Beyond Meat Q4 2025 Earnings Call - Balance sheet repaired, top-line still weak; pivot into beverages begins

Rafael Gross, Partner, ICR Inc.: Please note this event is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to turn today’s conference over to Rafael Gross, partner of ICR Inc. Please go ahead.

Rafael Gross, Partner, ICR Inc.: Thank you. Hello, everyone, and thank you for participating in today’s call. Joining me are Ethan Brown, Founder, President, and Chief Executive Officer, and Lubi Kutua, Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer. By now, everyone should have access to our fourth quarter and full year 2025 earnings press release filed today after market close. This document is available in the investor relations section of Beyond Meat’s website at www.beyondmeat.com. Before we begin, please note that during the course of this call, management may make forward-looking statements within the meaning of the federal securities laws. These statements are based on management’s current expectations and beliefs and involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those described in these forward-looking statements.

Forward-looking statements in our earnings release, along with the comments on this call, are made only as of today and will not be updated as actual events unfold. We refer you to today’s press release, our quarterly report on Form 10-Q for the quarter ended September 27, 2025, and our annual report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2025, to be filed with the SEC, along with other filings with the SEC for a detailed discussion of the risks that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied in any forward-looking statements today. Please note that on today’s call, management may reference adjusted EBITDA, adjusted loss from operations, and adjusted net loss, which are non-GAAP financial measures.

While we believe these non-GAAP financial measures provide useful information for investors, any reference to this information is not intended to be considered in isolation or as a substitute for the financial information presented in accordance with GAAP. Please refer to today’s press release for a reconciliation of these non-GAAP financial measures to their most comparable GAAP measures. With that, I’d now like to turn the call over to Ethan Brown.

Ethan Brown, Founder, President, and Chief Executive Officer, Beyond Meat: Thank you, Raph, and hello, everyone. We entered a challenging year for our brand with an equally challenging quarter. We used this period, however, to accomplish a series of foundational building blocks for the company. First, we retired the majority of our 2027 convertible debt notes, and second, we raised significant capital, two measures that fundamentally changed and strengthened our balance sheet. Third, we invested in an enterprise-wide transformation initiative with a focus on right-sizing our operations and expanding our margins. Fourth, and as you will see reflected in our Q4 2025 numbers, we took another hard look at the assets, products, and inventories we believe are not needed going forward and took action to disposition them. Fifth, we continued to lead the category in bringing clean, plant-based meats to the consumer while hammering away at persistent misinformation promulgated by the incumbent industry.

Finally, we laid the groundwork for repositioning Beyond Meat to Beyond, the plant protein company, so that we can bring the strength of our brand, technology, and expertise to adjacent categories. Having touched on the significant actions we took to strengthen our balance sheet through the elimination of approximately $900 million in debt and the addition of approximately $149 million in cash on our previous earnings call, I will forego further detail here. Instead, I will focus my comments on a quick financial review of Q4 2025 before turning to our transformation work, product narrative, and our brand repositioning and entry into adjacent markets.

What I hope will be clear from these comments, especially for the investor who desires to drill down a level deeper than headline numbers, is that we are highly focused on reducing baseline operating expense and cash use, increasing conversion efficiency in our production facilities, and addressing category headwinds straight on, even as we take significant steps to diversify beyond it. Financial results for the fourth quarter 2025 reflect persistent weak demand in the plant-based meat category, resulting in lower volumes, the impact of which rippled throughout our P&L. This negative pressure was coupled with a number of significant non-routine charges, many of which, though not all, stem from our transformation activities. Sales were $61.6 million, down 19.7% from the year ago period. Lower sales led to lower overhead absorption, which together with higher trade, negatively impacted gross margin.

More significant, however, were large non-routine or unusual items. These include such items as increased provision for inventory obsolescence, partly reflecting the strategic discontinuation of certain lower-profit products and accelerated depreciation related to the cessation of our operational activities in China. The net result was a reported gross margin of 2.3%. Similarly, despite progress in reducing the baseline cost of operating our business, significant non-routine items, including large non-cash charges, increased our reporting operating expenses to $134.2 million versus $47.8 million in the year ago period. These included $48.1 million in non-cash charges related to the write-down to fair value of certain of the company’s long-lived assets, a $38.9 million litigation-related accrual, and higher non-cash stock compensation expense of approximately $13.3 million related to our convertible debt exchange transaction.

Stripping out these non-routine items and the impact of the transaction-related change in non-cash stock compensation, one can see that the run rate operating expense of our business is down considerably year-over-year. Finally, also reflecting the aforementioned transaction, net income of $409.9 million in the fourth quarter of 2025 compared to a loss of $44.9 million in the year-ago period, reflecting a $548.7 million dollar gain on debt restructuring. To summarize, our fourth quarter 2025 results reflect both continuing challenges in the category as well as substantial noise in our reported numbers due to, among other factors, several of our transformation initiatives. I will now turn to this transformation activity where we are encouraged by the progress of our transformation office led by our Interim Chief Transformation Officer, John Boken.

