Beyond Meat shares staged an astonishing rebound this week, surging nearly 600% over three trading sessions as retail investors and meme-stock enthusiasts piled into the struggling plant-based meat maker. The rally marks the stock's sharpest ascent since its 2019 debut, when it briefly traded above $230 per share before collapsing into penny-stock territory.
The company's shares soared 111% in premarket trading Wednesday, reaching as high as $6.43 before closing 77% higher. That followed a 146% gain on Tuesday and a 127% jump on Monday-an extraordinary comeback for a stock that had fallen to just 65 cents last week after announcing a debt restructuring deal.
Market analysts say the surge was triggered after Roundhill Investments added Beyond Meat (ticker: BYND) to its revived Roundhill Meme Stock ETF (MEME). The inclusion sparked a wave of social-media-fueled buying and forced short sellers to unwind their bets. FactSet data shows more than 63% of Beyond Meat's freely traded shares were sold short before the rally began.
"The company is shrinking to survive - cutting costs, revisiting strategy, and trying to rebuild distribution," Jefferies analyst Kaumil Gajrawala said in a note. "Stabilizing the portfolio and driving operating leverage are the key drivers to reaching positive EBITDA in 2H26."
The enthusiasm from meme traders echoes the market frenzy seen in 2021, when retail investors used online forums like Reddit's WallStreetBets to drive up heavily shorted stocks such as GameStop and AMC. On Wednesday, Reddit users joked about the sudden surge. One wrote, "Youre already down 7k, impressive," in response to a poster claiming to have bought 10,000 shares of Beyond Meat. Another commented, "You know the economy is cooked when BYND stock is making a comeback."
Beyond Meat's fundamentals remain weak despite the rally. The company reported a 19.6% year-over-year drop in second-quarter sales to $75 million and an operating loss of $34.9 million. Demand for its products has waned at both retail and restaurant levels, prompting layoffs of roughly 6% of its workforce in 2024.
Last week, the company finalized a debt swap designed to reduce roughly $800 million in liabilities. Under the agreement, Beyond Meat will exchange debt maturing in 2027 for $202.5 million in debt due in 2030, issuing as many as 326 million new shares to bondholders-significantly diluting current investors.
The stock's recovery is a sharp contrast to its prolonged decline over the past five years: a 47% drop in 2021, 81% in 2022, 27% in 2023, and 57% in 2024. Even with this week's gains, Beyond Meat remains down more than 3% in 2025.
