Beyond Meat is forecasting another fall in sales in the second quarter after booking a 15% drop in the opening three months of the year.
The plant-protein firm’s shares closed higher on the Nasdaq exchange yesterday (6 May) despite reporting a 15.3% decrease in first-quarter sales to $58.2m and a total loss in volumes of 19.5%.
Sales in the current second quarter are forecast at $60-65m – weaker than the $75m posted in the same period a year ago.
However, there were some positives in Beyond Meat's first-quarter numbers. The loss in adjusted EBITDA in the period to 28 March shrank to $27.8m versus a $50.5m loss a year earlier. Net losses decreased to $28.5m from $61.1m.
Beyond Meat’s shares ended the US trading day up 13.2% at $1.04, taking the 2026 gain to just over 18%.
However, more than 59% has been shaved off the value of Beyond Meat's share price in the last 12 months amid a combination of falling sales, net losses, a cash burn, inventory adjustments, impairment charges and delisting warnings.
“The company continues to experience an elevated level of uncertainty and volatility within its operating environment, which has, and may continue to have, unforeseen impacts on the company’s actual realised results,” Beyond Meat said yesterday as it set out the second-quarter sales outlook.
Despite the January announcement of the company’s entry into “plant protein” beverages, founder, president and CEO Ethan Brown said the focus remains on the core business in alternative meats.
“This quarter marked a decisive broadening of our company aperture to include the rapidly growing functional food and beverage category,” Brown said in yesterday’s results commentary.
“Even as we apply our brand, expertise and technology to adjacent markets, we remain highly focused on the performance of our core business, which we believe will deliver substantial long-term value. To this end, we are pleased to report significant operating expense improvement and our lowest quarterly cash use in over two years.”
First-quarter operating expenses dropped to $43.1m from $57.4m in the corresponding period. Net cash used in operations fell to $5m from $26.1m.
Shrinkage in Beyond Meat’s operating profit losses to $41.1m versus a $64.4m loss a year earlier was another positive but first-quarter sales were down across almost all business segments and geographies.
The exception was international retail, where sales rose 8.1% to $13.71bn with a slight 0.3% uptick in volumes. Otherwise, foodservice sales and volumes in that channel and region were down 25.9% and 32.6%, respectively.
US out-of-home sales fell 29.7% with a volume loss of 31.8%. US retail dropped 15.3% with a 14.7% decrease in volumes.
“The decrease in volume of products sold was primarily driven by lower sales of burger and chicken products to quick service restaurant (QSR) customers in the international foodservice channel, and by weak category demand and reduced points of distribution in the US retail and foodservice channels,” Beyond Meat explained.
John Baumgartner, a managing director at Mizuho Securities, wrote yesterday that “pressures persist” and first-quarter “weakness [was] largely as expected”.
He said in a research note that the “scale of negative surprises may be tempering given street's already low expectations” but added: “However, that does not mitigate the sheer size of year-on-year sales declines which remain very concerning, across three of four business units, and elevate the importance of success for Beyond in building its new immerse protein-fortified beverage line.”