As I noted, we’ve seen further reduction in underlying operating expenses, excluding the non-routine items and transaction-related stock compensation increase for both the fourth quarter and full year 2025 on a year-over-year basis, and we are pursuing other cost reduction measures going forward. Also setting aside certain non-routine charges, we believe we are making progress against our goal to sustainably return to healthy gross margins. As previously shared, we’ve largely completed the consolidation of our production network and continue to improve asset utilization at our manufacturing facilities. Further, we’re now in the process of optimizing our new continuous production line at our facility in Columbia, Missouri, and are investing in automation. These and other measures are already showing up in a year-over-year improvement in conversion costs across our network, a key component of our COGS reduction initiatives.

Further, through our Transformation Office, we are seeking to reduce material costs through RFP actions, the cultivation of secondary sources, and formulation improvements. We are further consolidating our warehouse network and reducing logistics expenses. We are exiting less profitable product lines, and we are making substantial progress on driving down inventory. Finally, we remain very focused on cash management and have significantly reduced our baseline cash use in the fourth quarter compared to prior periods, excluding extraordinary items. I’ll now turn briefly to our ongoing efforts to dispel the persistent cloud of misinformation regarding our products. As I have noted countless times in these calls, the incumbent industry did a masterful job of seeding doubt in the mind of the consumer.

For the time being, we operate in an upside-down world where protein from peas, lentils, fava beans, and brown rice mixed with avocado oil and a limited number of other clean ingredients is disingenuously, though broadly cast as less than healthy. I believe this confusion will ultimately clear, and in the interim, we remain focused on innovating around taste and health and helping to communicate the latter via various accreditations and certifications, including our now 20-plus certifications from the Clean Label Project. For our latest center-of-the-plate innovations, such as Beyond Steak Filet or Beyond Ground, consumers can now order directly from Beyond Test Kitchen, our direct-to-consumer platform. These products, their great taste, simple and clean ingredients, and the impressive macronutrient content are winning accolades from consumers even before they reach retail stores.

Beyond Steak Filet boasts 28 grams of protein, fava beans, wheat gluten, and mycelium, and only 1 gram of saturated fat from avocado oil, while boasting 0 cholesterol and only 230 calories. Beyond Ground Fava delivers 27 grams of protein from fava beans and potato, 4 grams of fiber from psyllium husk, has no saturated fat or cholesterol, and is only 140 calories. Moreover, Beyond Ground Fava is made from only 4 ingredients: water, fava protein, potato protein, and psyllium husk, and performs extremely well in dishes such as tacos, bolognese, and protein bowls. Finally, I’ll now turn to a key and central communication.

Notwithstanding the many changes occurring through our transformation office that I’ve discussed above, when I noted late last year that going forward, you should not expect more of the same, I was most of all referring to the broadening of the aperture that you see as we move from Beyond Meat to Beyond, the plant protein company. I believe that no company has innovated with plants under more scrutiny than Beyond, ever. We’re now bringing the resulting hard-fought expertise and capabilities, our commitment to health and clean ingredients, and our brand to adjacent categories where we believe we can be disruptive and win. Our first foray in this broader delivery of the power of plants to consumers is our exciting new drink platform, Beyond Immerse.

The Beyond Immerse platform, a clear and slightly carbonated beverage, is designed to provide the consumer with protein, fiber, antioxidants, and electrolytes, effectively immersing the body in the nutritional benefits of plants. We launched Beyond Immerse, as we now plan to do with all new retail innovation, on the Beyond Test Kitchen to early fanfare and excitement, generating over 3 billion media impressions and selling out of our first limited run inventory quickly. Beyond Immerse is formulated to support muscle health and recovery, gut health, immune function, and hydration. Each serving contains 10 or 20 grams of protein, 7 grams of fiber, and only 60 or 100 calories, depending on the level of protein. Beyond Immerse is made without added sugar alcohols, artificial sweeteners or flavors, stabilizers, carrageenan, and many other ingredients present in many popular protein drinks.

Easier to drink than a thick protein shake and made without whey, so it is dairy-free. The product is designed for the casual to competitive athlete as well as the busy student or professional who wants protein, fiber, antioxidants, and electrolytes at the gym, home, work, or on the go. Moreover, we believe it is particularly well-suited for GLP-1 users. I personally find it satisfying post-workout at breakfast or late afternoon when I’d like a boost between meals. It’s been fun to watch consumers enjoy it, and like all things Beyond, we continue to innovate and iterate based on what we believe is a state-of-the-art science and consumer use and suggestions.

Far from stepping away from our mission to change the source of protein at the center of the plate from animals to plants, we reaffirm it and take to these promising adjacencies to introduce our brand to a much larger number of consumers than currently participating in a plant-based meat category. We do so not to dabble, but with a firm and serious belief that our technology, our brand, and our commitment to human health and the power of plants allows us to successfully deliver unique and compelling value within the certain segments we’ve identified. In the end, it is our aspiration that, though indirect, this expansion will lead more consumers back to Beyond at the center of the plate as they enjoy our brand, clean ingredients, and commitment to their health in less controversial, more convenient products like Beyond Immerse.

As such, I close today’s comments as I have many others that remain focused on building tomorrow’s global protein company of size and significance. With that, I’ll now turn the call over to Lubi Kutua.

