This Singaporean entrepreneur made his own food alternative based on Soylent

Photo credit: Zoylent.

If you have any interest in Silicon Valley goings-on (I mean, you’re reading this site, so there’s a good chance you do), you’ve probably heard of Soylent. The brainchild of entrepreneur Rob Rhinehart, it set out to replace normal food with nutrient-rich beverage.

While it’s technically possible to order Soylent in Singapore, it’s a hassle. The US startup only ships to its native country and Canada at the moment. But alternative sustenance fans here have a, well, alternative option: one Singaporean entrepreneur decided to make and sell his own version.

Enter Zoylent.

The name sounds take-you-to-court similar but there are plenty of competing products out there already like Schmoylent (which, to be fair, has since rebranded to Schmilk – I swear I’m not making these up) and Joylent, a European alternative.

It’s also in keeping with the “open source” nature of Soylent. The startup’s community has played with the recipe and created several variations of the original.

This is how Alvin Chong came up with Zoylent. “I first heard about Soylent when it came out and wondered why no one had thought of this earlier. Reading about how people started adopting it, I just wanted to make it for myself,” he tells Tech in Asia.

Alternative food

For those who don’t know, Soylent is basically powder you dissolve in water, producing a drink that’s meant to replace an entire meal. Classified as food by the US Food and Drug Administration, it’s made out of “all of the elements of a healthy diet, with limited contribution from less desirable components such as sugars, saturated fats, or cholesterol.”

Despite misgivings, bizarre experiments, and a name that brings to mind the 1973 Charlton Heston-starrer Soylent Green, Soylent has attracted US$22.3 million from investors including an enthusiastic Andreessen-Horowitz. Its founder claims the company has grown 300 percent in 2015.

And it’s far from alone. Intervening years have seen products with equally unsettling names, like Huel (short for “human fuel”) from the UK and Ambronite from Finland, trying to carve out their own niche in the alternative food market.

Food versus time

Alvin had always known he wanted to work for himself rather than going through the salary gauntlet. “You can never get rich working at a job,” he says. “Working for someone else, you function at less than half of your capacity.”

He’s tried out several business ideas, including selling rollerblade parts when he was 18 and being one of the first people to sell the popular Japanese kendama toys in Singapore.

I found I could use Zoylent to skip lunch.

But is it good for you?

Going hungry