The state of the company's stock

Shares in Beyond Meat (BYND) fell sharply in non-trading hours after the vegan meat producer disappointed investors with its financial results for the third quarter of 2021, as well as its outlook for the fourth.

Beyond Meat (BYND) released its quarterly report ended 2 October 2021 on Wednesday after the close of trading.

Shares in Beyond Meat, down 24.4% since the start of this year, were down as much as 19% before trading opened on Thursday.

Beyond Meat's report compared with market analysts' forecast

For the third quarter of 2021, the vegan meat producer reported a loss of $0.87 per share its worst quarterly performance since early 2019, and worse than analysts' average forecasts of $0.39 loss per share.

Also, Beyond Meat reported a loss of 54.8 million for the quarter, up from $19.3 million in the same period last year. The write-down of about $9 million was due to pipe damage at one facility, which increased costs.

Sales revenues rose 13% (year-on-year) to $106.4 million, but were well below analyst forecasts of $109.2 million and revenues of $149.4 million in the previous seasonally strong summer quarter. In the summer, customers tend to buy more Beyond Meat grilled products.

The company attributed its quarterly loss to a drop in US restaurant sales, higher staff costs, transportation costs, increased competition and investment in expansion. Beyond Meat reported a cash and cash equivalents balance sheet of $886.4 million and total outstanding debt of $1.1 billion. Meanwhile, capital expenditure rose to $104.3 million for the nine months ended October 2, 2021, up from $38.0 million in the same period last year, as the company invests in production expansion, expansion into new markets and technology development.

Beyond Meat's Q4 revenue forecast suggests weak growth, below Wall Street expectations the expected range of $85m to $110m is worse than the average estimate of $131.6m.