Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by, and welcome to the Beyond Meat, Inc. Annual Meeting of Stockholders. It is my pleasure to turn the call over to Seth Goldman.
Good morning, everyone. It is now 8:03 A.M. Pacific Standard Time, and I would like to call the meeting to order. I'm Seth Goldman, Chair of the Board of Directors of Beyond Meat, Inc., and it is my privilege to welcome you to our 2021 Annual Meeting of Stockholders. Thank you for joining us. In addition to supporting the health and well-being of our stockholders and other meeting participants during the COVID-19 pandemic, we believe that holding the annual meeting virtually helps to expand access, facilitate stockholder attendance, and reduce costs and the environmental impact of our annual meeting. In accordance with Beyond Meat's amended and restated bylaws, I will be acting as Chair of the meeting. This meeting is held pursuant to the company's bylaws and the written notice sent to all stockholders of record as of March 23rd, 2021.
Joining us virtually today are Members of the Board of Directors, our Founder, President, and Chief Executive Officer, Ethan Brown, our Vice President, FP&A, and Investor Relations, Lubi Kutua, and several members of our senior management team. Representatives of Deloitte & Touche LLP, our independent registered public accounting firm, have also joined us and are prepared to respond to any questions. Let me also name our officials for today's meeting, each of whom is in attendance virtually today. Teri Witteman, our Chief Legal Officer and Secretary, will serve as Secretary for this meeting. As stated on the proxy card, Ethan Brown and Teri Witteman will act as proxies. If you have returned your proxy card, they will vote your shares as you indicated on the proxy card. James Alden from American Election Services, LLC will serve as the Inspector of Elections.
Mr. Alden has previously taken his oath as the Inspector of Elections. Upon joining the meeting, you will see that we have provided a copy of the rules and procedures of conduct for the meeting on the web portal. To conduct an orderly meeting, we ask that participants abide by these rules. As stated in the rules, there is an opportunity to submit a question online. We will conduct the business of the meeting first. Next, our Founder, President, and CEO, Ethan Brown, will share some remarks regarding the business, and then we will turn to your questions for the remaining time we have. Only validated stockholders may ask questions in the designated field on the web portal. Out of consideration for others, please limit yourself to one question. Please note that no one attending via the webcast is permitted to use any audio recording device.
Thank you for your cooperation. We will now proceed with the formal business of the meeting as described in the notice of annual meeting and the proxy statement. I'll hand it over to Teri Witteman, our Chief Legal Officer and Secretary, to review the legal documentation and presence of a quorum.
Thank you, Seth. I have the proof required by Delaware law and our bylaws that the notice of annual meeting, the proxy statement, the proxy card, and the annual report for the fiscal year 2020, together with a letter from our Founder, President, and CEO, were mailed to stockholders commencing on April 9th, 2021. The board established March 23rd, 2021, as the record date for entitlement to receive notice of and to vote at this meeting. As of the record date, there were 63,007,488 shares of common stock issued and outstanding. The list of registered holders of our common stock is available for inspection on the web portal.
Under the company's bylaws, a quorum is present when at least the majority of the voting power of the issued and outstanding shares of capital stock of the company entitled to vote at the meeting is present in person or represented by proxy at the meeting. The Inspector of Elections has been sworn in, and I have his oath of office. The inspector has informed me that a quorum is present. I will now turn it back over to Seth for the item.
Thank you, Teri. With the confirmation that a quorum is present, we will proceed with the business of the meeting. First, we will address the items being presented to the stockholders for a vote at this meeting. As described in the proxy materials, there are three proposals to be considered, and the Board of Directors has recommended that stockholders vote in favor of proposals one and two, and for a frequency of one year for proposal three. No other matters will be considered. Following the voting, I will report the preliminary voting results from the Inspector of Elections, and then the meeting will adjourn. The polls opened today, May 19th, 2021, at 8:00 A.M. Pacific Time for voting on all matters before the meeting. Many of you have already mailed or otherwise delivered your proxy card and therefore intend to have your shares voted by the proxies.
