Owner Scorecard


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BYND, Beyond Meat Inc.

Food Products consumer brand Distress / turnaround

Beyond Meat is a leading plant-based meat company offering a portfolio of revolutionary plant-based meats and other innovative plant-based food and beverage products.

Our brand promise, "Eat What You Love," represents a strong belief that there is a better way to feed our future and that the positive choices we all make, no matter how small, can have a great impact on our personal health and the health of our planet.

To capture this market opportunity, we have developed three core plant-based product platforms that align with the largest meat categories globally: beef, pork and poultry.

Latest annual: FY2025 10-K
BYND · Beyond Meat Inc.
I

The business

What it sells, where the money comes from, the kind of company it is.

Revenue · FY2025
$275M
−15.6% YoY · −7% 5-yr CAGR
Vital signs · TTM, with 5-yr average
Revenue $265M 5-yr avg $366M
Gross margin 6% 5-yr avg 2%
Operating margin −117.1% 5-yr avg −77.6%
ROIC −33% 5-yr avg −64%
Owner-earnings margin −51% 5-yr avg −56%
Free cash flow margin −51% 5-yr avg −63%

The business in brief

read the 10-K →

What this business is and what moves its needle, from its own SEC filings.

Situation
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 −48% through the cycle on a 13% 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. Inventory runs near 34% of sales, so how fast it turns back into cash — and the risk of writing it down when demand softens — sits alongside the margin. On its own account, the filing leans hardest on pricing power & competition, set against the numbers in what the filing emphasizes, below.
Is it a good business?
Return on capital has rarely cleared the cost of capital (median −30%, above 15% in 0 of 7 years). Owner earnings, the cash-based check, have been thin too. This is price-taker territory, where the balance sheet and the cycle matter more than any multiple; the rest is in the 10-K.

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 →

41% of revenue comes from outside the United States.

Revenue by geography, FY2025
  • United States59%$163M
  • International41%$112M

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.

II

The record

Ten years of arithmetic, read across the cycle.

The record, 2017–2025

realized figures from each filing · older years to the left
2017’172018’182019’192020’202021’212022’222023’232024’242025’25TTMTTMMar 2026
Income statement
$33M$88M$298M$407M$465M$419M$343M$326M$275M$265MRevenueRevenue
−7%20%33%30%25%−6%−24%13%3%6%Gross marginGross mgn
53%39%25%33%45%57%59%52%79%78%SG&A / revenueSG&A/rev
18%11%7%8%14%15%12%9%8%8%R&D / revenueR&D/rev
($29M)($28M)($489K)($49M)($175M)($343M)($342M)($156M)($334M)($310M)Operating incomeOp. inc.
−87.7%−31.8%−0.2%−12.1%−37.6%−81.8%−99.6%−47.8%−121.1%−117.1%Operating marginOp. mgn
($30M)($30M)($12M)($53M)($182M)($366M)($338M)($160M)$219M$252MNet incomeNet inc.
Cash flow & returns
($25M)($38M)($47M)($40M)($301M)($320M)($108M)($99M)($145M)($124M)Operating cash flowOp. cash
$3M$5M$8M$13M$22M$33M$48M$23M$33M$32MDepreciationDeprec.
$1M($15M)($55M)($28M)($169M)($21M)$153M$14M($428M)($439M)Working capital & otherWC & other
$8M$22M$24M$58M$136M$70M$11M$11M$12M$10MCapexCapex
24.3%25.3%8.0%14.2%29.3%16.8%3.1%3.4%4.5%3.9%Capex / revenueCapex/rev
($28M)($43M)($55M)($53M)($323M)($353M)($118M)($110M)($157M)($134M)Owner earningsOwner earn.
−87.3%−48.5%−18.5%−13.1%−69.5%−84.2%−34.5%−33.6%−57.1%−50.6%Owner earnings marginOE mgn
($33M)($60M)($71M)($98M)($437M)($391M)($118M)($110M)($157M)($134M)Free cash flowFCF
−101.8%−68.2%−23.8%−24.0%−94.1%−93.3%−34.5%−33.6%−57.1%−50.6%Free cash flow marginFCF mgn
$0$514K$0$0BuybacksBuybacks
-0%-17%-26%-44%-62%-30%-158%-33%ROICROIC
-3%-14%-137%Return on equityROE
−3%−14%−137%Retained to equityRetained/eq
Balance sheet
$39M$54M$276M$159M$733M$310M$191M$132M$204M$191MCash & investmentsCash+inv
$13M$40M$36M$44M$34M$32M$27M$26M$26MReceivablesReceiv.
$30M$82M$122M$242M$236M$130M$113M$84M$69MInventoryInvent.
$17M$27M$53M$69M$55M$56M$38M$21M$23MAccounts payablePayables
$26M$95M$105M$217M$215M$106M$103M$90M$72MOperating working capitalOper. WC
$103M$404M$332M$1.1B$606M$373M$286M$341M$311MCurrent assetsCur. assets
$25M$48M$89M$94M$76M$74M$61M$75M$109MCurrent liabilitiesCur. liab.
4.1×8.5×3.7×11.2×8.0×5.0×4.7×4.6×2.9×Current ratioCurr. ratio
$134M$452M$468M$1.4B$1.1B$774M$678M$615M$579MTotal assetsAssets
$30M$31M$25M$1.1B$1.1B$1.1B$1.1B$416M$1.1BTotal debtDebt
($24M)($245M)($134M)$396M$824M$947M$1.0B$212M$953MNet debt / (cash)Net debt
-28.5×-24.8×-0.2×-19.2×-48.0×-86.4×-86.4×-38.1×-23.8×-15.7×Interest coverageInt. cov.
($96M)($122M)$384M$367M$132M($204M)($513M)($601M)($997K)($21M)Shareholders’ equityEquity
2.0%2.5%4.3%6.7%6.0%8.1%8.5%7.3%11.2%11.9%Stock comp / revenueSBC/rev
Per share
16.4M18.9M127M187M190M191M193M198M181M455MShares out (diluted)Shares
$1.99$4.66$2.35$2.18$2.45$2.19$1.78$1.65$1.52$0.58Revenue / shareRev/sh
$-1.86$-1.58$-0.10$-0.28$-0.96$-1.92$-1.75$-0.81$1.21$0.55EPS (diluted)EPS
$-1.74$-2.26$-0.43$-0.29$-1.70$-1.85$-0.61$-0.55$-0.87$-0.29Owner earnings / shareOE/sh
$-2.03$-3.18$-0.56$-0.52$-2.31$-2.05$-0.61$-0.55$-0.87$-0.29Free cash flow / shareFCF/sh
$0.48$1.18$0.19$0.31$0.72$0.37$0.05$0.06$0.07$0.02Cap. spending / shareCapex/sh
$-5.86$-6.45$3.03$1.96$0.70$-1.07$-2.66$-3.04$-0.01$-0.05Book value / shareBVPS

