Soylent

Soylent is continuing its evolution from being a bag of largely tasteless powder into a full-fledged beverage brand. Their latest offerings, Cafe Vanilla and Cafe Chai, are their best-tasting and best-looking products to date and prove to be a really great showcase for what Soylent can do.

These products, which seem to be built as breakfast meal replacements, are loaded with nutrients. This includes 20 percent of the daily recommended daily allowance for all essential vitamins and nutrients, a macronutrient profile of 47 percent of calories from lipids, 400 calories, 20g of protein, caffeine (150mg for Cafe Vanilla and 30mg for Cafe Chai), and L-theanine. And both products provide more than enough sustenance to be a credible meal replacement.

But for us, we’re really most impressed by the flavor that they’ve created -- especially considering all of the ingredients that are used in Soylent. Both of these flavors build upon the flavor of Coffiest, which we were big fans of when it launched in 2016. The Cafe Vanilla is basically a vanilla flavored coffee drink, which, unlike other vanilla flavored coffee drinks, has a really nice balance between the coffee and the vanilla flavors as well as the other ingredients in the drink. The Cafe Chai, which doesn’t use coffee as an ingredient, has a pleasant chai spice that’s mild and easy on the palate. In both cases, they’ve done a nice job of keeping the aftertaste (from the sucralose, etc.) to a minimum, which is perhaps the biggest achievement of their more recent flavor introductions.

What’s also interesting about this product is that it’s somewhat against the grain of what you see in other beverages. The product uses artificial flavors and sweeteners and has a callout for “produced with genetic engineering.” While there are plenty of other food and beverage products out there that use this type of formulation, Soylent is quite transparent about this and certainly doesn’t shy away from their efforts to use science to craft their product.

Beyond that, the packaging, which is now a 14 oz. square bottle, continues to get better looking with each new product that Soylent launches. The square bottle feels nice in the hand, while the two tone label (white on the bottom and an accent color for the flavor name on the top) and minimalist layout give the product a modern and almost high-tech look. It feels like the right approach for what they are selling and the execution is excellent.

Overall, we’re big fans of the latest from Soylent.

The last time we took a look at Soylent, we remarked at how far the brand has come since its original, powdered effort. So, when we saw that there were two new flavors launching, we were pretty interested in seeing whether the company would continue to advance and evolve the brand.

These two new flavors, Cacao and Nectar, do so, but in two completely different ways. The first flavor, Cacao, is an opportunity to lure in new consumers. It’s a flavor that is, at least for protein, dairy, and dairy alternative drinks, commonplace to the point of it feeling like something was missing from the Soylent lineup. The second flavor, Nectar, which is their self-described “fruity” flavor, offers something that goes in a more unique direction.

So let’s take a look at these flavors:

First, Cacao. This is probably their most drinkable offering to date. It adds a rich and almost indulgent note that helps mask the underlying functional formulation and the sucralose sweetener (our least favorite part about this product). In the end, you have something that’s on par with mainstream protein drinks and, thanks to its unique positioning as a true meal replacement, has a unique point of differentiation.

Nectar, on the other hand, is something that has an approach all its own. We honestly weren’t sure what to make of a product called “Nectar,” but what you’ll find inside this bottle is an almost literal translation of a sugared breakfast cereal (think Fruit Loops). There’s probably a drinker for such a product, but a name that’s a bit more direct would probably be helpful.

Soylent has developed slick packaging for both products. We like the two-tone design, which features an easy-to-read label and an accent color. It seems like a very nice framework that they can continue to use for future flavor additions.

If you haven’t tried or heard of Soylent, here’s the gist: it’s a meal replacement beverage that was engineered to provide all the protein, carbohydrates, lipids, and micronutrients that a body needs to thrive. Prior to the launch of Coffiest, the flagship product, named for the old Charlton Heston Sci-Fi escapade “Soylent Green,” was the only “flavor” available. It really lacked in the flavor department and the packaging looked like a bad store brand. While it’s certainly an innovative concept, it’s not something that appeals to the senses or the image conscious consumer.

That’s all about to change with Coffiest. The core concept of the product is the same, with a 400 calorie formulation that features a rather stocked nutrition facts panel that was designed with meal replacement in mind. But what they’ve added in the way of flavor is a huge step forward for the product. While there’s nothing overly fancy about the added coffee (it appears to be derived from added coffee powder, cocoa powder, and flavorings), the added coffee flavor is a great complement to the flavor of Soylent.

While it’s still not a product that you’d drink for its coffee flavor alone (this ain’t no cold brew, that’s for sure), it takes a product that seemed really niche in its target audience (those who care only about nutrition and are okay with a negative or neutral sensory experience) and shows that it can evolve into something better. Plus, the added caffeine, which they describe as being the equivalent of a strong cup of coffee, is a nice added bonus, especially if you’re consuming this in the morning.

We’d say the same for the packaging. The flagship product comes in a plain white bottle (or bag if it’s the powdered form) and presents itself as something that’s no frills in its branding. Rather than give Coffiest a flashy looking design, they gave it a black and white design (the top of the label is black and the bottom is white) that’s minimalist and clean. And unlike its counterpart, it’s something that actually catches your eye and looks nice in your hand.