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Soylent on the latest Vice piece

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Re: Soylent on the latest Vice piece

#151

Post by sneak »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #76
Sargos wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hmm, delicious cheeseburger or tasteless goop in a can? That's a tough one. Maybe my sarcasm detector is off but I don't see how this is a real question.

Because there's nothing I love more than factory farmed animal protein and excessive, unneeded carbohydrates. Delicious cheeseburger? Have you even eaten at a McDonalds?

McDonalds is fucking delicious.

I'd still much rather put bland goop into my body considering how terrible the contents of a Big 'n' Tasty combo meal is for my health.

Re: Soylent on the latest Vice piece

#152

Post by DanBC »

sneak wrote: post #148
oftenwrong wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because your local Mexican restaurant doesn't claim that you can eat nothing but their tacos and maintain perfect health.

That should not change the standards they are held to. Nobody's forcing people to eat soylent 24/7, any more than they're forcing people to eat supersized big macs for three meals a day.

Except food is held to a different standard than supplements.

Soylent is regulated as a supplement, but sold and promoted as a food.

People aren't asking for weird amounts of scrutiny, just for the same amount of regulation as the rest of the food chain.

Seeing the filthy conditions that the beta product was made in was surprising - the founders knowing how bad it was but continuing to ship beta product to paying beta customers is weird.

Re: Soylent on the latest Vice piece

#153

Post by jlgreco »

adventureartist wrote: post #140
timr wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dude, say what you will about PandoDaily, but it is not OK to have rats running around in a food prep facility. The health department in SF will shut down restaurants for less.

I hope you realize there are more rats in more restaurants and food factories than you think, and that health departments nationally, while quick to cite, fine, and demand changes to your pest control, really understand that rodent problems happen, and don't shut you down for a rat. Rat infestation... yes.

There is no such thing as ”a rat", trust me.

Re: Soylent on the latest Vice piece

#154

Post by 001sky »

timr wrote: post #121
nostromo wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The nascent shitstorm was the story PandoDaily wrote that cherry-picked the mold and rat incidents from the Vice piece to make the content more salacious than it otherwise was.

Dude, say what you will about PandoDaily, but it is not OK to have rats running around in a food prep facility. The health department in SF will shut down restaurants for less.

LOL. The other [two] answers justifying RATs are hillarious.

Re: Soylent on the latest Vice piece

#155

Post by seiji »

sneak wrote: post #150
mcphilip wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's hard to imagine the type of person that would be on the fence about Soylent that would be ok with it after reading this article. Hopefully the "it was beta" excuse for producing Soylent in an unhealthy environment won't fly outside of SV culture. If anything, it should bring up serious doubts about the integrity of a team that, when faced with overwhelming demand and flush with investor cash, stoop to a level of…

That was the beta/promo batch. I fail to see how that's relevant now. They're already subjecting the production version to rigorous testing. As for trials, those cost hundreds of millions of dollars and are done for no other food. Are you suggesting that they simply not make Soylent because it hasn't gone through a phase 3? I bet you're real fun at bake sales.

That's the point. You don't get to "beta" foodstuffs.

Try running a public beta on some cancer drugs and see how far you get.

Re: Soylent on the latest Vice piece

#156

Post by shawnz »

seiji wrote: post #155
sneak wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That was the beta/promo batch. I fail to see how that's relevant now. They're already subjecting the production version to rigorous testing. As for trials, those cost hundreds of millions of dollars and are done for no other food. Are you suggesting that they simply not make Soylent because it hasn't gone through a phase 3? I bet you're real fun at bake sales.

That's the point. You don't get to "beta" foodstuffs. Try running a public beta on some cancer drugs and see how far you get.

> Try running a public beta on some cancer drugs and see how far you get.

1) This isn't a public beta.

2) If cancer drugs WEREN'T tested before being sold, I would be far more worried.