If you have not already voted and wish to vote, the polls will remain open until we announce closing of the polls. If you have provided your proxy card, your shares will be voted in accordance with your instructions. Any stockholders who have not yet voted or wish to change their vote may do so by clicking on the Vote Here button on the web portal and following the instructions there. Stockholders who have sent in proxies or voted via telephone, internet, or mobile device and do not want to change their vote do not need to take any further action. The first matter is the nomination of candidates for election as directors.
Pursuant to the company's certificate of incorporation and bylaws, the company's Board of Directors is divided into three classes, with each class of directors being elected every three years. At this meeting, Sally Grimes, Muktesh "Micky" Pant, and Ned Segal have been nominated as Class II Directors of the company to serve until the 2024 Annual Meeting of Stockholders and until their respective successors have been duly elected and qualified. The Board of Directors has unanimously recommended that the stockholders vote for each of Sally Grimes, Muktesh "Micky" Pant, and Ned Segal as Directors of the company to serve and hold office until the 2024 Annual Meeting of Stockholders and until their respective successors have been duly elected and qualified.
The second matter presented for a vote is the proposal to ratify the appointment of Deloitte & Touche LLP as the company's independent registered public accounting firm for the 2021 fiscal year. The Board of Directors has unanimously recommended that the stockholders vote for the ratification of the appointment of Deloitte & Touche LLP as the company's independent registered public accounting firm for the 2021 fiscal year. The third and final matter presented for a vote is the proposal to approve, on an advisory basis, the frequency of future stockholder advisory votes to approve the compensation paid to the company's named executive officers. The Board of Directors has unanimously recommended that the stockholders vote to approve a frequency of one year for future stockholder advisory votes on the compensation paid to the company's named executive officers.
We will pause for another moment to allow for any votes to be completed online. Again, if you have provided your proxy card, your shares will be voted in accordance with your instructions. Any stockholders who have not yet voted or wish to change their vote may do so by clicking on the Vote Here button on the web portal. The polls are now closed at 8:11 AM Pacific Standard Time, May 19th, 2021, and the Inspector of Elections will tabulate the votes. The next item on the agenda is the preliminary report of the Inspector of Elections. Any votes cast before the polls close, but not reflected in the preliminary report, will be reflected in the final report of the Inspector of Elections, which will be affixed to the minutes of this meeting.
The Inspector of Elections will prepare the final report and certification of the Inspector of Elections once all votes are tallied, and the results will be detailed in a current report on Form 8-K, which we will file with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Based on the preliminary report of the Inspector of Elections, each of Sally Grimes, Muktesh "Micky" Pant, and Ned Segal are duly elected Directors of the company to serve and hold office until the 2024 Annual Meeting of Stockholders and until their respective successors have been duly elected and qualified. The appointment of Deloitte & Touche LLP as the company's independent registered public accounting firm for the 2021 fiscal year has been approved and ratified. A frequency of one year for future stockholder advisory votes on the compensation paid to the company's named executive officers has been approved.
That concludes the formal business to be brought before this meeting, and the stockholders meeting is now adjourned. At this time, I would like to invite Ethan Brown, our Founder, President, CEO, and member of the Board of Directors, to make a few remarks regarding the company and our business.
Thank you, Seth. Thank you, and welcome to Beyond Meat's Annual Shareholder meeting. We recently completed our second year as a public company, and despite significant volatility brought on by the global COVID-19 pandemic, we successfully navigated a challenging environment, and our company is emerging in its strongest position yet. In fact, as I'll expand on momentarily, I have never been more optimistic about Beyond Meat's future than I am today. I'm pleased to share with you the progress we've made since we met a year ago, as well as provide some perspective on the exciting path ahead. Before I dive in, however, I want to remind everyone that during my remarks, I may make forward-looking statements within the meaning of the federal securities laws.