Lubi Kutua, Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer, Beyond Meat: Thank you, Ethan, and good afternoon, everyone. I’ll begin with a review of our fourth quarter financial results before providing some brief comments on our outlook and additional matters regarding some of our recent disclosures. Total company net revenues decreased 19.7% to $61.6 million in the fourth quarter of 2025 from $76.7 million in the year ago period. The decrease was primarily driven by a 22.4% decrease in volume of products sold, partially offset by a 3.5% increase in net revenue per pound. Ongoing softness in volume of products sold primarily reflects weak category demand in many of our key geographies and channels and lower sales of chicken and burger products to QSR customers both in the U.S. and abroad.

Net revenue per pound increased primarily as a result of changes in product sales mix, favorable changes in foreign exchange rates, and price increases of certain of our products, partially offset by higher trade discounts. Breaking this down by channel, U.S. retail channel net revenues decreased 6.5% to $31.7 million in the fourth quarter of 2025, compared to $33.9 million in the year ago period. The decrease was primarily volume driven, which again largely reflects weak category demand while net revenue per pound was flat. Although volume headwinds persist, we are beginning to see some benefit from recently announced distribution gains in the mass channel, which is helping to mitigate the general softness.

In U.S. food service, net revenues decreased 23.7% to $8 million in the fourth quarter of 2025, compared to $10.5 million in the year ago period. The decrease was primarily driven by a 25.1% decrease in volumes of products sold, partially offset by a slight year-over-year increase in net revenue per pound. Although category dynamics in the food service channel also remain weak, much of the decline in our business was due to the lapping of sales of chicken products to a U.S. QSR customer in the year ago period. Turning to international. International retail channel net revenues decreased 32.5% to $8.8 million in the fourth quarter of 2025, compared to $13.1 million in the year ago period.

The decrease in net revenues was primarily driven by a 33.5% decrease in volume of products sold, partially offset by a 1.5% increase in net revenue per pound. The decrease in volume of products sold was primarily driven by reduced burger sales in the EU and certain retail channels in Canada. Although our Canadian business generally remains healthy, year-over-year comparisons were negatively impacted in part by stocking activity in the year ago period in anticipation of potential tariffs. Finally, in international food service, net revenues decreased 31.8% to $13.1 million in the fourth quarter of 2025 from $19.3 million in the year ago period.

The decrease in net revenues was driven by a 34.1% decrease in volume of products sold, partially offset by a 3.4% increase in net revenue per pound. The decrease in volume of products sold was primarily attributable to reduced sales of our chicken and burger products to certain QSR customers. The increase in net revenue per pound primarily reflected favorable changes in foreign currency exchange rates and changes in product sales mix, partially offset by higher trade discounts. Moving down the P&L, gross profit in the fourth quarter of 2025 was $1.4 million or gross margin of 2.3% compared to gross profit of $10 million or gross margin of 13.1% in the year ago period.

Gross profit and gross margin in the fourth quarter of 2025 included $2.4 million in non-cash charges related to SKU rationalization initiatives and $1.5 million in expenses related to the shutdown of our China business. Additionally, gross profit and gross margin in the fourth quarter of 2025 were negatively impacted by increased cost of goods sold per pound, partially offset by increased net revenue per pound. Reduced production volumes in response to weak demand continue to represent a meaningful headwind in terms of fixed cost absorption, even as we have been encouraged by improvements in our variable conversion costs. Overall, by cost bucket, the increase in cost of goods sold per pound primarily reflects higher materials costs and increased inventory provision, partially offset by lower manufacturing expenses, including depreciation and lower logistics costs.

Operating expenses were $134.2 million in the fourth quarter of 2025 compared to $47.8 million in the year-ago period, with the significant year-over-year increase on a reported basis reflecting the inclusion of certain large non-cash charges. Specifically, and of note, operating expenses in the fourth quarter of 2025 included $48.1 million in non-cash charges related to the loss from write-down of assets held for sale, reflecting certain PP&E assets which were no longer deemed core to our strategic objectives going forward, a $38.9 million litigation-related accrual, and $13.3 million in incremental share-based compensation expenses related to the convertible debt exchange. Excluding these and other lesser items, the decrease in operating expenses compared to the year-ago period was primarily driven by decreased marketing expenses.

Below the line, total other income net was $542.6 million in the fourth quarter of 2025 compared to total other expense net of $7 million in the year ago period. The increase was primarily due to a gain on debt restructuring resulting from our debt exchange and to a lesser extent, a gain from remeasurement of warrant liability, partially offset by a loss from remeasurement of derivative liability and an increase in interest expense. Net income was $409.9 million in the fourth quarter of 2025 or $0.84 per common share compared to net loss of $44.9 million in the year ago period or a loss of $0.65 per common share.

Adjusted EBITDA was a loss of $69 million in the fourth quarter of 2025 compared to a loss of $26 million in the year-ago period. Although I would note that adjusted EBITDA in the fourth quarter of 2025 includes the previously mentioned loss from write-down of assets held for sale. Turning to our balance sheet and cash flow highlights. Our cash and cash equivalents balance, including restricted cash, was $217.5 million as of December 31, 2025, and total outstanding carrying value of debt was $415.7 million, which includes the total undiscounted future cash flows of the new 2030 notes in accordance with TDR accounting guidelines.

