May 7, 2021

Beyond Meat reports wider quarterly loss than expected

Beyond Meat has reported a wider quarterly loss than expected, as the company incurred higher freight costs, increased expenditure on new product launch tests, and sold less product to restaurants affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, Reuters reported.

Beyond Meat's shares dropped close to 7% in post-market trading.

Ethan Brown, chief executive officer of Beyond Meat, said during a call with analysts said he was seeing a slow recovery for restaurants increasing their orders. The company projects its food service business to recover slowly compared to the entire restaurant sector because it sells its product to places where capacity is recovering more slowly, such as sports venues.

The company said it has accumulated more protein because of slower restaurant sales, resulting in higher warehousing costs.

Brown said Beyond Meat's major competitor was discounting two-thirds of its sales, but they will not follow suit.

Beyond Meat second quarter revenue projections are between US$135 million to US$150 million, an increase of 19% to 32%. According to IBES data from Refinitiv, analysts estimate revenue of US$142.8 million

For the first quarter ended April 3, Beyond Meat's new revenue increased 11% to US$108.2 million, which did not meet projections of US$113.7 million.

The company lost 42 cents per share (excluding one-time items). This was wider than analysts' expectations of 19 cents.

Beyond Meat's bottom line swung to US$26.8 million net loss compared to 2020's profit of US$1.8 million.

- Reuters