These statements are based on management's current expectations and beliefs and involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ from those described in these forward-looking statements. Please refer to the company's annual report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31st, 2020, filed with the SEC on March 1st, 2021, the company's quarterly report on Form 10-Q for the quarter ended April 3rd, 2021, filed with the SEC on May 13th, 2021, and other filings with the SEC for a detailed discussion of the risks that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied in any forward-looking statements made today. I may also refer to certain non-GAAP financial measures. Please refer to our recent SEC filings for a reconciliation of such non-GAAP metrics to their most directly comparable GAAP measures.
As a quick refresher, and for the benefit of those who may be newer to our story, let me briefly explain who we are as a company, what our long-term mission and objectives are, and what sets us apart from our industry peers. At its core, Beyond Meat is an innovation engine. We use proprietary science to redefine meat, not in terms of its animal origin, but rather in terms of its composition. We believe that by focusing on the latter, the composition of meat, versus insisting that meat must come from an animal, wide swaths of innovation become possible through which we can summon the future of protein. The reason is simple. It turns out that meat, at a very high level, is simply an assembly of amino acids, lipids, trace minerals, vitamins, and water, none of which are exclusive to the animal kingdom.
We therefore see our role as one in which we continue to develop the scientific and technological understanding of plant-based proteins, where we establish the infrastructure necessary to assemble these core components into the architecture of meat and ultimately bring these products to market faster and at a more cost-competitive price than our peers. We do this in an iterative continuous improvement process with strict guardrails around our taste and sensory, nutrition, and cost objectives. Additionally, we are committed to furthering our product innovation without the use of genetically modified organisms, or GMOs, nor any bioengineered ingredients. Although we are extremely proud of our products, we recognize with humility that we still have miles left to travel before perfectly building meat directly from plants to the point where our products are completely indistinguishable from their animal protein equivalents. We also recognize how important our mission is.
We remain highly motivated by what we consider to be a unique one to four ratio. Specifically, by applying a singular focus on changing the source of the meat at the center of our plates from animals to plants, we can be of service to four important areas of increasing concern: human health, climate change mitigation, natural resource conservation, and animal welfare. We believe a growing number of consumers are making distinctions across protein choices that touch on one, some, or all of these considerations. In this context, we see our work as enabling consumers to eat what you love. That is, to continue to enjoy the experience of delicious and satiating center-of-the-plate protein, but doing so with plant versus animal-based meats. We believe our breadth and pace of innovation is what sets Beyond Meat apart from its industry peers.
Our work in this regard starts at our highly sophisticated innovation center, the Manhattan Beach Project, whose name was chosen to evoke the spirit of the Manhattan Project during the Second World War. This effort brought together the best and brightest scientists, engineers, and managers, aligned them around a clear and compelling goal, and appropriately resourced them to deliver significant innovation under tight deadlines. At Beyond Meat, we view our objectives through a similar lens. Our internal Beyond Meat Rapid and Relentless Innovation program, or BM2RI, is intended to intensely drive innovation with a sense of urgency and investment commensurate with the global economic opportunity and societal changes we are chasing. More generally, we expect to continue to invest disproportionately more than our food service peers in innovation as a percentage of revenues, so as to continue to stretch our lead within the global movement toward plant-based foods.
At a high level, we focus our efforts on advancing three key pillars of long-term strategic growth, closing the taste and other sensory gaps of our products relative to the animal protein equivalents. Continuously improving the nutritional profile of our products to a point where there's little room for ambiguity surrounding their health attributes. Finally, reducing the cost of our products to the end consumer to achieve price parity with, and even underprice animal protein. The first two pillars depend on continued investment toward our innovation capabilities, while the third relates to our striving for operational excellence. We believe that if we can successfully advance our objectives against all three of these pillars, we have an opportunity to unlock significantly broader demand for our products and finally cross the bridge from niche status to mainstream consumer adoption.
