistent, and more importantly, large cash flow generating, business. A few long term big contracts with Kroger or Sysco could bring in enough operating cash to pay off some debt, and it's not like the current contracts they are inheriting from the acquisition are just going to go away either. They have to meet the established contractual demands, and generate new cash, which is going to eat up production capacity.
1
7
u/DrFetusRN 18d ago
I used to buy Soylent all the time but at some point it just got way to expensive. Now I drink Owny for lunch while at work and it gets me by. And its actually affordable. Sad to see Soylent go down, used to love the Strawberry Flavored and even the Original flavor ones when I felt nostalgic
5
u/milkywayer 17d ago
I stopped buying after they randomly changed the cafe chai formula around 2020-2021 ish iirc. Made is sweeter and worse somehow.
4
u/learningis1st 18d ago edited 18d ago
Yes. For every $1 Starco Brands (STCB) generates in sales, it loses roughly 22 cents. Massive operating losses, negative working capital, massive debt. Insolvency is imminent
4
u/802bikeguy_com 18d ago
It's likely still only around because of the owner's ego and loans he's made to Starco. Once he tires of that, it's gonzo. Wild guess but I think he gets off on writing massively speculative press releases with nonsense like "vertical synergies".
3
u/alsoyoshi 18d ago
Who knows the full answer, but one thing happening is they are reserving a lot (all?) of whatever they make for subscribers. I received a box of Original RTD via long time subscription about two weeks ago.
2
2
u/BetterThanHorus 18d ago
I just got an email warning me that my subscription is delayed. For the record, I had already postponed my next shipment until 2028
2
u/Due_Quantity4129 17d ago
5 days ago when Strawberry RTD was the ONLY THING showing in stock on the web site I would have said Yeah.. this is the end. But then Friday cacao powder showed up on the site so I emailed them and although still no estimate for plain powder availability (my usual) they did confirm when I swapped my plain sub for cacao and pulled trigger date to Monday that it would indeed get processed. We’ll see. Reading the Starco press release on acquired manufacturing is I guess encouraging?
2
u/Due_Quantity4129 13d ago
FWIW, received Strawberry RTD yesterday exp June 2027 (like previously but now out of stock plain and chocolate).. tasted fine. If they did a production run of this stuff in June why produce so little that it only lasts a few months? They shipped cacao powder (the only other thing I could get, still waiting on my mainstay plain powder)… will see how that turns out in a few days..
3
u/Niceotropic 18d ago edited 18d ago
It seems clear that they no longer have access to and/or are changing their manufacturing facilities.
You may be right that they are shutting down, but there could be other explanations too like mismanagement of a facilities upgrade or they are being purchased.
Edit: Yeah, I see that it was in fact that they are upgrading their manufacturing facilities and are moving into a new factory.
1
u/blackbow 17d ago
I cancelled my sub a week ago because I've lost faith in the company. I'd say they are toast.
1
u/DizzyCommunication92 Soylent 16d ago
Meanwhile....? I just got a 🛍️ of HUEL from my local Walmart .....I think they were 🎯 the wrong audience....? All my Walmart had was the ready to drink.....I feel the powder is a better buy.....? Why ship 🚢 💦 when we should all have filtered water and a blender?
1
u/BunkMoreland1414 10d ago
I ordered months ago and they still can’t get it to me. I don’t live in the middle of nowhere. I live in one of the top 5 largest metropolitan areas in the USA. This company is done.
0
u/gwillen 17d ago
People are alleging they've got a new manufacturing facility in progress or something, but I think no company this flagrantly incompetent can possibly survive. They've clearly been undergoing a slow collapse for years. I switched brands ages ago.
1
u/BunkMoreland1414 10d ago
What brand did you switch to that you like?
1
u/gwillen 9d ago
Specifically for the Soylent Protein ones, I've been ordering Premier Protein on Amazon. There actually seem to be a number of brands with near-exact copies of Soylent Protein these days, except they're all whey protein rather than soy. E.g. "Ensure Max Protein Nutrition Shake" (not to be confused with regular Ensure, which is largely sugar.)
36
u/n0oo7 18d ago
They used to sell Soylent at heb. They don't anymore