The diluted share count moved ×6.72 into 2019 — shares issued, not a split the totals corroborate — and the per-share figures carry the counts as filed.

The diluted share count moved ×1.47 into 2020 — shares issued, not a split the totals corroborate — and the per-share figures carry the counts as filed.

Share counts before 2025 are restated ×3 for a stock split, so per-share figures sit on one basis.

The diluted share count moved ×2.52 into TTM — shares issued, not a split the totals corroborate — and the per-share figures carry the counts as filed.

Per-share growththe realized rate an owner's share compounded
8-yr5-yr
Revenue / share−3.3%/yr−6.9%/yr
Capital spending / share−21.7%/yr−26.1%/yr

The year, in the company's words

the filing →

Verbatim from the 10-K's management discussion. Each sentence is shown only because its subject, direction, and stated figures check out against the filed numbers on this page. The words are the company's; the arithmetic is the record's.

  • Revenue-15.6%
    “Net revenues from international retail channel sales in 2025 decreased $6.6 million, or 11.1%, compared to the prior year, primarily driven by a 16.2% decrease in volume of products sold, partially offset by a 6.2% increase in net revenue per pound.”
    ✓ figure matches the filed record

The record, charted

FY2017–2025

Each measure over its full record; the current point and the worst year marked. Share counts on the current split basis.

Share count
181Mpeak FY2024
ROIC
−158%low FY2025
Gross margin
3%low FY2023

Owner earnings vs. net income

Owner earningsNet income

The accountant's number, and the cash an owner can take; the gap is the tell.

($157M)owner earningsvs.$219Mnet incomelow FY2022

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 2025 the business reported $219M of profit but ($157M) of owner earnings: $376M less than the profit line, taken out by capital spending and the timing of cash.

FY2025FY2024FY2023FY2022FY2021
Reported net income$219M($160M)($338M)($366M)($182M)
Depreciation & amortizationnon-cash charge added back+$33M+$23M+$48M+$33M+$22M
Stock-based compensationreal costnon-cash, but a real cost+$31M+$24M+$29M+$34M+$28M
Working capital & othertiming of cash in and out, other non-cash items−$428M+$14M+$153M−$21M−$169M
Cash from operations($145M)($99M)($108M)($320M)($301M)
Maintenance capital expenditurethe spending needed just to hold position and volume−$12M−$11M−$11M−$33M−$22M
Owner earnings($157M)($110M)($118M)($353M)($323M)
Growth capital expenditurediscretionary; spent to get bigger, not to stand still−$38M−$114M
Free cash flow($157M)($110M)($118M)($391M)($437M)
Owner-earnings marginowner earnings ÷ revenue-57%-34%-34%-84%-70%

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 $31M), owner earnings is nearer ($188M).

