Share count
21Mpeak FY2023
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BRLS, Borealis Foods Inc. Class A
The Borealis Foods Strategic Difference Unique Approach to the Product We developed and launched the first plant-based instant ramen meals providing 20 grams of complete protein per serving.
Known for popular ramen noodle brands like the high protein Chef Woo, Chef Ramsay, Ramen Express, and Woodles, Borealis Foods brings innovative fusion flavors from diverse culinary traditions, creating delicious and nutritious meal options for consumers.
With U.S.-based production facilities, the company's portfolio reflects a commitment to quality, innovation, and sustainability.
The business
What it sells, where the money comes from, the kind of company it is.
Revenue · FY2025
$31M
+8.2% YoY
Vital signs · TTM, with 3-yr average
Revenue $32M 3-yr avg $31M
Revenue $8M +7.7% vs yr-ago qtr
Operating margin −26.5% yr-ago −40.4%
Net income ($4M) yr-ago ($4M)
Net margin −45.1% yr-ago −58.0%
The business in brief
read the 10-K →What this business is and what moves its needle, from its own SEC filings.
- Situation
- Unprofitable. No meaningful revenue yet; the record is the cash on hand against the burn. Distress / turnaround. Thin interest coverage, or operating cash burned against real debt, across the record. The balance sheet carries this situation; the debt schedule sets the clock.
- What moves the needle
- Operating margin has run around −64% through the cycle on a 12% gross margin, the operating line deeply negative — so the lever is the path to a margin at all: revenue growth against the cost curve and the cash runway, not the level of a margin that isn't there yet. The cash cycle has run negative through the cycle (a median of −25 days): the operation is paid before it pays, so working capital releases cash as the business grows rather than tying it up. On its own account, the filing leans hardest on customer concentration, set against the numbers in what the filing emphasizes, below.
Every line is arithmetic on the company's filings, shown in full in the sections below.
Where the money comes from
read the 10-K →Revenue spreads across 7 regions, the largest Southeast at 37%.
Revenue by geography, FY2025
- Southeast37%$11M
- Midwest32%$9M
- Southwest12%$3M
- Northeast8%$2M
- Mountain8%$2M
- Pacific6%$2M
- International5%$1M
From the segment footnote of the company's own 10-K. Shares are of total revenue; the profit bar shows each segment's share of segment operating profit, before unallocated corporate costs.
The record
Ten years of arithmetic, read across the cycle.
The record, 2023–2025
realized figures from each filing · older years to the left| 2023’23 | 2024’24 | 2025’25 | TTMTTMMar 2026 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Income statement | ||||
| $31M | $29M | $31M | $32M | RevenueRevenue |
| 0% | 12% | 16% | 15% | Gross marginGross mgn |
| 59% | 78% | 46% | 43% | SG&A / revenueSG&A/rev |
| 1% | 1% | 1% | 1% | R&D / revenueR&D/rev |
| ($20M) | ($20M) | ($11M) | ($10M) | Operating incomeOp. inc. |
| −63.6% | −70.1% | −35.1% | −31.8% | Operating marginOp. mgn |
| ($27M) | ($25M) | ($19M) | ($18M) | Net incomeNet inc. |
| Cash flow & returns | ||||
| ($18M) | ($15M) | ($7M) | ($5M) | Operating cash flowOp. cash |
| $4M | $2M | $2M | $2M | DepreciationDeprec. |
| $5M | $7M | $11M | $11M | Working capital & otherWC & other |
| $4M | $2M | — | $1M | CapexCapex |
| 14.2% | 5.7% | — | 3.5% | Capex / revenueCapex/rev |
| ($22M) | ($17M) | — | ($6M) | Owner earningsOwner earn. |
| −71.6% | −57.5% | — | −20.2% | Owner earnings marginOE mgn |
| ($22M) | ($17M) | — | ($6M) | Free cash flowFCF |
| −71.6% | −57.5% | — | −20.2% | Free cash flow marginFCF mgn |
| Balance sheet | ||||
| $8M | $653K | $64K | $500K | Cash & investmentsCash+inv |
| $2M | $2M | $3M | $2M | ReceivablesReceiv. |
| $7M | $8M | $5M | $4M | InventoryInvent. |
| $11M | $12M | $16M | $17M | Accounts payablePayables |
| ($2M) | ($2M) | ($9M) | ($12M) | Operating working capitalOper. WC |
| $17M | $12M | $8M | $7M | Current assetsCur. assets |
| $67M | $25M | $70M | $72M | Current liabilitiesCur. liab. |