Re: Soylent on the latest Vice piece

#157

Post by rabidonrails »

seiji wrote: post #155
sneak wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That was the beta/promo batch. I fail to see how that's relevant now. They're already subjecting the production version to rigorous testing. As for trials, those cost hundreds of millions of dollars and are done for no other food. Are you suggesting that they simply not make Soylent because it hasn't gone through a phase 3? I bet you're real fun at bake sales.

That's the point. You don't get to "beta" foodstuffs. Try running a public beta on some cancer drugs and see how far you get.

There is "compassionate use"1 by cancer drugs which would be similar...though perhaps more like a private beta.

[1]http://www.cancer.org/treatment/treatmentsandsideeffects/cli...

Re: Soylent on the latest Vice piece

#158

Post by mcphilip »

sneak wrote: post #150
mcphilip wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's hard to imagine the type of person that would be on the fence about Soylent that would be ok with it after reading this article. Hopefully the "it was beta" excuse for producing Soylent in an unhealthy environment won't fly outside of SV culture. If anything, it should bring up serious doubts about the integrity of a team that, when faced with overwhelming demand and flush with investor cash, stoop to a level of…

That was the beta/promo batch. I fail to see how that's relevant now. They're already subjecting the production version to rigorous testing. As for trials, those cost hundreds of millions of dollars and are done for no other food. Are you suggesting that they simply not make Soylent because it hasn't gone through a phase 3? I bet you're real fun at bake sales.

>That was the beta/promo batch. I fail to see how that's relevant now.

Beneath the snark and hyperbole in my post, this was intended to be my point. I don't feel like someone with this mindset necessarily warrants trust in their ability to safely make the product in the future.

I just get this gut reaction against Soylent that makes me care less about structuring my thoughts in a more civilized manner. Back to ruining fun at bake sales.

Re: Soylent on the latest Vice piece

#159

Post by mdisraeli »

sneak wrote: post #144
mdisraeli wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the link: "I considered Ensure but found it much too expensive, low calorie, unpalatable, and an ingredient make up that was far from complete or optimal" I have family ties into this industry, and quite frankly this comment is rather ignorant. Ensure is a brand range, with a lot of variation, some of which are, for example, extremely high in calories. It is also worth noting that one of the uses of products lik…

Why doesn't Ensure have a good webpage showing us these options and educating us on how to choose? There's more to "product" than what's in the bag.

Because pharmaceutical/clinical nutritional sales have very little at all to do with websites!

In our tech focused, Business to consumer / mass business market, it is easy to forget about hands-on sales.

These products, remember, have lots of legislation around them, very strict instructions on when they are appropriate to be used, training is required in order to really use many of them properly, and so on. That tends to be the first indicator of the need for sales reps.

Equally, and perhaps more importantly, remember that direct to consumers is a market for these products only because of clinical teams recommending them. Their typical sales targets are huge, and are acquired in big bulk contracts with entire hospitals, if not healthcare regional bodies. Contracts on that scale are, again, typically done via sales teams who work closely with a client, build a relationship, and help the client get the most out of their sales. This model also exists in the tech industry, and indeed is how most Big Enterprise IT works.

I'm sure they could get more direct to consumer sales if they improved their website, yes. But even ignoring any legislative issues with directly aiding that market, why focus on growing the 5% of your market (being generous!), when that 95% of hands-on sales is really what you should be investing in?

Re: Soylent on the latest Vice piece

#160

Post by vidarh »

jonnathanson wrote: post #24
nether wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except liquid meal replacements already exist (Ensure etc.), and the entire world isn't Valley geeks. You could eat cheap fast calories everyday but gourmet restaurants still thrive. Not everyone is obsessed with food practicality.

Personally speaking, I think the B2B market makes a lot of sense for Soylent. Especially sales to the military, space agencies, and maybe even white labeling for big food companies. In the consumer space, sure, you have some "Valley geeks" who see food as more of a burden to be solved than a source of enjoyment or socialization. But you've also got folks like athletes, both professional and amateur (a much bigger con…

I love good food. But I fall in the amateur athlete category, and for me getting the right nutrition mix is a massive chore on a day to day basis. I would never go to just Soylent, but I'd love to experiment with substituting a number of meals with it.
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