Much of fiscal 2025's profit didn't arrive as operating cash; it sits in “working capital & other” above. That can be a real inventory or timing swing, or profit that doesn't run through operating cash at all: a heavy tax year, equity-method earnings, or investment income booked through investing. For a year like this, owner earnings understates the cash earned; the full cash-flow statement carries the rest.

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.

III

Quality & stewardship

Returns, the balance sheet, capital allocation, and pay.

Owner’s Scorecard

FY2025 10-K · source on SEC EDGAR →
Material weakness in financial controls
“Risks Related to Being a Public Company We have identified material weaknesses in our internal control over financial reporting.”

The figures below are only as sound as the controls that produced them. read the note →

Will it survive?

  • Does not cover its interest
    Operating income ($334M) ÷ interest expense $14M
    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 loss
    Cash $204M − debt $1.1B
    What this means

    Netting $204M of cash and short-term investments against $1.1B of debt leaves $938M 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.

  • Long (60+ days)
    DSO 35 + DIO 115 − DPO 28 days
    What this means

    Days cash is tied up between paying suppliers and collecting from customers. Lower is better; a long cycle means growth itself eats cash.

Is it a good business?

  • Below average through the cycle
    7-yr median, range -158%–-0%; -36% latest = NOPAT ($334M) ÷ invested capital $937M
    Industry peers: median 8%
    What this means

    The rate the business earns on the money tied up in it, Buffett's north star, because over time a stock tracks the ROIC beneath it. Above ~15% sustained hints at a moat; a return below the cost of capital (~8%) erodes value as a business grows rather than building it — the test Buffett weighs most. The headline is the median of the last 7 years (it ran -36% most recently), so one peak or trough year doesn't set the verdict. Asset-light businesses (R&D expensed, little capital) read artificially high, pair this with Owner Earnings.

  • Consumes cash through the cycle
    9-yr median margin, range -87%–-13%; latest ($157M) = operating cash ($145M) − maintenance capex $12M
    Industry peers: median 5%
    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 -57% of revenue this year, a -48% median across 9 years. Treating stock comp as the real expense it is (less $31M of SBC) leaves ($188M).

  • Thinly cash-backed
    Cash from ops ($145M) ÷ net income $219M

    In the filing’s words The filing discloses a material weakness in its financial controls — the reported numbers here, and the record built on them, are only as reliable as the controls that produced them.

    What this means

    How much of reported profit showed up as operating cash. Above 1× is reassuring; well below suggests earnings lean on accruals. One year is noisy, growth and working-capital swings distort it, and this is operating cash, not free cash. Watch the multi-year trend.

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? 0.38×
    Harvesting
    Capex $12M ÷ depreciation $33M
    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 · 1 of 5 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 Miss
    Revenue ≥ $2B · $275M
    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 Pass
    Current ratio ≥ 2× · 4.56×
    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 Miss
    Debt ≤ working capital · $1.1B vs $267M 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.

  • Earnings stability Miss
    A profit every year (9-yr record) · 8 loss years
    What this means

    Graham wanted earnings in each of the past ten years, the stability a defensive owner leans on.

  • Dividend record Miss
    Uninterrupted dividends · none paid
    What this means

    An unbroken dividend was Graham's mark of durability. He wanted twenty years; the filings show about ten, and a single suspension breaks the streak. Non-payers, many fine modern compounders, fall outside his defensive net by design.

  • Earnings growth
    Earnings +33% over the record ·
    What this means

    Earnings were negative early in the record, a growth rate isn't meaningful.

  • 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 $-0.18/share (latest year $0.43), the averaged base the calculator's gate runs on, and book value is $-0.00/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.

Durability & moat, 2017–2025

Whether the record’s returns held, and what the capital reinvested earned.

  • Profitable years 1 of 9
    What this means

    Lost money in 8 year(s), look at what happened there before trusting the average.

  • Return on capital ≥ 15% 0 of 7 yrs
    What this means

    A moat shows up as a high return on invested capital that holds year after year, not one good vintage.

  • Operating margin −40% → −89% (3-yr avg ends)

    In the filing’s words The filing attributes gains to higher prices but names price competition too — and the margin slipped, so the pressure is winning here.

    What this means

    Through the cycle the operating margin slipped — about −40% early to −89% lately, median −48% — competition or costs are biting in.