| 0.3× | 0.5× | 0.1× | 0.1× | Current ratioCurr. ratio |
| $2M | $2M | — | $2M | GoodwillGoodwill |
| $66M | $60M | $53M | $51M | Total assetsAssets |
| $3M | $8M | — | $8M | Total debtDebt |
| ($5M) | $7M | — | $7M | Net debt / (cash)Net debt |
| -2.7× | -4.0× | -1.8× | -1.6× | Interest coverageInt. cov. |
| ($21M) | ($696K) | ($19M) | ($23M) | Shareholders’ equityEquity |
| 1.6% | 4.4% | — | 1.0% | Stock comp / revenueSBC/rev |
| — | — | $2M | $2M | Goodwill written downGW imp. |
| Per share | ||||
| 21.5M | 20.3M | 21.4M | 21.4M | Shares out (diluted)Shares |
| $1.46 | $1.43 | $1.47 | $1.49 | Revenue / shareRev/sh |
| $-1.28 | $-1.25 | $-0.89 | $-0.85 | EPS (diluted)EPS |
| $-1.05 | $-0.82 | — | $-0.30 | Owner earnings / shareOE/sh |
| $-1.05 | $-0.82 | — | $-0.30 | Free cash flow / shareFCF/sh |
| $0.21 | $0.08 | — | $0.05 | Cap. spending / shareCapex/sh |
| $-0.99 | $-0.03 | $-0.90 | $-1.06 | Book value / shareBVPS |
Share counts before 2024 are restated ×2 for a stock split, so per-share figures sit on one basis.
The record, charted
FY2023–2025Each measure over its full record; the current point and the worst year marked. Share counts on the current split basis.
Gross margin
16%low FY2023
Net income is the accountant's number; owner earnings is the cash an owner could take out. The walk between them, off the cash-flow statement, and whether the gap is widening or holding.
In fiscal 2024 the business turned a $25M loss into ($17M) of owner earnings: more cash than the profit line showed, after the non-cash charges and the capital it put back in.
| FY2024 | FY2023 | |
|---|---|---|
| Reported net income | ($25M) | ($27M) |
| Depreciation & amortizationnon-cash charge added back | +$2M | +$4M |
| Stock-based compensationreal costnon-cash, but a real cost | +$1M | +$492K |
| Working capital & othertiming of cash in and out, other non-cash items | +$7M | +$5M |
| Cash from operations | ($15M) | ($18M) |
| Capital expenditurecash put back in to keep running and to grow | −$2M | −$4M |
| Owner earnings | ($17M) | ($22M) |
| Owner-earnings marginowner earnings ÷ revenue | -58% | -72% |
Owner earnings is the cash an owner could pull out without starving the business: operating cash less the capital it must spend to hold its position . The cash-flow statement also adds stock comp back as non-cash, but it is a real cost paid in shares; counted as the expense it is (less $1M), owner earnings is nearer ($18M).
Maintenance capex is estimated as depreciation where a growing business invests above it; free cash flow is the figure the scorecard's free-cash margin reads.
Quality & stewardship
Returns, the balance sheet, capital allocation, and pay.
Owner’s Scorecard
FY2025 10-K · source on SEC EDGAR →
Will it survive?
- Can it pay its interest? -1.8×Does not cover its interestOperating income ($11M) ÷ interest expense $6M
What this means
A full year of operating profit didn't cover the interest bill. This is the zombie zone: the business depends on refinancing, asset sales, or forbearance to service its debt.
- Net debt against an operating lossCash $64K − debt $8M
What this means
Netting $64K of cash and short-term investments against $8M of debt leaves $8M owed, with no operating profit this year to measure it against — understand that combination before anything else about the company. Net debt is the leverage figure that matters: the cash is already set against the debt. Strategic or illiquid investments aren't counted here.
- Negative, funded by othersDSO 31 + DIO 63 − DPO 220 days
What this means
Days cash is tied up between paying suppliers and collecting from customers. A negative cycle is a quiet moat: suppliers and customers fund the operation (Buffett's “float”), the company grows on other people's money.
Is it a good business?
- Not meaningful hereInvested capital ($12M) = debt $8M + equity ($19M) − cashIndustry peers: median 6%
What this means
Invested capital is near zero or negative, usually years of buybacks pulling equity down. ROIC explodes or flips sign and stops meaning anything. Judge this one on Owner Earnings instead.
