Rob Reinhart is the creator of Soylent. He discusses how sustainable consumer products can scale beyond niche environmentally conscious demographics.
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Reinhart: Single-celled organisms and synthetic flavors will produce synthetic meat and nutrients
“So I think we're going to use single-celled organisms to produce the same proteins and fats and carbohydrates that we used to wait an entire growing season for, that we can have organisms that double within hours, and I think we can use, ah, the front-end tech…”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Reinhart: Food will be grown in steel vats instead of agricultural fields
“I think that a lot of food is going to be grown in giant steel vats rather than fields, but that means that we're never going to run out of arable land, because all you really need to make food is sunlight and air and water.”
Assertion Contradicted
Reinhart: Soylent conducted a clinical study on Soylent consumption for Nature publication
“We run a peer-reviewed study it'll be published later this year in a nature journal, using a controlled study, studying the effects of tolerability of a People living on Soylent and measuring a lot of biomarkers, vitamin, mineral nutrition, and otherwise, and,…”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Rhinehart: Soylent aims to manufacture its bottles using engineered microorganisms
“The goal is, is total vertical integration. I think, in theory, we could make everything, including the bottle out of you know, out of microorganisms that have been engineered to produce these components far, far more efficiently. Than traditional processes.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Rhinehart: Countertop photobioreactors could eventually produce food for individual homes
“I think we could have the Mr. Soylent sits on your counter, or you put it on your porch, and it gets sunlight, or you have your solar panel, which powers the LEDs, and you know, the fundamentals, there's certainly no physical limit that would make this impossi…”
Prediction Didn’t hold up
Rhinehart: Soylent is developing a therapeutic food paste for $1 daily
“One thing we are working on is what's called an RUTF, ready to use therapeutic food, which is kind of like a paste. So it's between the powder and the drink so that it is ready to consume, but it's cheaper to ship because it doesn't have as high moisture conte…”