Net cash used in operating activities was $144.9 million in the year ended December 31, 2025 compared to $98.8 million in the year ago period. Capital expenditures totaled $12.3 million in the year ended December 31, 2025 compared to $11 million in the year ago period. Net cash provided by financing activities was $223.4 million in the year ended December 31, 2025 compared to net cash provided by financing activities of $45.8 million in the prior year.

In 2025, net cash provided by financing activities included $100 million in draws from our delayed draw term loan facility, partially offset by related debt issuance costs and aggregate net proceeds of approximately $148.7 million from sales of common stock under our ATM program. As a reminder of the key highlights of our Q4 debt exchange, we exchanged over 97% of the $1.15 billion aggregate principal amount of the 2027 convertible notes for approximately $209.7 million in aggregate principal amount of new second lien 2030 convertible notes and approximately 318 million new shares of common stock. This leaves approximately $29.5 million of the 2027 convertible notes outstanding today.

In combination with the nearly $150 million in net proceeds we raised from our ATM program in Q4, we believe these actions have meaningfully strengthened our balance sheet and support our continued efforts to execute our business transformation plan. Let me now touch briefly on our outlook. We continue to experience elevated levels of uncertainty and therefore low visibility within our core category of plant-based meat. Accordingly, we believe it remains prudent to provide only limited and very near term guidance until we begin to see more clear signs of stabilization within our operating environment. With that context, we are providing the following revenue guidance for the first quarter of 2026. We expect net revenues to be approximately $57 million-$59 million.

Finally, I’ll close by making a few remarks on some of our recent disclosures regarding the company’s internal controls over financial reporting. As part of our fourth quarter and full year 2025 financial close procedures, and in addition to a previously identified material weakness related to the accounting for non-routine and complex transactions, we identified an additional material weakness related to controls associated with the accounting for inventory provision, including amounts recorded for the provision of excess and obsolete inventory. We are clearly disappointed with these findings and are actively working on plans to remediate the identified deficiencies. In part, while assessing the impact of these material weaknesses on our financial statements, we identified certain errors related to our previously issued interim condensed consolidated financial statements for 2025, which we determined were immaterial to those interim financial statements.

We intend to correct those errors prospectively when we file our quarterly reports in 2026, and we have also furnished as corrected amounts for certain key affected financial measures in today’s press release. We want to assure all our stakeholders that we are fully committed to our efforts for remediating the identified issues and strengthening our controls as applicable, and we have already taken measures to advance these objectives. Lastly, as we noted in our earnings release, we are unable to file our annual report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2025, within the prescribed deadline, as we require additional time to complete our fourth quarter and year-end financial close procedures. We are working diligently to address these matters. However, at this time, we are unable to estimate when the Form 10-K will be filed.

As a result, the company will be considered an untimely filer and will no longer be eligible to use Form S-3 registration statements until it regains timely filer status by filing in a timely manner all reports required to be filed under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended for a period of 12 calendar months. With that, I’ll turn the call over to the operator to open it up for your questions. Thank you.

Rafael Gross, Partner, ICR Inc.: Thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session. To ask a question, you may press star then one on your touchtone phone. If you’re using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing the keys. If at any time your question has been addressed and you’d like to withdraw your question, please press star then two. At this time, we will now pause momentarily to assemble our roster. Our first question comes from Benjamin Theurer with Barclays. Please go ahead.

Benjamin Theurer, Analyst, Barclays: Yeah, good afternoon, Ethan and Lubi. Thank you very much for taking my question. A few questions. Maybe to kick it off, a little bit on, like, the outlook for new products and product lines, which you’ve talked a little bit about the beverage opportunities there, and then obviously you’ve talked about a pipeline of potential new products under the new brand, branding of Beyond. Really wanna understand, Ethan, from you is that to be seen as like to really pivoting away from what kind of like the initial mission of Beyond was to really look to diversify the portfolio.

I really would like to understand where you are in terms of researching and developing those products to get a better understanding in terms of the timeline when we can expect those products to come to market. That will be my first question.

Ethan Brown, Founder, President, and Chief Executive Officer, Beyond Meat: Great. Thank you, Ben. Appreciate it. I think first and foremost, no, it is not in any way abandoning the original mission and focus that we have had. It’s simply broadening the aperture of our business and meeting consumer where they are today. If I could just comment a little bit on why we’re making this pivot and then get into kind of the timing and focus of the pivot.

You know, if I thought that Beyond in our original value proposition were struggling during a period when you know, the role of science and public discourse and social media and government was you know, pronounced and effective when pricing and economic stability and buying power are all favorable and you know, the American you know, political landscape were sort of characterized by a sense of common ground versus division, and Beyond were really suffering, you know, I would be very concerned for our long-term prospects into the plant-based meat category overall. You know, none of that is true, right? This is a very difficult period for the world, and it’s a difficult period for our country.

I think one of the things that is most significant for our business in terms of what’s impacting it is this kind of surround sound of pseudoscientific jargon and positioning and promotion that really overwhelms what is decades and decades and decades of science. You know, I think nothing in our lane is a more obvious representation of this troubling trend than the resurgence of red meat.

