Beyond Meat Continues to Hemorrhage Cash as Consumers Sour on Fake Meat
Beyond Meat, a company that makes meat substitutes, reported huge decreases in revenues in its most recent earnings report on Wednesday and still remains unprofitable despite cutting costs.
In its third-quarter earnings report, Beyond Meat reported an 8.7% decrease in net revenues year-over-year, bringing in $75.3 million, according to the company. Despite the loss in revenues, the company improved its gross profit but was still not able to turn it positive, losing $7.3 million for a margin of -9.6% compared to a loss of $14.8 million for a margin of -18% from the same period a year ago.
“We are disappointed by our overall results as we continue to experience worsening sector-specific and broader consumer headwinds,” Ethan Brown, president and CEO of Beyond Meat, said in the report. “As we shared last week, we are conducting a review of our global operations for purposes of further and significantly reducing our operating expense base as we seek to accelerate our transition to a sustainable and, ultimately, profitable business.”
The company credits its increasing profitability, even though it still failed to make a profit for the year, on lowering manufacturing costs, lower costs for materials, and lower inventory reserves per pound, according to the report. The company’s net loss was $70.5 million for the year, compared to $101.7 million in the same period last year.
The fake meat industry has faced headwinds since gaining national popularity in 2019, with fake meat companies like Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods both announcing huge layoffs after sluggish sales. Impossible Foods announced plans to lay off around 20% of its workforce in January, while Beyond Meat announced plans to cut 20% of its workforce in October 2022.
Beyond Meat has also faced quality complaints after claims that a factory for the company in Pennsylvania was contaminated with Listeria. The company also allegedly found foreign materials like string, metal, wood, and plastic in its products as late as December 2021.
Deloitte, a large consulting firm, previously found that consumers were turning on the fake meat industry because they considered it to be too “woke,” and were increasingly skeptical of claims that the product was healthier than traditional red meat.
Beyond Meat did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the Daily Caller News Foundation.
