Beyond Meat shares are down 15% on Friday: this is why

Shares of Beyond Meat Inc (NASDAQ: BYND) are down 15% on Friday morning after the plant-based meat substitutes company slashed its revenue guidance for the fiscal third quarter, citing multiple headwinds, including the delta variant of the coronavirus.

Beyond Meat’s revenue guidance for Q3

Beyond Meat now forecasts its revenue in the third quarter to print at about $106 million. In its previous guidance, it had forecast its Q3 revenue to fall in the range of $120 million to $140 million, which already represented a sequential decline in revenue.

One of the reasons that the California-based firm had to cut guidance was the delta variant that weighed on demand from certain U.S. foodservice customers. In its press release on Friday, Beyond Meat said:

Beyond Meat experienced a decrease in retail orders that persisted longer than expected from a Canadian distributor coinciding with the reopening of restaurants, expected incremental orders that did not materialise from a change in a distributor servicing one of the company’s large customers, observed delays in distribution expansion and shelf resets believed to be driven by customer labour shortages.

Other challenges Beyond Meat faced in Q3

According to Beyond Meat, operations were also disrupted due to the severe weather that resulted in water damage at one of its facilities. On top of that, another facility in Pennsylvania faced loss of potable water that lasted for almost two weeks.

These issues, as per company, were partially offset by “accelerated orders from an international customer” in Q3. The Nasdaq-listed firm is scheduled to report its quarterly results on November 10^th.

Beyond Meat launched its plant-based chicken tenders at select U.S. retailers this month.