Beyond Meat leadership under fire as plant-based sales slow

Yahoo Finance Live anchors discuss the Wall Street Journal and New York Times blasting Beyond Meat’s leadership.

Video transcript

BRIAN SOZZI: All right, rough times for Beyond Meat. The company losing money and amassing debt with a recent exposé in "The Wall Street Journal" and "The New York Times" on the same day, attributing some of these pain points, the leadership of founder and CEO Ethan Brown.

Look, I've been following Ethan since his company launched. I think he leads with a lot of passion, a lot of heart, but there have been operational missteps at this company at the same time that plant-based meat market has, in fact, slowed during this time of inflation when people have just walked or just picked cheaper alternatives, whether it's chicken or good old-fashioned beef.

Also, too, there is this lingering question if plant-based food is, in fact, healthy. You put all of that together, and you have Beyond Meat shares down about 84%. It was very weird to see competing stories on Beyond in both papers yesterday. Just a red flag, and you're seeing shares down about 5% today.

BRAD SMITH: It's a company that has two core business elements to it-- it's restaurant and it's retail. On the retail side, you mentioned consumers trading down. And in that event, do-- does a Beyond Meat have any way forward to continue to make it into freezers and fridges? And on the restaurant side, if you're seeing people spend less per ticket, are they still going to opt--

[BUZZER]

--for that higher priced Beyond Meat option?