As I will outline in the next section, we've made progress against each of these pillars in 2020 and are well-positioned to build even further on these efforts in 2021 and beyond. In 2020, we achieved solid net revenue growth of 37% year-over-year, despite significant challenges, primarily in our food service channel as a result of COVID-19. Weakness in food service channels was more than offset by strong growth in our sales to retail customers, which more than doubled versus the prior- year. Importantly, we are carrying our solid momentum in retail into 2021, with sales to food service customers continuing to see a steady, albeit moderate, sequential improvement. With the anticipation of some exciting new product introductions this year, we are optimistic about building further on our recent top-line growth momentum.
In order to continue to drive our top-line growth, and in keeping with the goal of expanding accessibility to our products, we will relentlessly pursue further distribution gains across all of our geographic regions. We have already made tremendous strides in this regard, with our total worldwide outlets up nearly fourfold just in the past two years since our IPO. You will also see us invest more heavily behind our marketing efforts in order to drive further gains in our brand awareness and to clearly highlight what differentiates our brand. Year two, we have meaningful progress at our IPO, but we realize we are just scratching the surface, especially in the international regions. Consider that in the U.S., our most advanced geographic region- to- date, our household penetration stood at only 5.4%.
We know we have miles ahead of us to travel introducing our brand and value proposition to consumers here in the U.S. and around the world. Of course, we will continue to expand our product portfolio with exciting new innovations that delight our existing consumers and draw new consumers into the category. Recognizing that we have an opportunity to significantly increase the depth of our distribution, we are quickening the pace of our innovation by bringing new products to market faster than ever before. Just since we hosted this meeting a year ago, for example, we have commercialized six new products, namely the Cookout Classic, Beyond Meatballs, Beyond Breakfast Sausage Links, Beyond Mince, and Beyond Pork, which is our first product designed specifically for the Chinese market.
Most recently, we released the latest iteration of our iconic Beyond Burger here in the U.S., what we refer to as a Beyond Burger 3.0. This broadening of our product portfolio is critically important to positioning our brand for long-term success and driving greater scale of our business. Early consumer insights indicate that the plant-based meat category continues to attract new customers at a very healthy rate, and that the consumers are willing to try new products, and once they do, they're generally quite loyal to the brands that initially resonate with them. Therefore, it's central to our objectives to offer greater consumer choice early in order to maximize our touchpoints with both new and existing users and to drive long-term stickiness. This long-term mindset I alluded to is evident throughout our decision-making and underpins virtually all of our recent successes.
Caliber of food service customers we are partnering with, for example, is a testament to these organizations' belief in Beyond Meat's long-term vision and our commitment to leading and growing the global plant-based meat movement that is occurring today. We're able to join forces with the very best retail and food service organizations throughout the globe precisely because of our unwavering focus on our brand's commitments of quality, simple, non-artificial ingredients, continuous improvement, the breadth and speed of our innovation, and the authenticity and aspirational nature of our message. We will continue to invest in and nurture these relationships, demonstrating our commitment to the long-term success of our partners, which in turn supports the long-term success of Beyond Meat as we strive toward our goal of becoming a truly global plant-based meat company, rivaling in scale the largest animal protein producers in the world today.
Let me now briefly walk through some of our recent financial highlights. While we're beginning to see nice sequential improvement in our top-line growth trends as our food service business gradually recovers from COVID-19-induced downturn, we've experienced a meaningful compression of our gross margins primarily due to reduced volume levels, even as we've continued to invest in forward capacity to support our future growth. In addition, changes in our business mix relative to pre-pandemic levels have resulted in further logistics inefficiencies. It's important to note, however, that we consider both of these factors to be transitory as we continue to navigate through the lingering effects of COVID-19. With regard to our operating income and adjusted EBITDA, in addition to the transitory pressures on our gross profit I just described, we have continued to invest in human capital to support our long-term growth, particularly in R&D and our international expansion initiatives.
