Beyond Meat Shares Dive After Earnings. Why the Meme Stock Has Lost Its Flavor.

Beyond Meat posted a wider loss and lower revenue year over year in its fiscal third quarter. (Photograph by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

Key Points

• Beyond Meat reported a third-quarter loss of $110.7 million, wider than the $26.6 million loss in the prior year.
• Revenue for Beyond Meat was $70.2 million, a 13.3% decrease from last year, attributed to a 10% volume decline.
• A $77.4 million noncash impairment charge contributed to Beyond Meat’s $112.3 million loss from operations.

Shares of Beyond Meat slipped on Tuesday as meme-stock investors were forced to reckon with the company’s weak fundamentals.

After the closing bell Monday, the maker of plant-based meat alternatives posted a loss of $110.7 million in its fiscal third quarter, wider than a loss of $26.6 million in the previous year.

While revenue of $70.2 million topped the $69 million consensus among analysts polled by FactSet, the number was down 13.3% from last year.

The company attributed the decrease to a 10% decline in volumes of products sold and a 3.5% decline in revenue per pound. This trend is nothing new—the broader plant-based meat-alternatives industry has grappled with falling volumes for years.

Beyond hasn’t turned an annual profit since becoming the first pure-play maker of plant-based meat alternatives to go public in 2019. Sales peaked in 2021 before falling sharply, largely due to shifting customer preferences.

The company delayed the release of its third-quarter report last week, saying it needed more time to quantify the amount of a noncash impairment charge related to certain long-lived assets. The amount came to $77.4 million, Beyond disclosed Monday.

This charge contributed to a total loss from operations of $112.3 million, compared with a $30.9 million loss in the previous year.

Shares tumbled 7.8% to $1.23 on Tuesday, while the benchmark S&P 500 was down 0.4%. At the height of the meme-stock mania in late October, the stock traded as high as $7.69.

Write to Mackenzie Tatananni at mackenzie.tatananni@barrons.com