Beyond Meat CEO: Our new plant-based beef products are 'unassailable' by health critics
Beyond Meat (BYND) is aiming to give investors better news to digest in 2024.
To do that, it unveiled its "Beyond IV" product line on Wednesday.
The company is taking the wraps off new plant-based patties and ground beef that use avocado oil as the star ingredient while execs fire back at critics of the product's nutritional benefits.
Beyond Meat founder and CEO Ethan Brown told Yahoo Finance that his team wanted to create products that are "unassailable from a health perspective."
Beyond Meat says the shift to avocado oil alone has reduced the saturated fat count by 60% compared to the previous version of its plant-based beef. Prior iterations used a combination of canola oil and refined coconut oil.
The company claims its new patty, which will start arriving at retailers soon, contains 14 grams of total fat (the same amount as the prior version) and 2 grams of saturated fat (compared to 5 grams previously) per serving. It also claims to have reduced the sodium count by 20%.
Other new ingredients include red lentil and faba bean protein. Previously, the company used a mixture of pea and rice proteins. Overall, Beyond Meat said it reduced the number of ingredients for the products.
The company was also able to secure a label from the American Heart Association (AHA) that marks the product as a "heart-healthy recipe."
"It takes the product from relative health claims like 'this is healthier' to an absolute health claim — 'this is a healthy, delicious product,'" Brown told Yahoo Finance on a Zoom call from inside the company's El Segundo, Calif., headquarters.
A reset for Beyond Meat
Brown is no doubt hoping an avocado-centric patty and ground beef substitute — which could redefine the plant-based meat industry — is akin to hitting the reset button on what has been a challenging two years.
The challenges have centered around a consumer debate over whether plant-based meat is healthier than regular meat. Critics have pointed to plant-based meat's relatively high sodium levels and the fact it's processed.
Recently, the industry's products, along with packaged foods more broadly, have also gotten dinged for being processed and potentially not heart-healthy — a label that PepsiCo (PEP) chairman and CEO Ramon Laguarta told Yahoo Finance Live isn't accurate.
To be sure, a reset moment is needed with customers and investors, given the raw optics of the company's financials and the state of the industry at large.
In November of last year, Beyond Meat said it would slash 19% of its non-production workforce after a softer-than-expected third quarter. Third quarter sales fell 8.7% from the prior year to $75.3 million. The company lost $57.5 million on an adjusted operating profit basis.
Beyond Meat is slated to report its fourth quarter and full-year results on Feb. 27, and the Street is bracing for more of the same.
Analysts expect Beyond Meat to report $66.7 million in sales for the fourth quarter of 2023, down 17.4% year over year. In last year's fourth quarter, Beyond Meat's sales dropped 20.6% year over year.
The company is expected to report a fourth quarter adjusted loss of $0.88 a share, compared to a loss of $1.05 a share a year ago.
For all of 2023, market research firm Mintel estimated that the size of the plant-based meat market fell 3.6% year over year to $1.46 billion.
"[Beyond Meat] as a whole continues to suffer under the weight of depressed demand in the US for plant-based meat," JPMorgan analyst Ken Goldman said in a recent client note. "We don’t have visibility at this time into when the trend bottoms."
Subsequently, the market has taken a large bite out of the valuation of Beyond Meat.
The stock changed hands at $7.18 a share as of the market close on Tuesday, down 60% over the past year.
Recall that the company priced its May 2019 IPO at $25 a share, opened for trading at $46, and then surged to $65.75 by the close. The gain when that closing bell sounded was a mouth-watering 163%.
By July 2019, shares of Beyond Meat hit a peak of $234.90 a share amid a flurry of deals with fast-food chains like KFC, Taco Bell, and Pizza Hut, which are owned by Yum! Brands (YUM).
"Management is pursuing a 'kitchen sink' approach (innovation, promo, marketing) to combat a swift change in consumption habits," Jefferies analyst Kaumil Gajrawala wrote in a recent client note. "It is unclear when trends will stabilize. Low demand visibility makes right-sizing operations necessary."
Brown thinks the worst is, well, beyond Beyond Meat.
"I do think [the new products are] an accelerant for the reinvention of the category," Brown said.
Brian Sozzi is Yahoo Finance's Executive Editor. Follow Sozzi on Twitter/X @BrianSozzi and on LinkedIn. Tips on deals, mergers, activist situations, or anything else? Email brian.sozzi@yahoofinance.com.
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