I’ve spent over, you know, 17 years now seeking and listening to the counsel of some of the very best cardiologists in the country at some of our most prestigious institutions, and I can only look at these current trends with a mixture of sadness for the folks that are gonna be impacted by it, and increased impatience for those that are seeking to profit from it. I was very glad to see the American Heart Association today take a stand. I think a major newspaper, I actually got a clipping of it. You know, summarize it as the new nutrition guidance from the American Heart Association advises getting protein from plants rather than meat, choosing low fat or fat-free dairy, and using olive, soybean, and canola oil instead of beef tallow and butter.

Lubi Kutua, Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer, Beyond Meat: You have a kind of independent institution backed by science that is saying the exact opposite of where our culture is going on diet.

Ethan Brown, Founder, President, and Chief Executive Officer, Beyond Meat: The good news is that, you know, this is a pendulum that’s gonna swing, and you know, it’s gonna swing back, and I’m very comfortable that Beyond will prosper when it does. I’m not gonna wait around for that. You know, because of the work we’ve done, particularly over the last 10 years, to really lead the category in developing extremely clean, healthy products, we’re really well positioned to look outside the category and take that technology, take that science, take that brand into segments and categories that are many, many, many, many times the size of the plant-based meat category. You have a great brand. You know, we just, for example, again, got the Time magazine list, you know, best brands in the world.

You take the, you know, science that continues to win awards and accolades for some of the development work we’ve done around, you know, plant-based protein for the center of the plate. You take a massive trend within the consumer that is around protein and fiber and things like that, and you say, "Okay, where can we apply all this?" We did a lot of work over the last year understanding which adjacent markets we can get into. The first one that we’ve identified and been public about, and others will follow, is the beverage category. You know, we launched an initial version online earlier and sold out very quickly that initial inventory.

What we’re doing is, as we did with Beyond Ground, learning from the consumer what they like and don’t like and making adjustments. That process is going great. You know, the product that we’re gonna be launching soon I think is gonna be one of the best protein drinks on the market. It satisfies so many different needs for the consumer, whether it’s protein, fiber, antioxidants, electrolytes. It does so in a really clean way. The fascinating thing for me is we get into these other categories, and I start looking at some of the key competitors in those categories, the really big ready-to-drink protein companies.

They’re putting things in their products that we could never put in our products because of the scrutiny we’re under and because of our guidelines around clean ingredients. I mean, you’re looking at, I think, one of the top ones has sucralose, has carrageenan, has acesulfame potassium. You know, another one has artificial flavors and all of the above. Another one has hexametaphosphate as well as all the above. You know, so it just goes on and on things that if we put in, they’d be kind of front page news from our friends in the incumbent industry. We’re gonna take that relentless innovation, we’re gonna take that commitment to clean ingredients, and we’re going into those categories.

I think the drink category is the one that’s most clearly on the horizon for us, the one that I’m willing to most to speak most publicly about. I think this summer you’ll see us be pretty active there.

Benjamin Theurer, Analyst, Barclays: Okay. Got it. This is maybe more for Lubi. If we kind of like look at the balance sheet and like in connection with the cash flow statement, clearly kind of throughout the quarter, you got a little bit of a relief on where we are on the cash balance. If we kind of look at just the underlying trends within cash from operations, it continues to be somewhat in that range, $40-$50 million-ish negative on a quarterly basis, shaping out at about $140-$150 million for the year. What are the things that you can kind of like work on, just given where the environment is? I mean, your outlook for 1Q early points to not necessarily a top line driven recovery in 2026.

All that operating leverage continues to be probably a headwind or the lack of operating leverage, let’s put it this way. What are the levers you can pull to kind of like maybe further reduce any incremental cash burn with operations that you’re facing?

Ethan Brown, Founder, President, and Chief Executive Officer, Beyond Meat: Yeah. I can just give a quick answer and then turn it over to Lubi Kutua. I mean, one, I think you’ll see that we’re doing some really interesting things with inventory. That’s gonna give us some favorability. Then second, I think you just gotta back out some of these one-time charges that have been so difficult for us. Once you do that, you see a dramatically slowing use of cash. You do it this quarter, for example, you are down significantly from where we were a year ago if you back out those one-time charges, or some of the extraordinary stuff related to convertible debt exchange. I think you’ll only see that as we go forward, you know, continue to be favorable for us.

Lubi Kutua, Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer, Beyond Meat: Yep. Hey, Ben, I appreciate the question. Yeah, I would, you know, probably just echo a lot of what Ethan just mentioned. You know, we have been focused now for a while on our working capital management and, you know, in particular ensuring that our stocking levels of inventory are appropriately sized, given where the business is. You know, I think the team has done a really good job in managing the inventory down, but I think there’s more to come in that regard.

You know, the other important thing, and again, Ethan mentioned this is, you know, in the last couple of quarters, we have had some fairly large, you know, what we would consider sort of non-ordinary course business expenses, right? In the fourth quarter, in particular, these were related to the debt exchange. We continue to execute our transformation plan, all right, for this business. From time to time, we will see, you know, some of these unusual items, all in, you know, sort of service of trying to, you know, reposition this business more appropriately, you know, towards our goals to profitability.

