Dive Brief:

• Plant-based meat alternative provider Beyond Meat appointed Tony Kalajian to the role of chief accounting officer and principal accounting officer, effective Jan. 12, the company said Monday in a securities filing.
• The appointment comes several weeks after the El Segundo, California-based company terminated the employment of its prior principal accounting officer and controller, Yi (Jevy) Luo, who departed the company on Dec. 23, CFO Dive previously reported.
• Luo’s termination followed about a month after Beyond Meat identified a material weakness in its internal controls related to financial reporting and delayed its Q3 quarterly report by approximately a week, according to November filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Dive Insight:

Kalajian will take the principal accounting officer reins from Beyond Meat’s CFO Lubi Kutua, who stepped in on an interim basis following Luo’s termination, according to the Monday filing. Kutua will continue as treasurer and CFO, Beyond Meat said.

Kalajian is joining the plant-based meat provider as it seeks to improve its internal accounting and financial processes amid continuing financial turmoil. Following its announcement of material weakness, with management concluding “inadequate technical resources” were in place to help identify proper accounting for certain transactions, the business also detailed plans to improve those controls.

Such steps included hiring personnel with “strong technical accounting and public company reporting knowledge” and implementing new trainings for key accounting and financial personnel, according to the Nov. 12 filing.  

A veteran of the medical industry, Kalajian most recently served as consultant CFO of Quantem Healthcare, operating as ContinueEM, an outpatient and urgent medical care company, according to the filing. He has also served as CAO and interim CFO for Calidi Biotherapeutics, and as CAO for OncoCyte Corporation and Lineage Cell Therapeutics, according to his LinkedIn profile.   

In association with his incoming roles as CAO and principal accounting officer, Kalajian will receive an annual base salary of $325,000 and he will also be eligible for an annual bonus opportunity up to 35% of his base, according to the filing. Beyond Meat will also grant him a one-time $35,000 cash bonus upon taking the role.

As Kalajian and other key executives move to improve Beyond Meat’s accounting processes, leadership is also grappling with a continued slump in both sales and profit — for its third quarter ended Sept. 27, its gross profit fell by about half to $7.2 million, according to its earnings results.

The company’s stock has also continued to trade under $1 per share following a 76% drop last year, prompting increased scrutiny from shareholders. Law firms Pomerantz and Bleichmar Fonti & Auld recently announced investigations into claims of securities fraud by the company or its executives following several drops last year in the stock price, inviting investors to join potential class action suits against the meat alternative provider, according to recent press releases.

In November, meanwhile, Beyond Meat was ordered to pay nearly $39 million in damages to Sonate Corporation in a trademark infringement lawsuit, according to a report at the time by Bloomberg Law.

Beyond Meat did not immediately respond to requests for comment.