TerraVia Suspends Supply to Soylent
December 20 2016 - 8:30AM
Business Wire
TerraVia Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:TVIA) has made the decision to
suspend supply to Soylent of all its ingredients, effective
immediately.
The decision to suspend supply is based on the high level of
concern that Soylent’s actions in addressing its issues with Powder
1.6 indicate a pattern of behavior that is damaging TerraVia’s
business. In accordance with food industry best practice, TerraVia
has tried to work collaboratively with Soylent to appropriately
investigate the cause of GI issues experienced by a small number1
of their customers. To TerraVia’s knowledge, there has not been a
rigorous investigation of the root causes of the GI problems before
releasing a new version with Powder 1.7, and, to date, Soylent has
made no data available that would substantiate its decision to
remove algal flour from its products.
“We are surprised and disappointed that Soylent rushed to imply
that algal flour is to blame and removed the ingredient
without providing any evidence that they conducted a full
investigation of their formulations and the more than 40
ingredients in their products, as would be standard practice in the
food industry,” said TerraVia CEO Apu Mody.
According to food industry expert, George A. Burdock, Ph.D.,
“This conclusion is premature without additional investigation,”
and, “I do not believe whole algal flour or any single ingredient
(at normal, sub-clinical use levels) can be identified as the
causative agent - there is just no evidence to indicate a
cause-effect relationship for a single ingredient in such complex
mixture.”
TerraVia’s whole algal flour is classified as Generally
Recognized as Safe (GRAS) in compliance with FDA regulations
concerning substances for food use. TerraVia’s algal flour has been
used in more than 20 million servings of products and has never
been shown to be the cause of adverse reactions.
As of last week, TerraVia has fulfilled its existing supply
commitments for all its ingredients used by Soylent.
“As a company, we work every day to ensure the integrity of our
ingredients and our customers’ high quality products,” said Mody.
“We uphold food industry best practices and remain committed to
partnering with our valued customers who align with these same
principles.”
1 less than 0.1%, according to Soylent Blog dated November 19,
2016.
About TerraVia
TerraVia is a plant-based food, nutrition and specialty
ingredients company that harnesses the power of algae, the mother
of all plants and earth's original superfood. With a portfolio of
breakthrough ingredients and manufacturing, the Company is well
positioned to help meet the growing need of consumer packaged goods
and established and emerging food manufacturers to improve the
nutritional profile of foods without sacrificing taste, and to
develop select consumer brands. The Company also manufactures a
range of specialty personal care ingredients for key strategic
partners. Headquartered in South San Francisco, the Company's
mission is to create products that are truly better for people and
better for the planet. For additional information, please visit
TerraVia's website at www.terravia.com.
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TerraViaKatie RingerCorporate
Communicationspress@terravia.com