Good morning. It is now 8:00 A.M. Pacific 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. It is my privilege to welcome you to our 2026 Annual Meeting of Stockholders. Thank you for joining us. We believe holding our annual meeting virtually helps to expand access, facilitate stockholder attendance, reduce costs, enable improved communication, support the health and wellbeing of our stockholders and other meeting participants, and reduce the environmental impact of our annual meeting. In accordance with Beyond Meat's amended and restated bylaws, I will be acting as chair of this meeting.
This meeting is held pursuant to the company's amended and restated bylaws and the written notice sent to all stockholders of record as of the close of business on March 24th, 2026. Joining us virtually today are Members of the Board of Directors, our Founder, President, and Chief Executive Officer, Ethan Brown, our Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer, Lubi Kutua, our Vice President, FP&A and Investor Relations, Paul Sheppard, 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 during the question and answer period at the end of the meeting. Let me also name our officials for today's meeting, each of whom is in attendance virtually.
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. Christel Pauli from American Election Services, LLC will serve as the Inspector of Election. Ms. Pauli has previously taken her oath as the Inspector of Election. Upon joining the meeting, you will see that we have provided a copy of the rules and procedures for the conduct of 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, then we will turn to your questions with 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 amended and restated bylaws that the notice of annual meeting, the proxy statement, the proxy card, and the annual report for the fiscal year 2025 were mailed to stockholders commencing on April 10th, 2026. The board established March 24th, 2026, as the record date for entitlement to receive notice of and to vote at this meeting. As of the record date, there were 463,190,005 shares of common stock issued and outstanding. In accordance with Delaware law, the list of registered holders of our common stock was available for inspection for the requisite time period at the company's principal place of business.
Under the company's amended and restated bylaws, a quorum is present when at least one-third 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 Election has been sworn in, and I have her oath of office. The inspector has informed me that a quorum is present. I will now turn it back over to Seth for the items of business.
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 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 1, 2, and 3. No other matters will be considered. Following the voting, I will report the preliminary voting results from the Inspector of Election, and then the meeting will adjourn. The polls opened today, May 20th, 2026, 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 cards 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 the closing of the polls. If you have provided your proxy card, your shares will be voted in accordance with your instructions. Any stockholder who has not yet voted or wishes 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 election of three directors of the company.
Pursuant to the company's certificate of incorporation and amended and restated bylaws, the company's board of directors is divided into three classes, each class of directors being elected every three years. At this meeting, Seth Goldman, Kathy N. Waller, and Alexandre Zyngier have been nominated as Class One directors of the company to serve until the 2029 annual meeting of stockholders and until their respective successors have been duly elected and qualified. The board of directors has recommended that stockholders vote for each of Seth Goldman, Kathy N. Waller, and Alexandre Zyngier as directors of the company to serve and hold office until the 2029 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 2026 fiscal year. The board of directors has recommended that stockholders vote for the ratification of the appointment of Deloitte & Touche LLP as the company's independent registered public accounting firm for the 2026 fiscal year. The third and final matter presented for a vote is the proposal to approve, on an advisory basis, the compensation of the company's named executive officers. The board of directors has recommended that stockholders vote to approve the compensation of the company's named executive officers by adopting the following resolution.
Quote, "Resolved, that the compensation paid to the company's named executive officers, as disclosed pursuant to Item 402 of Regulation S-K under the Exchange Act, including the compensation discussion and analysis, compensation tables and narrative discussion, is hereby approved." We will pause for another moment to allow for any votes to be completed online. Again, if you have provided your proxy card or voted via telephone or internet, your shares will be voted in accordance with your instructions. Any stockholder who has not yet voted or wishes to change their vote may do so by clicking on the Vote Here button on the web portal. The polls are now closed at 8:07 A.M. Pacific Time, May 20th, 2026, and the inspector of election will tabulate the votes.