- Consumes cashOwner earnings ($8M) = operating cash ($7M) − maintenance capex $2MIndustry peers: median 3%
What this means
What an owner could take out without starving the business: operating cash less the maintenance capital it must spend to hold its position — Buffett's owner earnings. That's -26% of revenue this year. Treating stock comp as the real expense it is (less $1M of SBC) leaves ($10M).
- Loss, and burning cashNet income ($19M) · cash from operations ($7M)
What this means
The company reported a net loss, so a conversion ratio isn't meaningful. What matters then is whether operations still threw off cash, here, they did not.
How is the cash used?
- No surplus to allocate
What this means
The business didn't generate positive Owner Earnings this year, so any distributions came from the balance sheet or borrowing, not from operations.
- Investing or harvesting? 0.90×MaintainingCapex $2M ÷ depreciation $2M
What this means
Descriptive, not a grade. Above ~1× means investing faster than assets wear out (growth, or, sustained for years, today's earnings carrying less depreciation than tomorrow's will). Below means spending less than it's wearing out (efficiency, or a melting asset base). The ratio won't tell you which; the filings will.
Graham’s defensive tests · 0 of 3 met
Graham’s numerical criteria for the defensive investor (The Intelligent Investor, ch. 14), run on the filings. A floor of safety, not a buy signal; many fine modern businesses fail his strictest liquidity rules by design.
- Adequate size MissRevenue ≥ $2B · $31M
What this means
Big enough to weather a storm. Graham's 1972 floor was ~$100M of sales (≈ $700M today); we use a $2B revenue line as a conservative modern stand-in.
- Strong liquidity MissCurrent ratio ≥ 2× · 0.12×
What this means
Current assets at least twice current liabilities, near-term bills covered without touching the business. Strict by design: many cash-rich modern firms run leaner and miss it, holding their cushion in longer-dated securities.
- Conservative debt MissDebt ≤ working capital · $8M vs ($62M) WC
What this means
Graham's rule that borrowings not exceed net current assets. Capital-heavy and buyback-heavy firms routinely fail it, read it next to interest coverage, not alone.
- Moderate price —P/E ≤ 15 and P/E × P/B ≤ 22.5 · decided by the price
What this means
Graham's valuation gate, the wall he kept between a sound business and a sound investment. Three-year average earnings are $-1.11/share (latest year $-0.88), the averaged base the calculator's gate runs on, and book value is $-0.90/share. Enter a price in “What the price implies” just below for the P/E, P/B, and whether it clears. But this is the rule Buffett outgrew: there's no hard P/E law, and a wonderful business can deserve a far richer multiple if the thesis holds, treat it as the bargain-hunter's floor, not a verdict on the price.
Does AI threaten the moat?
Low contestabilityThe moat is physical, regulated or balance-sheet-funded, the kind AI cuts costs within but does not contest.
In its own filing Framed as a capability
The filing positions AI as something the company uses, not something it fears.
“We increasingly use artificial intelligence-supported tools and workflows to improve the speed, efficiency and targeting of marketing activities, including content development support, campaign planning, audience insight analysis, creative testing and optimization of product mess…”
AI is unlikely to contest a moat that is physical, regulated or balance-sheet-funded; here it reads more as a cost tool than a threat, and the company is using it that way.
Read from the filing's own risk factors, paired with the industry's structure under its SIC code; the durability is read above, the price below.
All figures as filed; the source filing is linked above.
Current Position
as of the latest quarter, Mar 31, 2026Can the business pay what it owes this year, off the freshest balance sheet: the quality of the assets, the debt actually coming due, and what a low ratio means here.
Current assets$7M
- Cash & short-term investments$500K
- Receivables$2M
- Inventory$4M
- Other current assets$1M
Current liabilities$72M
- Accounts payable$17M
- Other current liabilities$54M
Current ratio0.09×all current assets ÷ what's due · Graham looked for 2×
Quick ratio0.05×stricter: inventory excluded
Cash ratio0.01×strictest: cash alone against what's due
Working capital($65M)the cushion left after near-term bills
Cash runway0.1 yrsthe business is consuming cash; this is how long the cash on hand lasts at that rate
Revenue, latest quarter vs. a year ago+7.7%the freshest read on whether the business is still growing
Current ratio, recent quarters0.5× → 0.1×
Deeper floors
Tangible book value($25M)equity stripped of goodwill & intangibles
Net current asset value($67M)Graham's net-net: current assets less all liabilities
Debt incl. operating leases$149K$149K of it operating leases
From the company's latest filing.
