The stock price of Beyond Meat has fallen to less than half of its all-time high in the wake of a disappointing earnings report.
Beyond Meat revealed Oct. 22 that it expects net sales for the third fiscal quarter of about $106 million, substantially below the $120 to $140 million it had predicted earlier. The price fell to about $94 a share, a 52% drop from its peak in 2019.
The company identified several problems, including: customers still reluctant to eat out due to the lingering nature of the pandemic; production delays caused by labor shortages and weather-related disruptions at plants in the Northeast; and a large customer changing distributors.
One analyst told CNBC that Beyond Meat’s future depends more on foodservice than retail sales: “[T]he wholesale industry from McDonald’s to your school lunches, could be a much more massive market for them than just your regular Joe consumer, and I think that’s going to be the way forward for them.”
Beyond Meat’s formal report on third-quarter earnings is due to come out Nov. 10.