Increased production trial activities have also contributed to a meaningful increase in our operating expenses on a year-over-year basis as we seek to ready several new products for commercial launches in both of our retail and food service outlets. To summarize, with respect to our near-term profitability, making the sizable investments I've just described during a period of serious disruption to important segments of our business undoubtedly impacts our operating margin and gross margin through higher fixed overhead. These outcomes are not unexpected and are a direct result of our belief that it makes little sense to limit our ability to capture future growth due to transient pandemic conditions. We will continue to make such investments, and I'm confident that as a result of them, we will emerge in a much stronger position to seize on the global opportunities ahead of us once COVID-19 is firmly in our rearview mirror.
This slide simply provides a little more detail on the breakout of our revenue growth across our domestic, international retail, and food service channels. What is clear is that we continue to see robust levels of growth in our retail channels, while food service remains challenged as a result of COVID-19. Regarding the latter, we view this as temporary, and the good news is that we are already seeing encouraging signs of a pickup in interest and activity among food service operators as it relates to trialing new plant-based meat menu items. Before wrapping- up, let me share some high-level thoughts on some of our key areas of strategic focus this year. We have spent the last several months investing heavily in our business, establishing infrastructure, personnel, innovation capabilities, partnerships, and product pipeline against our long-term growth and market share objectives.
We will continue these efforts in 2021, and we intend to make a series of investments here in the U.S. and in the E.U. and in China to be in a position to serve customers and consumers alike and to apply increasing pressure on the three key levers of taste, health, and cost that we believe are critical for mass adoption. We are undertaking these investments with a clear eye toward our long-term ambition, recognizing that in many cases, there's a trade-off in terms of near-term profitability associated with these activities. Nevertheless, we are proceeding with this approach without hesitation. We believe this long-term mindset is required to capitalize on the significant growth potential of this global plant-based meat industry and will ultimately drive the greatest long-term value for our shareholders.
This slide summarizes some of the key initiatives or achievements we have secured just recently, each of which have a critically important role to play in enabling the next phase of Beyond Meat's growth, one in which we'll finally cross that bridge from niche market to mainstream consumption. Such distinguished milestones, among others, as signing global seat agreements with both McDonald's and Yum!, two of the world's largest and most iconic QSR brands, forming a joint venture with PepsiCo, one of the largest snacking and beverage companies in the world, signing a 12-year lease agreement on what will become our significantly expanded and state-of-the-art innovation center and global headquarters here in L.A. Opening our first end-to-end production facility in China, with another plant scheduled to open soon in the E.U. We're completing our largest capitalization transaction ever with our $1 billion senior convertible notes offering.
I have never been more optimistic about the trajectory that lies ahead for the company. At this time, we will now answer questions from our stockholders. We can begin with those questions we received in advance of today's meeting. We will then take stockholders' questions that are being entered today on the web portal as time permits. Please note that we will attempt to answer as many questions as time allows, but only questions that remain to the meeting and submitted in accordance with the rules and procedures of conduct for the meeting will be addressed. Lubi, can you please read the first question?
Sure, thanks, Ethan. We did receive a handful of pre-submitted questions, and a number of those questions address the same topic area. In those instances, we have condensed the questions into one to avoid repetition. We'll start with a question related to our product portfolio strategy, since this was an area that received a few questions. Ethan, maybe you can address how we think about product diversification across our business, why it's important to our long-term strategy, and also the interplay between food service and retail channels as it relates to the rollout of new products.
No, great question. I think about it in a few ways. I think first and foremost, I start with platforms, and we have, as you know, three core platforms, beef, pork, and poultry. We've also, as we announced recently, have gotten into egg for particular customers. That would be the fourth platform that's a near adjacency. When you think about that platform approach, what we're trying to do is always improve the fundamental science in each of those areas. We're constantly iterating products within all of those platforms. We're taking that base that we've developed and then iterating that into different products for the market. If you look at the market today, we have five retail SKUs. If you look at one of the largest players in our space, they have 21.