Acquisitions & goodwill
from the balance sheet & the 3-year cash-flow recordGoodwill grows only when a company acquires and falls only when it concedes it overpaid. The size of that bet, the cash put into buying rather than building, and how much has already been written off.
Goodwill & intangibles$2M4% of all assets; the premium carried on the balance sheet for businesses acquired
Against book equity—goodwill is this share of book equity; the rest is the company’s own retained and paid-in capital
Cash spent acquiring$0over 3 years buying other businesses, against $6M of capital spent building
$2M written down across 1 year (2025): goodwill the company has already conceded it overpaid for, charged against earnings. A write-down costs no cash (the cash went out when the deal was signed), but it is management marking its own past judgment to market.
Goodwill, acquired intangibles and equity from the latest balance sheet; acquisition spend and write-downs summed across the 3-year record, from the company's own filings.
Management, ownership & pay
From the proxy: how much of the business the people running it own, and how they are paid.
- Stock-based compensation$1M
The slice of the business handed to employees in shares this year, 4% of revenue. Buffett's oldest accounting fight: this is compensation, compensation is an expense, real whether or not the headline earnings admit it. One trap: the cash-flow statement adds SBC back, so the operating cash, and the owner earnings drawn from it, are flattered by exactly this amount; counted as the cost it is, what an owner keeps is lower.
What an owner would ask, FY2025
read the 10-K →- How much of the revenue rides on one buyer?≈$18M · 57% of revenue on the largest customer (TTM)
“Our largest customer represented approximately 57% of revenues in 2023, approximately 22% of revenues in 2024 and approximately 23% of revenues in 2025.”verify →
The questions the record and the charts do not answer on their own; each carries the figure and the place to look.
Peers, Food Products
The same industry, side by side on owner economics. Each figure is a through-cycle median, so a peak or trough year can’t distort it; the group median at the foot is the line to read each against.
| Company | Revenue | Gross margin | Op. margin | ROIC | Owner earn. margin |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SMPLThe Simply Good Foods Company | $1.5B | 39% | 15.4% | 8% | 13% |
| VITLVital Farms | $759M | 34% | 6.0% | 19% | 5% |
| BRCCBRC Inc. | $398M | 38% | -5.0% | -40% | -3% |
| BYNDBeyond Meat Inc. | $275M | 13% | -47.8% | -30% | -48% |
| LWAYLifeway Foods Inc. | $212M | 27% | 4.0% | 6% | 3% |
| MAMAMama's Creations Inc. | $172M | 29% | 4.1% | 27% | 5% |
| BRLSBorealis Foods Inc. Class A | $31M | 12% | -63.6% | — | -26% |
| PLAGPlanet Green Holdings Corp. | $3M | 10% | -41.4% | -15% | -37% |
| Group median | — | 28% | -0.5% | — | -0% |
The price
What a price has to assume.
What the price implies
reverse-DCFBorealis Foods Inc. Class A is profitable, but owner earnings are negative this year because capital spending currently outruns operating cash, a build-out, so the owner-earnings reverse-DCF has no positive base to grow. We read the price from both ends instead: type a price to see the steady-state profitability it demands, then set the mature margin you would believe and weigh the two against each other. Nothing leaves your browser unless you enter it in your notebook.
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The assumptions
Enter a price to run it.
Owner earnings it must reach—
Margin the price demands—
Owner-earnings margin today−20%
A dated snapshot of the price you typed, the assumptions you set, and what the page showed for them. A snapshot is never edited after it is saved. Your notebook is yours alone — the commitment states what is stored and what we will never do.
Two reads of one future. From your price: the owner earnings the company must reach, valued at a mature multiple and discounted back at your rate, expressed as the margin it implies on revenue grown at your rate. From your belief: the mature margin you would credit, set on the dial above. When the margin the price demands runs above the one you would believe, you are paying for a future taken on faith. For a deep cyclical at a trough, normalized through-cycle earnings are the better lens; this mode is for the genuinely unprofitable, and for the profitable business whose capital spending currently outruns its cash.
Cite: Owner Scorecard, "Borealis Foods Inc. Class A (BRLS), the owner's record," https://ownerscorecard.com/c/BRLS, data as of 2026-07-09.
Manual order: ← BRKRP its page in the Manual BRO →
Industry order: ← BRBR the Food Products chapter BYND →