Beyond Meat Bets on ‘Less Controversial’ Products to Recover from All-Time Sales Low in 2025

Beyond Meat’s revenues fell to a record low in 2025, with the company hoping its move into other categories and debt restructuring deal will support its path to “sustainable operations”.

After two rounds of delays, Beyond Meat – or Beyond The Plant Protein Company, as it’s now called – has finally released its 2025 earnings report.

The headline results are grim. The plant-based pioneer experienced a 15.6% decrease in annual revenue, which totaled $275.5M, its lowest since becoming a public company.

Its gross profit fell by 82%, and its operating losses more than doubled to $332.7M, including the $38.9M it owed in damages from a trademark lawsuit. Beyond also executed a “couple of reductions in force”, according to CFO Lubi Kutua.

That said, the company’s debt restructuring helped turn the $160M net loss it incurred in 2024 into a $160M net profit. Last year, Beyond recorded a net income of $220M, thanks to a cash gain of nearly $549M from that deal.

It comes after Beyond’s sales dipped by 19.7% in the final quarter of 2025, reaching just $61.6M though meeting its previous expectations. This was primarily due to a 22% decline in sales volume. Its gross profit shortened by 86% to $1.4M, and its gross margin narrowed from 13.1% in Q4 2024 to 2.3% in the corresponding period last year.

The company maintains caution for the first quarter of 2026, citing an “elevated level of uncertainty within its operating environment” to forecast revenues of $57-59M.

“Our results for the fourth quarter of 2025 reflect ongoing headwinds in the plant-based meat category as well as the financial impact of several restructuring charges that, while costly, we believe will support the company’s path to sustainable operations,” said Beyond founder and CEO Ethan Brown.

“We enter 2026 with reduced leverage and extended debt maturity, and having added liquidity to our balance sheet. We intend to build on these improvements through the continued pursuit of top-line stabilisation and margin expansion,” he added.

It follows what was, in many ways, a year to forget for the company, whose share price fell to an all-time low, leading the company to become a meme stock, deny rumours of bankruptcy, and receive a delisting warning from Nasdaq.

Speaking to investors in an earnings call, Brown argued that Beyond operates under more scrutiny than its peers, explained why it rebranded and looked outside meat alternatives, took aim at the political landscape and misinformation around plant-based food, and outlined why “less controversial” products like the Beyond Immerse line of drinks will help it reach more consumers, including GLP-1 users.

Beyond Meat’s 2025 slowdown occurred across all channels

Beyond’s slowdown in Q4 was caused by volume losses experienced in every revenue channel. In the US, retail sales trimmed by 6.5%, primarily driven by “weak category demand” and reduced distribution for some of its products.

In the US foodservice sector, its revenues fell by 23.7%. Beyond ascribed this mainly to the end of a sales contract for its chicken to a QSR client in the same period the year before, alongside weakened demand.

Unlike previous quarters, Beyond’s fortunes outside the US fared worse. Retail sales were down 32.5% internationally, driven by reduced sales of its burger SKUs in the EU and in certain retail channels in Canada.

Foodservice sales in this channel also slowed by nearly 32%, owing to low sales of its burger and chicken products to certain QSR customers.

Overall, the company’s sales in retail and foodservice dropped by 17.5% and 18.1%, respectively, while its international revenues declined slightly, by 11% and 14%, respectively.

Beyond CEO lifts the lid on protein drinks and eyes the GLP-1 market

To usher a turnaround in its fortunes, Beyond has initiated a full-scale rebrand, evolving beyond just meat alternatives with new products like a fava bean mince that doesn’t intend to mimic animal protein and a line of sparkling protein drinks that sold out quickly in the initial drop.

These products were launched on the new Beyond Test Kitchen, which Brown said will be the primary platform for “all new retail innovation”.

The firm is phasing out the ‘Meat’ from its name, and is now known as Beyond The Plant Protein Company, or simply Beyond. The earnings report has made this official, although it continues to use both monikers for now.

“We are strategically repositioning our brand to Beyond The Plant Protein Company, allowing us to enter into adjacent categories where we believe our brand, technology and commitment to clean plant-based nutrition can deliver significant value to consumers,” Brown said in the earnings call.

“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,” he added.

“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.”

Speaking about Beyond Immerse, he noted: “The product is designed for the casual to competitive athlete, as well as the busy student or professional, who wants protein, fibre, antioxidants and electrolytes at the gym, home, work or on the go. Moreover, we believe it is particularly well-suited for GLP-1 users.”

He explained that the company has made adjustments to the drinks based on consumer feedback, revealing that the beverages with 10g of protein were a “home run”, but that those with 20g of protein were more polarising. “A lot of people either love it or didn’t like it much, enough people […] love it that we’re able to keep going on,” he said.

“What we’ve done is tap back some of the intensity of the flavours […] and some of the sweetness in the 20g. And the product that they’ve developed – and we’re probably on our sixth or seventh iteration since we launched – is just phenomenal.”

‘Political landscape’ and ‘pseudoscientific jargon’ have not helped

“If I thought that Beyond and our original value proposition were struggling during a period when the role of science in public discourse and social media and government was pronounced and effective, when pricing and economic stability and buying power were favourable, and the American political landscape was characterised by a sense of common ground versus division – and Beyond were really suffering, I would be very concerned for our long-term prospects and for the plant-based meat category overall,” said Brown.

“But none of that is true. This is a very difficult period for the world, it’s a difficult period for our country, and one of the things most significant for our business in terms of what’s impacting it is this constant surround sound of pseudoscientific jargon and positioning and promotion that really overwhelms what is decades and decades and decades of science,” he added.

“Nothing in our lane is a more obvious representation of this troubling trend than the resurgence of red meat,” he said. “The good news, this is a pendulum, and it’s going to swing… And I’m very confident that Beyond will prosper when it does.”

He added: “We’re really well positioned to look outside the category and take that technology, science and brand into segments and categories that are many, many, many times the size of the plant-based meat category.”

Reiterating the focus on Beyond Immerse, Brown said: “We did a lot of work over the last year understanding which adjacent markets we can get into, and the first one we’ve identified and been public about – and others will follow – is the beverage category.”

He continued: “The product that we’re going to be launching, I think, is going to be one of the best protein drinks on the market. It satisfies so many different needs for the consumer… and it does so in a really clean way.”

He said he found it fascinating that some of the major ready-to-drink protein companies are “putting things in their products that we could never put in our products because of the scrutiny we’re under”. If Beyond replicated these ingredient lists, it would be “front-page news from our friends in the incumbent industry”.

Beyond bets on ‘less controversial’ products

Speaking to the AP last month, Brown had admitted that Beyond is currently tackling “a period of confusion” for the sector: “It’s just not the moment for plant-based meat right now.” Indeed, sales of plant-based meat have fallen by 26% over the last two years, according to NielsenIQ data cited by the AP.

However, a company representative told Green Queen in March that meat alternatives that made Beyond famous are here to stay: “As the company expands into new categories, Beyond remains committed to category leadership in plant-based meat.”

Brown told investors that Beyond’s focus will be on clean ingredients, nodding to the 20+ products in its portfolio that are certified by the Clean Label Project, and name-checking its mycelium steak filet. “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,” he said.

The new drinks line is part of that vision. “Far from stepping away from our mission to change the source of protein at the centre 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 the plant-based meat category,” said Brown.

“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 allow 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 centre of their plate as they enjoy our brand, clean ingredients, and commitment to their health in less controversial, more convenient products like Beyond Immerse.”