I would expect that, you know, in 2026, you know, some of the larger items certainly that we saw in recent quarters should not recur. Recall as well that, you know, last year in 2025, you know, we unfortunately did have, you know, a couple of reductions in force and, you know, the associated severance payments that are related to that. Just lastly, I would say that, you know, we are focused on, you know, trying to expand our gross margin.

You know, Ethan, in his prepared remarks mentioned, you know, that we’re standing up our sort of first continuous production line where we do end-to-end production and, you know, we’re going to be, that’s gonna give us an opportunity to internalize additional volume, that’s, you know, previously outsourced and increase our internal asset utilization. I think all of those measures taken together should help to reduce that rate of cash consumption.

Benjamin Theurer, Analyst, Barclays: Okay. Perfect. Well, thank you very much for that. I’ll pass it on.

Ethan Brown, Founder, President, and Chief Executive Officer, Beyond Meat: Thanks.

Lubi Kutua, Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer, Beyond Meat: Thanks.

Rafael Gross, Partner, ICR Inc.: The next question comes from Kaumil Gajrawala with Jefferies. Please go ahead.

Kaumil Gajrawala, Analyst, Jefferies: Hey, guys. I guess first question, congratulations on the financing and all of that. Maybe are there things that you can now do that maybe you were prohibited from doing before as you sort of execute the turnaround? I guess, in the context of the refinancing, and as it relates to the filing and some of the financial disclosure issues, does that change anything related to the transactions that you’ve done? Or is there anything that we just need to be aware of if for some reason, you know, the 10-K comes out even later than planned, that just things that we should know about that could happen, so we’re better off knowing.

Ethan Brown, Founder, President, and Chief Executive Officer, Beyond Meat: Great. Thanks for the questions. I’ll take the first one and then pass it on to Lubi. You know, I don’t think we’re gonna be making any outsized investments as a result of the cash we brought on. I think we’re just continuing to focus on trying to hit that EBITDA positive target and minimize cash use. There are some things that we now have the ability to do. If you look at last year, we cut way back and I think part of the issue with our fourth quarter results on the top line, we didn’t market a lot. You know, we were just in cash conservation mode as we were doing our debt exchange. It was incredibly expensive.

I pulled back considerably on marketing. This year, we won’t do that, particularly as we get into some of these exciting categories where marketing is important. Just on like the automation and on continuous lines and things like that, you will see us make CapEx investments that will allow us to drop down some more cash out of just general sales and operations. I do think, you know, if you take a step back and look at our P&L for the quarter, as we were talking about on operating expense, there’s just a lot of noise in these numbers, and I tried to touch upon that.

I think if you look at, take gross margin, for example, you know, we did have lower volumes, which led to some of this lower fixed overhead absorption. But we did have these charges, right? We had some of the SKU rationalization charges. We had, you know, expenses related to shutting down our China business. We had much higher inventory provisions than normal, things like that. That’s masking these kind of lower conversion costs throughout our plants, lower logistics costs, and things of that nature. If you take a step back, say, okay, the company is converting materials at a lower rate than it has before, right? You go to OpEx, and you say, okay, strip out all those one-time charges.

The company is operating its business at a much lower rate than it was before. Now it’s just income and cash use too, same thing. If you take out all those one-time charges, you know, cash consumption’s lower. If you start to put that picture together, you say, what this company really needs to do is fix this top line. You know, I’ve tried for years to do that through the existing category. I think the headwinds are gonna be here for a little bit longer. It’s something we gotta get outside the category to address, and that’s why you see us in some of these adjacencies. You know, it’s difficult for people to see if they just look at the top-line numbers.

If you take a step back, what the missing piece really is becoming now is just getting that top line to be where it needs to be, and we’re very focused on that.

Lubi Kutua, Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer, Beyond Meat: Yeah. Kaumil, maybe if I would just add a couple things to that. You know, as far as, you know, what putting the sort of balance sheet restructuring behind us now enables us to do, I think Ethan sort of covered that well. And, you know, and the raising of the additional proceeds from the ATM, right, allow us to, I think, spend a little bit more on the marketing front, which we do think will be important to stabilize the top line and as we, you know, start to expand into some of these adjacent categories.

I think the other thing as well is just, you know, the focus, right, that we are able to, you know, to reallocate to the primary business. As you guys know, I mean, we had been talking about the debt restructuring for quite some time on these earnings calls, and so that did consume quite a bit of, you know, the management team’s focus. You know, it’s a relief to put that behind us.

Ethan Brown, Founder, President, and Chief Executive Officer, Beyond Meat: Really focus now on the you know very important steps and measures that we need to continue to make to turn the business around. Your question regarding the you know the disclosures around the you know material weakness and the impacts you know that’s had on our financial statements. I would say it doesn’t necessarily change anything immediately. Obviously we’re very focused on ensuring that we can file our 10-K as quickly as possible notwithstanding the fact that you know we were not able to do so within the prescribed timeline.

Kaumil Gajrawala, Analyst, Jefferies: Okay, great. Got it. As it relates to the beverage product, what does the supply chain look like for something like that? Can you leverage your current PP&E assets to produce it? Do you need to use third-party co-packers? It sounds like, you know, it just sounds so different from the core of what you’re doing that, yes, it’s cool, and it’s likely to be promising, but how does that impact the actual practicality of production and such?

