Inside the c-suite: Beyond Meat revenue soars, withdraws guidance

Yahoo Finance’s Brian Sozzi recaps his discussion with Beyond Meat CEO Ethan Brown about the company’s first quarter earnings report.

Video Transcript

ALEXIS CHRISTOFOROUS: So Beyond Meat in the spotlight today after the company posted a beat in its first quarter earnings report. Brian, you had a chance to speak with the Beyond Meat CEO, Ethan Brown. He's been on our show a bunch of times before. What did he have to say about these results?

BRIAN SOZZI: Yeah, hey, Alexis. It was another blow-away quarter for Beyond Meat-- $0.03 earnings versus Street expectations for a $0.07 loss. They beat on sales close to $100 million in terms of total sales, versus expectations that were about $10 million lower.

I talked to Ethan Brown last night right after earnings. The real head-- the key takeaway here, at least for me, telling me they're going to start getting more aggressive on discounting-- discounting with their restaurant partners. But also, they're going to start shipping these giant value packs to supermarkets. A lot of product that they're no longer shipping to restaurants because they're closed, they're going to start packaging it up, and putting it and bringing it to supermarkets and clubs, like Costco.

I think that's very important. And I know it's an important initiative for Ethan Brown, to bring the price point of these products down. And as you and I have been talking the past few weeks, there are-- there's some serious supply shortages with traditional meat.

So Beyond Meat and Ethan Brown see an opportunity there to get more plant-based food into the refrigerators of consumers. And to make that happen, they're going to start lowering prices.

ALEXIS CHRISTOFOROUS: Yeah, I think a smart move, for sure. And also, we've got to mention Impossible Foods, which is privately held, but Beyond Meat's biggest competitor. We've had their folks on a bunch of times, CFO David Lee a couple weeks ago on our show.

And just this week, they announced they're going to be bringing their products into Kroger supermarkets. So I think the plant-based protein wars are on, if you will, as these folks look for opportunities during the meat shortage. All right, Brian, thanks a lot.