They are not able to make a profit because vegetarians are in the category of what we call "conscious eaters". This category includes people who take their diet seriously, look at the ingredient labels, and try to avoid highly processed foods. Of course it's not only vegetarians, people on carnivore diets and other healthy diets are also conscious eaters, but what unites the entire segment is an aversion to highly processed factory foods, of which Beyond Meat is the poster-child.
So the real market for Beyond Meat would be "casual eaters" -- people who don't look at the label too much, but then this market is going to be sensitive to taste and price, which are Beyond Meat's weaknesses.
Another issue could be that vegans or vegetarians, or meat-avoiders who want to treat themselves with fast food simply prefer other vendors.
They have zero moat.
And also, when taste is a weakness for a definition of "casual eaters", they have simply failed at their core value proposition.
And for the "conscious" eaters, I'd also imagine that people are not dumb and realize the anount of money they have put into marketing and habe to put into trying to pay out stakeholders.
On the European market at least, there are more popular alternatives and myself I only ever bought BM when it was on discount. It was not better than alternatives (Like Meat, Rügenwalder).
So the real market for Beyond Meat would be "casual eaters" -- people who don't look at the label too much, but then this market is going to be sensitive to taste and price, which are Beyond Meat's weaknesses.
So basically problems with product-market fit.