Forensic Analysis · Consumer Staples / Food & Beverage · as of Sep 30, 2026
Beyond Meat, Inc. (BYND)
A forensic read on Beyond Meat, Inc. built from its complete SEC filings — financial-health screens, earnings quality, red flags and a price-aware rating. Reproducible math, not opinion.
D · Weak — demands caution
Forensic grade
Distress
Financial health
-5.8
Distress distance
Watch
Earnings quality
5
Forensic signals
0.7
P / E (ttm)
$254M
Market cap
-15.6%
Revenue growth
This free snapshot doesn't read filing or proxy text, so the auditor-quality and governance checks that can lower a grade were not evaluated (red flags, auditor quality, say on pay, board independence, going concern, valuation). Those checks only ever lower a grade, so the full analysis can land below the grade above but never above it — treat it as the most favourable reading, not the settled one.
Beyond Meat, Inc. earns a D (Weak — demands caution) forensic quality grade, and its balance-sheet distress test reads -5.8, placing it in the Distress zone. 5 forensic signals were flagged in its latest SEC filings, led by return on invested capital.
What the filings flag
-89.4%
FY2025
Return on invested capital.Return on invested capital is -89.4% in the latest fiscal year, against -53.0% in FY2023, having run between -89.4% and -25.4% across FY2023–FY2025 with no direction held. After-tax operating profit was ($270M) in FY2023 and ($300M) in FY2025, with operating income at -99.6% of revenue in FY2023, -47.8% in FY2024 and -121.1% in FY2025. The capital base behind it came down -34% across FY2023–FY2025, from $510M to $336M, so this return is struck on a smaller base than it started on.
+67.7%/yr
FY2023–FY2025
Share-count dilution.Diluted share count changed +181% over the last 2 years to FY2025 (+67.7%/yr). The count is growing — 64.3M shares in FY2023, 180.9M in FY2025: more stock was issued than repurchased over this window, so aggregate results grew faster than their per-share equivalents. That's ~67.7% shaved off per-share growth every year — total profit has to grow that much just to keep earnings-per-share flat, and a stake held since FY2023 has been diluted ~64%.
11% of rev
FY2025
Stock-based comp load.Stock-based compensation ran 11% of revenue in FY2025 — about $0.17 per diluted share. No cash left the business to pay it, which is why operating cash flow adds it back. Net of repurchases the diluted count still rose about 67.7% a year across FY2023–FY2025 and that rate is not falling, so total profit has to grow by that much annually before any of it reaches a share. Stock compensation is one source of that issuance; acquisition consideration, equity raises, convertibles and other employee plans also net into the count, and these figures do not separate them.
-$351.6M
FY2023–FY2025
Cash burn vs. reported loss.Over FY2023–FY2025, the company reported a cumulative net loss of $279.4M against operating cash flow of -$351.6M. Cash burn ran heavier than the reported loss — something outside net income (working capital, a cash item not in the P&L) is consuming cash faster than the loss alone implies.
Key fundamentals
Latest Revenue$275.5M
Revenue Growth YoY-15.6%
Revenue CAGR (2yr)-10.4%
Net Margin79.5%
Free Cash Flow-$157.2M
The forensic grade and screens above are free — no account needed. Want the AI investment read on top — the 0–100 rating, thesis, bull-vs-bear, red flags and the 12-month scenario, written from Beyond Meat, Inc.'s actual 10-K/10-Q/8-K filings?
Data from SEC EDGAR public filings · metrics as of Sep 30, 2026. Forensic signals flag probability, not certainty.
Beyond Meat, Inc. (BYND) Stock — Forensic Analysis, Red Flags & Rating | Stockonomy · Stockonomy
35d DSO
FY2024→FY2025
Receivables vs revenue.Days sales outstanding moved from 30 to 35 days FY2024→FY2025 (receivables -3% vs revenue -16%). Receivables are creeping up relative to sales. Across FY2023–FY2025 the day count ran 34 → 30 → 35 days, so the latest reading sits on top of a record that was flat or falling before it — one year's move, not a direction the business has been travelling in. Both figures are measured on period-end balances rather than the beginning-plus-ending average, because averaging needs the balance a year before every reading — FY2024's opening balance is on file, but across the 3 fiscal years read here (FY2023–FY2025) the average yields only 2 day counts (1 step), too few to tell a climb from one year's move.