  • Reinvestment, incremental ROIC returns capital
    What this means

    The capital base barely grew: this business returns cash through dividends and buybacks rather than reinvesting. Judge it on the cash returned, not on compounding.

  • Worst year 2025 · −121.1% op. margin
    What this means

    Operations went underwater in 2025, understand why before trusting the good years.

Does AI threaten the moat?

Low contestability

The moat is physical, regulated or balance-sheet-funded, the kind AI cuts costs within but does not contest.

In its own filing A competitive risk, new this year

Its FY2025 10-K names artificial intelligence as a competitive threat, in language that was not in the prior year's filing.

“The implementation of artificial intelligence technologies by us or our suppliers or other service providers could cause disruption in our business.”

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.

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 28, 2026

Can 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$311M
  • Cash & short-term investments$191M
  • Receivables$26M
  • Inventory$69M
  • Other current assets$25M
Current liabilities$109M
  • Debt due within a year$29M
  • Accounts payable$23M
  • Other current liabilities$57M
Current ratio2.85×all current assets ÷ what's due · Graham looked for 2×
Quick ratio2.22×stricter: inventory excluded
Cash ratio1.75×strictest: cash alone against what's due
Working capital$202Mthe cushion left after near-term bills
Debt due this year vs. cash$29M due · $191M cash covered by cash on hand, no refinancing forced · both figures from the Mar 28, 2026 balance sheet
Cash runway1.4 yrsthe business is consuming cash; this is how long the cash on hand lasts at that rate
Revenue, latest quarter vs. a year ago−15.3%the freshest read on whether the business is still growing
Current ratio, recent quarters3.8× → 2.9×
Deeper floors
Tangible book value($21M)equity stripped of goodwill & intangibles
Debt incl. operating leases$417M$6M of it operating leases

From the company's latest filing.

Management, ownership & pay

read the proxy →

From the proxy: how much of the business the people running it own, and how they are paid, beside what the business earned for its owners in the same years.

Fiscal yearChief executivePay, as filed“Actually paid”Owner earnings
2021Ethan Brown$6.6M−$8.8M($323M)
2022Ethan Brown$6.8M−$6.5M($353M)
2023Ethan Brown$6.7M$3.2M($118M)
2024Ethan Brown$5.0M$301k($110M)
2025Ethan Brown$29.8M$22.0M($157M)

Both pay figures are the company’s own, from the pay-versus-performance table its proxy statement files. “As filed” is the Summary Compensation Table total: salary, bonus, and equity awards at their value on the day of grant. “Actually paid” is the SEC’s prescribed recalculation, which re-marks those equity awards to what they became as they vested; it can swing far above or below the filed figure in either direction, and negative years occur. Owner earnings are the whole business's, from the record above, for the same fiscal years.

  • Insider ownership1.9%

    The stake all directors and executive officers hold together, per the 2026 proxy: skin in the game, the first thing Munger reads.

  • CEO pay ratio454:1

    What the chief earns for every dollar the median employee makes, per the 2026 proxy. A high ratio alone settles nothing; some businesses are genuinely top-heavy in scarce skill. A runaway figure is where Buffett starts asking whether the board is doing its job.

  • Stock-based compensation$31M

    The slice of the business handed to employees in shares this year, 11% 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 →
  • Which reported numbers are a judgment call?
    Management names Revenue recognition, Inventory as critical estimates

    each rests partly on management's judgment; the filing's note sets out the assumptionsverify →

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.

CompanyRevenueGross marginOp. marginROICOwner earn. margin
BGSB&G Foods$1.8B22%12.3%5%5%
SMPLThe Simply Good Foods Company$1.5B39%15.4%8%13%
VITLVital Farms$759M34%6.0%19%5%
COCOThe Vita Coco Company Inc.$610M34%11.4%47%8%
BRCCBRC Inc.$398M38%-5.0%-40%-3%
BYNDBeyond Meat Inc.$275M13%-47.8%-30%-48%
LWAYLifeway Foods Inc.$212M27%4.0%6%3%
MAMAMama's Creations Inc.$172M29%4.1%27%5%
Group median31%5.1%7%5%
IV

The price

What a price has to assume.

What the price implies

reverse-DCF

Beyond Meat Inc. 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.

$
The assumptions

Revenue, delivered−9%/yr’20→’25

Enter a price to run it.

Owner earnings it must reach
Margin the price demands
Owner-earnings margin today−51%

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, "Beyond Meat Inc. (BYND), the owner's record," https://ownerscorecard.com/c/BYND, data as of 2026-07-09.

Manual order: ← BYD its page in the Manual BZH →

Industry order: ← BRLS the Food Products chapter CAG →