We have tremendous white space ahead of us to be able to offer new products into the market. As we work with these large QSRs, they're providing us with guidance on where they want us to go from a product development perspective. That also oftentimes will match where the retail markets are headed. We have a significant opportunity ahead of us to go from this five- SKU portfolio, largely in retail, to many, many more SKUs, which we think is important. If you think about the depth and length of the meat case itself, families come in and shop not just for a single type of protein, but they're buying pork, they're buying salmon, they're buying beef, they're buying poultry. We need to be able to offer consumers the same level of choice with plant-based meat that they currently have with animal protein.
Diversification of our product portfolio is a very, very big initiative here. You'll see a lot of new products coming into the market over the next year that I'm personally very excited about.
Great. Thanks, Ethan. We did receive a question related to our strategy around academic institutions, including colleges, high schools, and elementary schools. Specifically, the question is, do we have a presence in these venues today, and how important are they to the growth of our brand over the long- term?
We do have a presence, and one of the reasons that the food service segment within our business has been challenged, as we've talked about before, about 80% of our exposure in the food service channel is around independent operators, but also institutional buyers, not the large QSR yet. When universities and colleges shut down, as well as schools, that created an additional challenge for us. We do have exposure there. We do like that segment quite a bit. As you get into the primary schools, the secondary schools, a lot of that has to do with pricing. If you think about the three levers we have around driving taste, driving nutrition, and ultimately driving cost, part of that focus is to be able to serve those markets. It's an attractive market for us. It's a long-term market for us.
We're in it today. We have a good presence, and we anticipate growing it significantly.
Thanks, Ethan. Another area of interest pertains to our relationship with McDonald's. The specific question is, what early learnings have we had from the test markets in Denmark and Sweden so far, and how should we think about the rollout of further tests with McDonald's over time?
I appreciate very much the question and the interest, and I know it's top of mind for many investors and stockholders, and I fully understand and appreciate why. I think the challenge is that we really can't comment on behalf of McDonald's. We are a supplier, and they're really leading the relationship. I can only give my personal perspective, which I'm very pleased with how things have gone so far. The relationship with them has remained really strong, as I've said for years, and we're looking forward to more.
Thanks. The next question relates to Beyond Meat merchandise or swag. The question is whether there are items exclusively available to shareholders or if we intend to make such items available at some point.
Lubi, I got to ask you, did you plant that just because you know of my love of swag. All right. One of the things that I just love about our brand, and I hope you guys do too who are listening, is the enthusiasm that people have for our logo and what we're putting together here and what we've put together here. It gives me really great joy to see people wearing the Hats and T-shirts and so on and so forth. We are going to be putting up a swag store on our website for folks to be able to buy it at a reasonable cost. We recognize that it's a reasonable price. We recognize that it's free advertising for us in a certain regard.
It's a movement that we're building here, and so people wearing the logo and wearing our gear is really important to me personally. It gets to that point that we've made where there's a wonderful thing happens when you see a morphing of a business and a movement, and we've been in a very blessed position to be at the head of that movement. We want to make the symbol of what we're doing available to everybody to be able to buy and wear and be proud of it.
Thank you. The next question relates to our ingredient choices. Specifically, the question is, GMO has a proven track record of making crops more resistant, increased yield, and other nutritional benefits. Are you opposed to using GMOs, or is it just a marketing tactic? What benefits are obtained by using non-GMO?
Yeah. It's definitely not a marketing tactic, and I think one of the things I hope people understand now at Beyond Meat is that what you see with us is what you get. What we're doing, we believe in, and not just whichever way the wind blows. I think I'm not personally against GMOs in every application, but what I do think needs further thought is the downstream consequences of the application of GMOs to certain crops. It's not often the GMO crop itself that does the injury or that has occurred, but it's the unintended consequences. If you think of what's happening with Roundup and the ability for particular strains of soy to be more resistant to that, and then of course it shows up in food and hurts workers and wildlife, that's something that you just need to be cognizant of.
