Beyond Meat Denies Filing For Bankruptcy In New Statement

Beyond Meat has pushed back against rumors that it has filed for bankruptcy, calling recent media reports “unequivocally false.”

The denial comes after several headlines suggested the company was headed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy – a court-supervised process that allows businesses or individuals to restructure debts while continuing to operate and repay creditors.

According to Beyond Meat, the rumors are unfounded. In a statement to Plant Based News, a company spokesperson said: “We have not filed, nor are we planning to file, for bankruptcy.”

Beyond Meat’s financial struggles

Photo shows Beyond Meat founder and CEO Ethan Brown — Associated Press / Alamy Stock Beyond Meat CEO Ethan Brown recently expressed disappointment at the company’s fall in revenue

The statement comes amid a highly publicized and difficult financial period for Beyond Meat. The company, which played a key role in establishing the market for hyper-realistic meat analogues when it launched in 2009, has seen sales stagnate as the market becomes more competitive and consumers move away from “ultra-processed” alternative proteins.

The company’s Q2 year-on-year net revenue fell by 19 percent to USD $75 million this year, and it also saw a net loss of $29.2 million. Additionally, it experienced an operating loss of $34.9 million. Beyond Meat’s CEO, Ethan Brown, expressed disappointment at the time, saying the results “primarily reflect ongoing softness in the plant-based meat category.”

Its ongoing financial struggles have forced the company to cut back on its workforce. Earlier this year, the brand announced that it would be suspending its operations in China. It also announced plans to cut around six percent of its workforce in a bid to become profitable by 2026.

Beyond Meat has announced a number of recent changes to tempt customers back to the brand. Earlier this month, Brown announced on a podcast that the name “Beyond Meat” would soon be changing to just “Beyond” in a move to distance the brand from meat entirely. This came soon after its pivot towards making products using more whole-food-based, “natural” ingredients like vegetables and legumes.

“If you’re the best in the world at making plant proteins, why confine yourself to the centre of the plate?” Brown said. “Instead of thinking about a simple replacement for animal protein, what if you just thought about your daily protein consumption, and started to try to replace as much of that as you can with plant protein – in any form that you could?”