Beyond Meat
Beyond Meat's stock tumbled on Monday after Barclays analyst Benjamin Theurer double downgraded the company's stock from buy to sell, skipping hold entirely. Theurer labeled the company as overweight, citing several reasons mostly related to the coronavirus pandemic.
The impact of the pandemic on the foodservice industry was cited as one of the primary reasons for the downgrade. The majority of Beyond Meat's sales were made to the foodservice sector, with many companies piloting vegetable-based menu items to a great deal of success, for the most part. Foodservice sales, in fact, had accounted for half of Beyond Meat's sales in 2019, an obvious cause for concern given the mass shutdown of many restaurants across the country. The pandemic "hit in this channel might be too high for the retail channel to fully offset," Theurer said.
Beyond Meat benefited somewhat from the pandemic, however, seeing increased sales as the US meat supply dwindled. The apparent issue with this benefit is the slow recovery of the U.S. meat industry, which is putting meat back on store shelves and taking away a chunk of Beyond Meat's sales.
The company's stocks had not been performing too well even before the downgrade. Share prices have fluctuated between the $150 and $130 over the last month; shares haven't been past the $160 mark since early June, falling just shy of that mark in late June before trending downward. Part of the blame for the downward trend lies with a failed trial with McDonald's stores in Canada; the fast-food giant announced last week that it had ended the trial and would not be carrying Beyond Meat products. Beyond Meat recovered somewhat since Monday's downgrade, making a $20 gain into Wednesday, but losing those gains during trading later in the day.