The next item on the agenda is the preliminary report of the inspector of election. 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 election, which will be affixed to the minutes of the meeting. The inspector of election will prepare the final report and certification of the inspector of election 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 election, each of Seth Goldman, Kathy N. Waller, and Alexandre Zyngier have been duly elected as Class I directors of the company to serve and hold office until the 2029 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 2026 fiscal year has been approved and ratified. The proposal to approve, on an advisory basis, the compensation of the company's named executive officers, has not 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, and CEO, and Paul Sheppard , our Vice President, FP&A and Investor Relations, to conduct a brief question and answer session.
Thank you, Seth.
Thank you, Ethan. Our first question. Beyond Jerky was flying off the shelves at Walmart and gas stations here in Huntsville, Alabama. It is the best product this company has made in terms of taste, texture, and convenience. Why was it discontinued? Please bring it back to stores.
Great. Well, listen, I love that question because I love that product as well, and it was a terrific product we had with PepsiCo. At the time, we were looking to continue to try to improve the margin profile of the company and felt that some of the products in that partnership weren't hitting the margin expectations that we had. Now, I will say that it's a platform and a occasion that we really like. While not committing to that particular form, I will tell you to stay tuned.
Thank you, Ethan. Second question. Vegans and typical consumers do not want the healthiest burger when they're at a restaurant. Americans don't care about the propaganda saying vegan food is unhealthy. They just want it to taste good. It makes more sense to focus on taste when selling through restaurants and when selling through grocery stores to focus on health. Are there any plans to focus on taste above health when targeting restaurants and non-vegans? I feel like the focus on health has been detrimental to revenue, and you guys are doubling down on health.
Another very good question. First and foremost, we do create a distinction between retail and food service in terms of product offerings. In the restaurant space, when there is an indulgence occasion, we do have products that more fit that particular need. That has to do with, for example, levels of saturated fat that we use. There is a distinction across our portfolio in terms of retail and food service. I think second, it is important to take a step back and look at the history of the company when these misinformation campaigns began. I think one statistic that helps focus the mind on this is if you look at 2020, about 50% or more of Americans felt that plant-based meat was healthy.
Then these misinformation campaigns started, and by 2022, that number was down to more like a third of Americans. My sense is it's lower today. So I think it does matter to the consumer, because I think you have to provide them with a motivation to have these products in a way that distinguishes from the animal protein equivalent. Health is a major driver in terms of consumer behavior on the retail side. In terms of our continuing to focus on health and bring health into the forefront in our products and the work we've done with the American Heart Association, American Diabetes Association, Clean Label Project, Stanford School of Medicine, we've been able to do that in a way that doesn't jeopardize the taste profile of the products.
I think the clearest example that I can give of that is if you look at the largest survey that's done nationally in the U.S. around best plant-based burger, we have now won that eight years in a row. We've won it when we had our oldest formula in place for the Beyond Burger, and we've won it when we've had our newest formula in place. The health profile of that product continues to improve across those eight years, yet the consumer keeps telling us that it's still the best plant-based burger on the market. We'll continue to do that and you really look at what's happening in food today.
From a shareholder perspective, if you look at the companies that are getting really rich returns and getting bought out and things of that nature, functional food where consumers are gaining benefits from the products that they're eating or using is a really strong trend, and it's one that I personally believe in. We continue to focus the company on that. Going back to the burger, if you think about what we're doing there, we're beating products that have MSG in them, we're beating products that are loaded up with saturated fat, and we're beating products that have GMOs. To do that and deliver a very clean and healthy product that consumers love to eat, that's the, in my view, the winning strategy.
I think lastly, as we get into these adjacencies, you'll see us continue to focus on the benefits that we can provide from a health perspective through the food that we're developing.
Thank you, Ethan. Our third question, the ongoing decline in my share value, more than 70% under your management without any clear recovery plan is concerning. When can investors realistically expect improvements, and is there any risk of the company facing bankruptcy?
