Soylent co-founder Rob Rhinehart told Bloomberg that the company's new powder and bars "will no longer contain algal flour." Use of the algae-derived powder, in this case supplied by biotech company TerraVia, has grown in recent years as an alternative to animal-derived proteins.

TerraVia, for its part, says that its algal flour "has been used in more than 20 million servings of products, and we are aware of very few adverse reactions. In no cases was algal flour identified as the cause." However, Bloomberg reports to have seen a letter between TerraVia and a distributor warning that it received a "modest number of reports" showing that algal protein can cause gastrointestinal distress.

Whatever the case, Silicon Valley's favorite shake should be returning early next year.

Update: TerraVia got in touch with an additional statement, noting that "Soylent has released no data that shows our algal flour is the cause of the adverse reactions," and it's confident in its flour's "safety and efficacy - and support extensive testing and expert analysis to definitively show what is responsible for the adverse reactions to Soylent's products."