Our Story
A Simple Idea - Simplify Food, Make it Sustainable
Soylent started with the basic idea that complete nutrition shouldn’t be difficult or expensive. Our co-founders met in 2013 in Silicon Valley, working under the same roof and eating the same diet of frozen meals and ramen noodles. After a lot of frustrating meals, founder Rob Rhinehart, alongside co-founders Matt Cauble, John Coogan, and David Renteln, developed Soylent as an experiment. Their hypothesis: Food can be simplified for the better. They were software engineers after all so they wanted to engineer better food for themselves.
From The Beginning
Our founders named the product Soylent, in homage to the novel Make Room! Make Room! by Harry Harrison. It’s a dystopian sci-fi novel that explores population growth and world resources. (Yes, we know that there is a Hollywood movie that is an adaptation of the book that involves people. See below.)
Iteration and Innovation
Because Soylent started as an experiment, iteration and innovation is in our DNA. Soylent went from one mixable powder to a suite of ready-to-drink meals, and we won’t stop there. The sky's the limit for innovating and creating more efficient and plentiful food sources. We believe that these innovations will change the way the world looks at food and the role food plays in our lives. Read more about our philosophy here.
Where We've Been
What started as a simple pouch of powdered food has become so much more. Our portfolio of products now includes Powders, Drinks, and Bars (Squared)and Drinks.
Additionally, Because we are focused on the accessibility of complete nutrition we also have launched into brick and mortar retail and are available at nearly 20,000 retail locations in the US including Walmart, Target, and 7-Eleven.
Where We're Going
We have come a long way since our early days of being a viral sensation and our record breaking crowd funding. We now have the backing of some of the most influential funders in tech and have become a household name synonymous with meal replacement.
We continue to live our mission every day of making complete nutrition accessible, appealing, and affordable to all. We take this very seriously and when we say ALL, we mean it. We know there are people near and far that can not afford healthy food and are food insecure. In order to make sure they have access to complete nutrition we have developed our #SoylentForGood program that has donated millions of meals to date! You can learn more about how we support food insecure populations here.
Want to learn more about Soylent?
Our mission.
Make complete, sustainable nutrition accessible, appealing, and affordable to all.
Soylent in the news.
Read what the internet has to say about us.
Our nutrition.
Learn more about what's inside Soylent and how those ingredients make Soylent different.