Geoffrey Waring found that, among other factors, firms that operate in industries that (1) are informationally complex, (2) require customers to know a great deal in order to use an industry’s products, (3) require a great deal of research and development, and (4) have significant economies of scale are more like to have sustained competitive advantages compared to firms that operate in industries without these attributes.
One could argue that for his first two criteria the meat alternative industry falls under this; perhaps not necessarily that the customers are required to know, but that the industry is required to convey the underlying ingredients and breakdown of their replacement. As an example, are the soybeans used in alternative A genetically modified (GMOs) and where are they farmed from; whereas is the pea protein used in alternative B ethically sourced? What percentage of consumers that the company is targeting are interested in the particular protein or what is the percentage range of possible allergies/preferences against their choice of protein of their target audience. Criteria 3 is easily defined for this particular industry - Beyond Meat recently just came out with their chicken replacement; seafood and pork replacements still remain missing due to the difficult research and development to mimic. Criteria 4 is also able to be quickly put onto the meat alternative industry based on their manufacturing practices. It is almost similar to Robert's research on pharmaceuticals - where their competitive advantages will be based on the firm's innovation.
For Beyond Meat, as a basic attempt to measure their economic performance, their last Z-score for Q3, based on Altman's equation is:
Z = 243,259/468,006 (working capital/total assets)
+ -194,867/468,006 (retained earnings/total assets)
+ -122,337/468,006 (earning before interest and taxes/total assets)
+ 367,097/100,909 (market value of equity/book value of total debt)
+ 406,785/468,006 (sales/total assets)
which equals 4.349 and thus Beyond is not expected to fail (at least for the next five years based on the 69.8% prediction rate), although analysts are expecting that with Beyond's next earnings call they will be not meet expectations for yet another quarter.
This is reflected also in their stock price which has been on a downwards trend over the last year - partially in part due to the COVID-19 pandemic and partially in part due to underperformance; we'll have to see in February how their chicken product launch has gone and their partnership with Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC).
Financial information was retrieved on Jan 30, 2022, from BYND on Yahoo Finance! using the Q3 results as 2021 Q4 will be published on Feb 23, 2022.