We have a long history of introducing things into the natural world that we don't quite understand, and then the long tail of damage that occurs. We believe that nature's given us all we need to do this, and we understand that the parts of meat are available through the plant kingdom, and that we don't need to genetically modify or bioengineer those ingredients. We just have to work harder to find the right ones. I don't think you'll see Beyond Meat genetically modifying or bioengineering plant kingdom any time soon.
Thanks. The next question pertains to the makeup of our Board. The question is, what can be done to increase the number of women on the Board and in the Executive Suite?
Yeah, it's a big focus for us. We're very fortunate to have some very talented women on our Board and in our Executive Suite. Like every company, we should continue to increase the diversity of our leadership and our Board. It's a focus. Currently, we have three women on the Board, and we have women throughout our executive team. I think we're doing pretty well, but in all regards, we can do better.
Thanks. The next question relates to some of our sustainability targets. Has the company considered calculating its corporate carbon footprint, setting targets for reduction, such as science-based targets and/or committing to Race to Zero to demonstrate that Beyond Meat as a company has a commitment to corporate carbon reductions?
Yeah, that's a big focus. Thank you for the question. We do have some ESG work going on that's really exciting, and we can talk about that at a future date. We have an external firm we're working with in that regard. It's obviously a motivating factor for the company. It's part of why we were formed and what we do. We do believe, however, that the single most important thing we can do for climate is to increase consumption of our products. That's the way to have the biggest impact for us as a company is to do that. I was asked if we would use some of our funds to buy offsets and things of that nature, and I just said we are an offset. I think we'll continue to make our company more efficient from a carbon perspective.
We've done work with the University of Michigan, as many people know, to understand the impact of our products on carbon reduction and greenhouse gas emissions more generally. The results on the Beyond Burger were terrific. It was a 90% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions when you compare the Beyond Burger to conventional 80/20 beef. We'll keep doing those things, and we'll keep focusing on reducing, but that's in our DNA. I think we're focused on that one.
Thanks. Here's an interesting one for you. Have we thought about a plant-based Slim Jim?
I can tell the question's going to be good because Lubi is smiling a little bit as he reads it. We thought a lot about that. I'll just leave it at that.
We have another question that seems to be specific to our manufacturing facility in the E.U., specifically where it will be located. We have said publicly that we're building a facility in Enschede, the Netherlands. I don't know if there's anything you'd like to add.
No, that's it. [ Sure.]
The final question that we have submitted pertains to our business in China. It says, as U.S. and China relations are not good now, how do you see this impacting your future business in China?
I think we're going to be okay. We just had to work over the last year to set an entire facility up without being able to visit, and that was very difficult. How we did it was we had a great advisor in Micky Pant, who's recently joining us, and a terrific team on the ground there, Candy Chan and John, and just a really strong group of folks there that are part of that economy, part of that culture, part of that world. We're building a Beyond Meat for China in China, and we expect to be able to do very well there. That's not something that's at the top of mind for me. We continue to have, I think, good relationships with the Asian government and others. I think we'll be good to go there.
Thanks, Ethan. Seeing no further questions, we'll conclude the question and answer session. Thank you all for your participation. I'll now turn the meeting back over to Ethan for closing remarks.
Thanks, Lubi. As noted in my remarks, our brand commitment, "Eat What You Love," represents a strong belief that by eating our plant-based meats, consumers can enjoy more, not less, of their favorite meals, and by doing so, help to address concerns related to human health, climate change, resource conservation, and animal welfare. We believe this is an opportunity and time for us to be aggressive in offering the consumer expanded protein options, and we remain steadfastly committed to constructing the building blocks today that are necessary to become the global plant-based protein company we envision for tomorrow. Thank you all for attending our 2021 annual meeting of stockholders, and thank you for your continued support and commitment to our brand and efforts.