Performance hits a new low, facing the risk of delisting, Beyond Meat (BYND.US) renamed and transformed, betting on low-controversy new products for self-rescue.

After experiencing two rounds of delayed releases, the global plant-based meat industry pioneer Beyond Meat (now officially renamed Beyond The Plant Protein Company, BYND.US) recently disclosed its financial report for the fourth quarter of 2025 and the full year. The report showed that the company's revenue continued to plummet significantly, setting a record low annual revenue since going public, with a significantly enlarged loss scale. Additionally, multiple delays in financial reporting due to internal control issues led to a decline in stock prices, and the company has received a delisting warning from NASDAQ. Faced with the ongoing soft industry demand, this former capital star is now initiating a comprehensive brand reshaping, downplaying the "meat" label and betting on "low-controversy" new products such as bubble protein drinks in an attempt to achieve a performance turnaround. Core performance across the board collapsed, with revenue hitting a new low since going public In the fourth quarter of 2025, the company's performance once again fell below Wall Street expectations. Financial data showed that the company achieved a net revenue of $61.6 million during the period, a significant decrease of 19.7% year-on-year, falling below the average analyst expectation of $62.6 million. The core drag on revenue decline came from the sales end, with product sales dropping by 22% year-on-year, and all channels experiencing varying degrees of sales shrinkage. The profit end performed even worse. In the fourth quarter, the company's adjusted Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation, and Amortization (EBITDA) loss reached $69 million, far exceeding the market expectation of a $19.8 million loss, and significantly expanding from the $26 million loss in the same period last year. Gross profit plummeted by 86% year-on-year to $1.4 million, with a gross profit margin dropping from 13.1% in the same period of 2024 to 2.3%, nearly bottoming out in profitability. At the same time, the company gave a pessimistic outlook for the first quarter of 2026, expecting a net revenue between $57 million and $59 million for the period, significantly lower than the market's general expectation of $66.8 million, and stated that the current operating environment is filled with "high uncertainty." After the financial report was released, the company's stock price fell by about 12% in after-hours trading. In terms of full-year performance, the company recorded its worst performance since going public. In the full year of 2025, the company achieved a cumulative revenue of $275.5 million, a decrease of 15.6% year-on-year. Gross profit for the full year dropped by 82% year-on-year, operating losses doubled to $332.7 million year-on-year, including a $38.9 million compensatory payment related to trademark litigation. Throughout the year, the company also implemented multiple rounds of layoffs to reduce operating costs. It is worth noting that thanks to the nearly $549 million in cash inflows from debt restructuring completed during the year, the company achieved a profit of $220 million in 2025, successfully turning around the net loss of $160 million in 2024. This debt restructuring also helped the company lower financial leverage, extend debt maturity dates, improve liquidity on the balance sheet, providing limited financial buffer for future transformation. Weak demand on all channels, compounded with internal control risks and delisting crisis Behind the continued pressure on performance is the overall demand downturn in the plant-based meat industry and the company's complete collapse in all channels. On the demand side, with high inflation in the European and American markets, consumers have become increasingly sensitive to prices, preferring lower-priced fresh animal meat products over higher-priced plant-based processed foods. This has led to continuous weak demand for Beyond Meat's core products. The company's founder and CEO, Ethan Brown, admitted that the performance directly reflects the continuous headwinds facing the plant-based meat category. According to NielsenIQ data, overall sales of plant-based meat products in the United States have declined by 26% over the past two years. On the channel side, the company's revenue from all channels in the fourth quarter did not escape the decline, with international markets being the hardest hit. In the domestic U.S. market, retail revenue dropped by 6.5% year-on-year, mainly due to weak category demand and reduction of distribution channels for some products. Foodservice revenue plummeted by 23.7% year-on-year, primarily due to the termination of a chicken product sales contract with a fast-food chain from the same period last year, along with continued weak demand at the end. International markets performed even worse, with retail revenue plummeting by 32.5% year-on-year during the period, mainly affected by a decline in burger sales in the EU market and the contraction of some retail channels in Canada. Foodservice revenue also dropped by nearly 32%, as a result of significantly reduced orders for burgers and chicken products from various fast-food chain customers. In the full year of 2025, the company's retail and foodservice channel revenue dropped by 17.5% and 18.1% year-on-year, respectively. At the internal control and capital market level, risks continue to accumulate for the company. The company has significant deficiencies in its inventory accounting and internal controls, including issues with excess or slow-moving inventory accounting. The company is currently unable to estimate the official submission time of its annual report, as this is yet another delay in financial reportingduring the third quarter of 2025, the company delayed the release of its financial report due to the assessment of related impairment costs. At the same time, the company's stock price hit an all-time low in 2025, at one point becoming a "meme stock" for retail investors. The company repeatedly denied bankruptcy rumors throughout the year and received a delisting warning from NASDAQ in March 2026 because the stock price remained below $1 for 30 consecutive trading days, risking delisting if compliance corrections are not completed by August 31, 2026. Initiating a comprehensive brand reshaping, betting on low-controversy new products to break through cross-industry barriers Facing the deteriorating operational situation, Beyond Meat has initiated its largest strategic transformation since its establishment, focusing on brand reshaping and category expansion to break free from the growth bottleneck in the plant-based meat race. The company has officially completed its rebranding, changing its brand name from Beyond Meat to Beyond The Plant Protein Company, gradually fading the "meat" label in the brand and shifting its strategic positioning from a single plant-based meat substitute producer to a full-category plant protein enterprise. "We are repositioning through brand strategy to enter adjacent category races. We believe our brand, technology, and commitment to clean plant-based nutrition can create greater value for consumers," said Brown during the financial report conference call, emphasizing that the brand name change does not deviate from the core mission of plant protein but opens up a broader market space. On the product side, the company is pinning its core growth hopes on "low-controversy" new products, with the flagship being the Beyond Immerse bubble protein drink series. The product sold out upon its debut and is primarily targeted at sports enthusiasts, professionals, and students, particularly aiming towards GLP-1 users as a niche market. Brown revealed that the company has completed 6-7 rounds of product iterations based on consumer feedback, adjusting the flavor and sweetness of the 20g high protein version, significantly improving the competitive strength of the optimized product. Additionally, the company has introduced fava bean crumbles as a product that does not imitate animal protein, establishing the Beyond Test Kitchen platform as the core launch vehicle for all new retail innovation products, and explicitly stating its intention to expand into new categories such as beverages, which have a much larger market size than the current plant-based meat category. The company also emphasizes that while expanding into new categories, it will maintain its category leadership in the plant-based meat race. Regarding the current industry dilemma, Brown believes that the downturn in the plant-based meat industry is closely related to anti-scientific pseudo-scientific rhetoric in public discourse and the divisive political environment in the United States. The resurgence of red meat consumption is just a short-term market fluctuation, and the underlying logic for the long-term development of the industry remains unchanged. He also stated that the company's accumulated technology and research and development capabilities in plant protein are sufficient to support breakthroughs in new races.