Ethan Brown, Founder, President, and Chief Executive Officer, Beyond Meat: Yeah, that’s a very, very good question. Before I answer that, I wanna just note one thing on the core business that I moved over to too quickly. You know, if you look at the results on a segment-by-segment basis, you know, in U.S. retail, we were down 6.5%. To me, that’s actually encouraging, right? Because if you look at the overall numbers, they were down more than that, right? If you start to see stabilization in U.S. retail in our core business, which I think we’re gonna see, I can’t say exactly when, you know, then everything we’re doing on these adjacencies is kind of additive, right? If you can turn around that retail position in terms of the retail number.

I was very encouraged by that, and it has to do with some of the new distribution we’ve been able to obtain in some of the larger mass stores. As we layer in things like drinks, you know, I think of getting reconnected to the U.S. retail consumer seems like it’s within reach. On the supply chain side, I mean, I guess the first thing I would say is that, you know, despite our past, we actually have a lot of beverage expertise. We have some of the, I think, some of the best minds in beverage on our board, with Seth and Just Ice Tea and Jim and Boston Beer, Kathy and Coke. You know, it’s not like we’re coming to this without a lot of experience.

It’s just something we haven’t done before as the company. You know, the supply chain is actually pretty similar from an ingredient perspective. You know, we’re dealing with protein, we’re dealing with fiber, we’re dealing with flavor, things like that. That is not a stretch for us at all. The production, if you think about turning plants into meats for the center of the plate, and you think about blending together, you know, protein and fibers and flavor in a drink, the latter is much easier. This is not something that we’re worried about from a logistics perspective. Co-packing is readily available throughout the United States. It has much less arduous terms from a, you know, scale-up perspective.

You know, often we’d have to go teach the co-packer how to make our products. That’s obviously not the case here. I think what you’re really gonna see is our ability to understand all the characteristics of plant materials, the proteins, the fiber, and how to optimize their taste for the consumer is gonna shine in these drinks, and that’s what I’m excited about.

Kaumil Gajrawala, Analyst, Jefferies: Great. Thank you very much.

Ethan Brown, Founder, President, and Chief Executive Officer, Beyond Meat: Thank you.

Rafael Gross, Partner, ICR Inc.: The next question comes from John Baumgartner with Mizuho. Please go ahead.

John Baumgartner, Analyst, Mizuho: Good afternoon. Thanks for the question. Maybe first off, Ethan, just to build on that last line of thinking, just, you know, sticking with the expectations for the beverage expansion and the adjacencies more broadly, can you walk us through how you plan to scale it? You know, how you’ll manage distribution, the specific channels that you’ll enter, you know, how you will allocate budget to enter these categories? Just, you know, how we think about milestones you ramp up and the impact on cash burn.

Ethan Brown, Founder, President, and Chief Executive Officer, Beyond Meat: Sure. We’re taking a pretty careful approach. You’ll see the same pattern that we’ve just done with drinks now, initially launching D2C, getting feedback from the consumer, making adjustments. You’ll see us go, you know, into a particular regional distribution, likely emphasis on natural, and then into mass. We’ll take it step by step. As we see success or failure, we’ll adjust how much we’re spending. So far, and this is very early days, the indications we’re getting from the drinkers are very positive in terms of, you know, distributor interest and things like that. All of it is speculative at the moment, so I don’t wanna promise anything.

I think what you’ll see is a kind of measured approach from us and you know, we’ll spend a certain amount, make sure that we’re still on track, then spend an additional amount. One of the neat things is that we’re not necessarily creating entirely new brands, right? Like, so the drink is called Beyond Immerse, but we’re relying on the fact that Beyond is a very well-known brand, so we don’t have to kind of reinvent the wheel, and we have a strong consumer base that’s particularly interested in what we’re doing. That gives us an advantage relative to someone who’s just starting out, right? We’re able to you know, sell additional product to a consumer that’s already buying Beyond. I’ll leave it to Jimmy to comment.

Lubi Kutua, Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer, Beyond Meat: No, I think you covered it well, Ethan. You know, what I would say is, you know, to your question around, you know, potential impact on cash burn, I think one of the things that’s, you know, attractive about the beverage category, or can be attractive about the beverage category, particularly at scale, is the margin profile, right? So obviously, as we are, you know, in relatively limited distribution and, you know, producing at much smaller quantities, the economics won’t look, you know, quite as favorable as, you know, if we are successful and begin to scale up. But, you know, it’s certainly the margin profile for that category of products will be attractive.

You know, with the supply chain you know that we have in place and these co-packer agreements, et cetera, we actually think that you know the impact on total cash use will not be you know overly burdensome.

John Baumgartner, Analyst, Mizuho: Okay. Thanks for that. I’m curious about your vision for the Beyond Meat portfolio going forward as you work through this SKU rationalization. I guess, where have you chosen to retrench in terms of product or, you know, products, and what have you identified as the foundation for the core going forward? Is it steak? Is it burgers? How should we think about that?