Right. Thank you. Good question as well. I'd really encourage you, and I know that they're certainly frequent. If you get the chance to listen to our earnings calls, I think it's very clear that we do have a strategy. We're looking at the core, and the core I refer to as our burger, our sausage, our steak, and things of that nature. We've done a tremendous amount of work there to restore distribution of the core in the retail markets, for example, to push the core in Europe and to recover the core in food service. Also, as we look to the future and look five years out, we are positioning the company as a plant protein company that can provide products to the consumer on different occasions. We have tremendous technology, we have a tremendous brand, we have a great team.
What we're doing is using that to get into spaces that the consumer is interested in having taste and nutrition. Whether it's the Beyond Drink platform or platforms you'll see from us later this year, we are broadening the aperture of the company to create additional and greater return and stabilize the company for the shareholder.
Thank you, Ethan. Our fourth question, how important is sustainability and biodiversity to your company, particularly concerning the ingredients of your products and the long-term impact the production might have on the earth and health of your consumers?
That's a wonderful question. I think there are four really important pillars to Beyond that we've talked about now for almost 18 years, and sustainability is core to that. If you look at it's human health, it's climate, natural resource use, land, energy, and water, and then animal welfare. Anything we do, we're going to have that as a cen tral focus. I'll just use the drink as an example. Someone said, "Well, is Beyond deviating from its broader mission by getting into a protein drink?" The answer is absolutely no. If you look at what most protein drinks use today, it's whey. Whey is not a free pass on the earth. It is not a piece of meat at the center of the plate, but it is an incredibly resource-intense source of protein.
If you start with the crops that are fed to the animals that are producing that milk, those crops are heavily fertilized. They are not additive to the soil. They are taking nutrients from the soil. The process itself involves a lot of energy use and methane, and things of that nature to have the cow produce the milk that is then processed into the whey protein that's put into the competing protein drinks. Juxtapose that with the products that we're developing in the drink space, those use legumes, right? What a legume is so powerfully adept at doing is putting nitrogen back into the soil, right? It's fixing nitrogen from the atmosphere, and then it's depositing it back into the soil.
The farmer that's growing the protein that goes into our protein drinks is actually restoring the soil by the very function of growing the crop itself. They're using less fertilizer, they're actually making more money as a result because the profit per acre is higher because there's less input cost. There's also less fertilizer runoff into the environment and so on and so forth, and then fewer emissions. Everything we do has an environmental lens to it. While that's not popular today, it will be popular again. We've stuck to those values through the period when those values aren't being measured or appreciated by many consumers. They will be again, and we are not deviating from that.
Thank you, Ethan. We will now take our last question. I am an early adopter and longtime fan of your products. I happen to also be an, albeit small, shareholder. I would love to be involved in your Beyond Test Kitchen direct-to-consumer channel to test out new products if that is still going on. Thank you.
We'd love to have you involved. If you send a message to Ethan and team and identify yourself as the person that asked this question, we'll make sure that you get some stuff through the Beyond Test Kitchen. It's a great platform. It's an iterative way to explore categories outside of our main core, and do so inexpensively. That's why you saw us do the drinks through that, and that's why you'll see us do other platforms through that throughout the course of the year. I think what you can expect from Beyond is to transition from just being a company that's focused on meat mimicry to one that's focused on meeting consumer protein needs through a variety of applications.
The Test Kitchen is a way for us to do that most cost-effectively and set up a future where your protein needs are being met by Beyond in a really tasty, healthy, and sustainable way.
Thank you, Ethan. That will conclude our question and answer session. Thank you for your participation. Now Ethan Brown will provide some closing remarks.
Thanks, Paul. At Beyond Meat, otherwise known as Beyond The Plant Protein Company, we are committed to our mission to meaningfully impact how we deliver protein to consumers globally. As stockholders of our company, we thank you for your continued belief in our vision and your continued interest and commitment to our brand. Thank you all for attending our 2026 annual meeting of stockholders.
The meeting has now concluded. Thank you for joining, and have a pleasant day.