Revenue forecasts at Beyond Meat, the plant-based meat alternative business, have been revised down by the company to $106m, compared to prior guidance of between $120m to $140m, blaming “ongoing macro and micro economic factors” including COVID-19, reduced retail orders from a Canadian distributor and other distribution and production difficulties.

The Beyond Meat share price fell from $108.31 to $92.66 following the announcement, recovering since to $98.98.

Meanwhile, results for conventional meat processors in the third quarter continue to build on the strong first half performance. Marfrig, the second largest beef processor in the world, posted a 40% growth to BRL 23.6bn (€3.6bn) in Q3 of 2021, compared with the same period in 2020, with adjusted earnings before interest, taxes and depreciation (EBITDA) of BRL4.7bn (€717m), more than double what it was for the same period in 2020.

The North American side of the business delivered the best profitability performance, with EBITA up 167% to $856.7m (€740m).

This is its best result ever, explained by good cattle supply and rebounding market demand in the US.

Pilgrim’s Pride, headquartered in the US and owners of Moy Park in Northern Ireland, has also posted strong results for the third quarter, with sales up 24% to $3.83bn (€3.31bn) and an EBITDA of $346m (€299m), an increase of 13.7% on Q3 2020.

The strong performance was driven by the US, while Moy Park and Pilgrim’s UK were impacted by shortages of labour in the aftermath of Brexit.

Pilgrim’s Pride is owned by JBS, the world’s largest meat processor, who also announced the departure of Wesley Batista from the company’s board at the end of last week.