Ethan Brown, Founder, President, and Chief Executive Officer, Beyond Meat: Yeah. As I mentioned in my comments, we have 20+ products that are Clean Label Project certified, and I really focus on those. You know, the Beyond IV portfolio, for example, and just dynamite on taste and on health. You know, areas where maybe there’s less differentiation than I’d like to see, you know, you can picture what that might be, some of the breaded items, things like that, less interested in that, more interested in where we can, you know, deliver really unique value to the consumer. You know, Beyond Steak Filet is a good example. That’s 28 grams of protein. It’s 1 gram of saturated fat from avocado oil. It’s got mycelium, which is a terrific ingredient.

It’s got fava beans, et cetera. Focusing on things that really help tell the story around Beyond and tell the clean ingredient and healthy narrative are the ones that we’re focusing on, going forward.

John Baumgartner, Analyst, Mizuho: Thanks, Ethan. Thanks, Lubi.

Ethan Brown, Founder, President, and Chief Executive Officer, Beyond Meat: Sure. Thanks.

Lubi Kutua, Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer, Beyond Meat: Thank you.

Rafael Gross, Partner, ICR Inc.: The next question comes from Peter Saleh with BTIG. Please go ahead.

Peter Saleh, Analyst, BTIG: Great. Thanks for taking the question. Maybe Ethan, I guess the first question I had was on the beverage lineup. You mentioned, you know, initially getting some feedback and then making adjustments. Maybe can you talk a little bit about the initial, what feedback you may have gotten and any adjustments you’ve made? If you could just help us out here, who is the target customer here for this beverage lineup? I have a follow-up as well. Thanks.

Ethan Brown, Founder, President, and Chief Executive Officer, Beyond Meat: Sure. You know, I think one of the things we’re learning about beverages is unlike where we have a really clear North Star with does this taste like a beef burger or not you know the reason there’s so many beverages in the market is that people have different tastes, right? What we’re trying to do is find that sweet spot where we can appeal to a broad group of consumers in terms of taste profiles. I think what we found is you know the 10-gram we put out kind of home run. The 20-gram a lot of people either love it or didn’t like it much. Enough people thankfully love it that we’re able to keep going.

That was more polarizing than the 10-gram. What we’ve done is dial back some of the intensity of the flavors in the 20-gram, and some of the sweetness in the 20-gram. The product that they’ve developed, and we’re probably on our sixth or seventh iteration since we launched, you know, is just phenomenal. Again, I stand behind this. I think it’s gonna be one of the best protein drinks on the market, to the holistic picture. You know, the protein content, the fiber, the antioxidants, the electrolytes, the environmental footprint, the ease of consumption. You know, I’m probably drinking too many a day. I’ve watched, you know, people in our office and in my home. It is a hell of a product.

I’m looking forward to it. That was the type of feedback we reacted to. There’s nothing wrong with that, right? Like even with the Beyond Ground Fava, which we just got an award that’s under embargo right now for the innovation there, which is that four-ingredient, 27 grams protein product. We just like to iterate with our consumers. Like it’s a new model, I think, in food that, you know, we’re very fast at what we do, and letting them weigh in and tell us what they like and don’t like.

Peter Saleh, Analyst, BTIG: Great. Then just Lubi Kutua on the gross margin for 2026, is there anything you can provide or share with us at this point? Should it mirror 2025? Should it be much better, lower? Anything on the cadence that’d be helpful. Thanks.

Lubi Kutua, Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer, Beyond Meat: Yeah, Peter, you know, unfortunately, like we’re not providing guidance for gross margin for the year. I think, you know, just to provide a little bit of context around that is, you know, one of the reasons why, you know, we continue to provide only near-term guidance on revenue is the fact that our core category, plant-based meat, remains sort of very volatile and volumes remain soft. Obviously, with that being obviously at this stage, you know, the vast majority of our business, right, the impact that softer volumes has on margins can be pretty significant, right?

I mentioned in my prepared remarks that, you know, we, the lower fixed cost absorption continues to be a headwind on margin. I think it’s just extremely difficult for us to, you know, sort of forecast gross margin, you know, to any degree of certainty when, you know, there’s so much variability on the top line. You know, we obviously have initiatives in place that are aimed at, you know, expanding margins, right? Including like the continuous line that I mentioned. Ultimately we need to see some stabilization on the top line, you know, in order for us to have sort of greater confidence in terms of where margins will shake out.

Ethan Brown, Founder, President, and Chief Executive Officer, Beyond Meat: Understood. Thank you very much.

Lubi Kutua, Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer, Beyond Meat: Sure.

Rafael Gross, Partner, ICR Inc.: This concludes our question and answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Ethan Brown for any closing remarks.

Ethan Brown, Founder, President, and Chief Executive Officer, Beyond Meat: Thanks everyone for the questions. Appreciate all the interest, and we’ve got to take a look back over the last year. I do wanna compliment the team. This transaction that Lubi and his group executed was just an enormous undertaking. There’s a lot of work that went into that, and I think he’s particularly pleased to have that behind him. You know, as we look forward, we’re excited to see what’s gonna happen as we pivot our brand into some areas that are maybe not as challenged as our core category. We’re gonna be talking with you guys pretty soon, and I think we’ll have more information then as to how things are going. Thanks very much.

Rafael Gross, Partner, ICR Inc.: The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today’s presentation. You may now disconnect.