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BRLS, Borealis Foods Inc. Class A
A consumer-brand business, where the durable asset is the brand and the pricing power it commands.
Known for popular ramen noodle brands like the high protein Chef Woo, Chef Ramsay, Ramen Express, and Woodles, Borealis Foods brings innovative fusion flavors from diverse culinary traditions, creating delicious and nutritious meal options for consumers.
The business
What it sells, where the money comes from, the kind of company it is.
The business in brief
read the 10-K →What this business is and what moves its needle, from its own SEC filings.
- Situation
- Unprofitable. No meaningful revenue yet; the record is the cash on hand against the burn. Distress / turnaround. Thin interest coverage, or operating cash burned against real debt, across the record. The balance sheet carries this situation; the debt schedule sets the clock.
- What moves the needle
- Operating margin has run around −67% through the cycle on a 7.9% gross margin, the operating line deeply negative — so the lever is the path to a margin at all: revenue growth against the cost curve and the cash runway, not the level of a margin that isn't there yet. The cash cycle has run negative through the cycle (a median of −24 days): the operation is paid before it pays, so working capital releases cash as the business grows rather than tying it up. On its own account, the filing leans hardest on customer concentration, set against the numbers in what the filing emphasizes, below.
Every line is arithmetic on the company's filings, shown in full in the sections below.
Where the money comes from
read the 10-K →Revenue spreads across 7 regions, the largest Southeast at 36%.
- Southeast36%$11M
- Midwest31%$9M
- Southwest11%$3M
- Northeast8%$2M
- Mountain7%$2M
- Pacific6%$2M
- International5%$1M
From the segment footnote of the company's own 10-K. Shares are of total revenue; the profit bar shows each segment's share of segment operating profit, before unallocated corporate costs.
The record
Ten years of arithmetic, read across the cycle.
The record, 2023–2025
realized figures from each filing · older years to the left| 2023’23 | 2024’24 | 2025’25 | TTMTTMMar 2026 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Income statement | ||||
| $30M | $28M | $30M | $32M | RevenueRevenue |
| ($1M) | $2M | $4M | $5M | Gross profitGross prof. |
| −4% | 8% | 12% | 15% | Gross marginGross mgn |
| 62% | 82% | 48% | 43% | SG&A / revenueSG&A/rev |
| 2% | 1% | 1% | 1% | R&D / revenueR&D/rev |
| ($20M) | ($20M) | ($11M) | ($10M) | Operating incomeOp. inc. |
| −66.5% | −73.7% | −36.7% | −31.8% | Operating marginOp. mgn |
| — | ($25M) | ($19M) | — | Pretax incomePretax |
| ($27M) | ($25M) | ($19M) | ($18M) | Net incomeNet inc. |
| Cash flow & returns | ||||
| ($18M) | ($15M) | ($7M) | ($5M) | Operating cash flowOp. cash |
| $4M | $2M | $2M | $2M | Depreciation & amortizationD&A |
| $5M | $7M | $11M | $11M | Working capital & otherWC & other |
| $4M | $2M | — | — | CapexCapex |
| 14.9% | 6.0% | — | — | Capex / revenueCapex/rev |
| ($22M) | ($17M) | — | — | Owner earningsOwner earn. |
| −74.9% | −60.5% | — | — | Owner earnings marginOE mgn |
| ($22M) | ($17M) | — | — | Free cash flowFCF |
| −74.9% | −60.5% | — | — | Free cash flow marginFCF mgn |
| ($4M) | ($2M) | ($66K) | — | Investing cash flowInv. cash |
| $25M | $10M | $6M | — | Financing cash flowFin. cash |
| $2M | ($7M) | ($589K) | — | Change in cashΔ cash |
| Balance sheet | ||||
| $8M | $653K | $64K | $500K | Cash & investmentsCash+inv |
| $2M | $2M | $3M | $2M | ReceivablesReceiv. |
| $7M | $8M | $5M | $4M | InventoryInvent. |
| $11M | $12M | $16M | — | Accounts payablePayables |
| ($2M) | ($2M) | ($9M) | $5M | Operating working capitalOper. WC |
| $17M | $12M | $8M | $7M | Current assetsCur. assets |
| $67M | $25M | $70M | $72M | Current liabilitiesCur. liab. |
| 0.3× | 0.5× | 0.1× | 0.1× | Current ratioCurr. ratio |
| $46M | $46M | $44M | — | Net PP&ENet PP&E |
| $2M | $2M | — | — | GoodwillGoodwill |
| $66M | $60M | $53M | $51M | Total assetsAssets |
| $3M | $8M | — | $5M | Total debtDebt |
| ($5M) | $7M | — | $5M | Net debt / (cash)Net debt |
| -2.7× | -4.0× | -1.8× | -1.6× | Interest coverageInt. cov. |
| $87M | $61M | $72M | — | Total liabilitiesTotal liab. |
| ($21M) | ($696K) | ($19M) | ($23M) | Shareholders’ equityEquity |
| 1.6% | 4.6% | — | 1.0% | Stock comp / revenueSBC/rev |
| — | — | $2M | $2M | Goodwill written downGW imp. |
| Per share | ||||
| 21.5M | 20.3M | 21.4M | 21.4M | Shares out (diluted)Shares |
| $1.39 | $1.36 | $1.40 | $1.49 | Revenue / shareRev/sh |
| $-1.28 | $-1.25 | $-0.89 | $-0.85 | EPS (diluted)EPS |
| $-1.05 | $-0.82 | — | — | Owner earnings / shareOE/sh |
| $-1.05 | $-0.82 | — | — | Free cash flow / shareFCF/sh |
| $0.21 | $0.08 | — | — | Cap. spending / shareCapex/sh |
| $-0.99 | $-0.03 | $-0.90 | $-1.06 | Book value / shareBVPS |
Share counts before 2024 are restated ×2 for a stock split, so per-share figures sit on one basis.
Net income is the accountant's number; owner earnings is the cash an owner could take out. The walk between them, off the cash-flow statement, and whether the gap is widening or holding.
In fiscal 2024 the business turned a $25M loss into ($17M) of owner earnings: more cash than the profit line showed, after the non-cash charges and the capital it put back in.
| FY2024 | FY2023 | |
|---|---|---|
| Reported net income | ($25M) | ($27M) |
| Depreciation & amortizationnon-cash charge added back | +$2M | +$4M |
| Stock-based compensationreal costnon-cash, but a real cost | +$1M | +$492K |
| Working capital & othertiming of cash in and out, other non-cash items | +$7M | +$5M |
| Cash from operations | ($15M) | ($18M) |
| Capital expenditurecash put back in to keep running and to grow | −$2M | −$4M |
| Owner earnings | ($17M) | ($22M) |
| Owner-earnings marginowner earnings ÷ revenue | -61% | -75% |
Owner earnings is the cash an owner could pull out without starving the business: operating cash less the capital it must spend to hold its position . The cash-flow statement also adds stock comp back as non-cash, but it is a real cost paid in shares; counted as the expense it is (less $1M), owner earnings is nearer ($18M).
Maintenance capex is estimated as depreciation where a growing business invests above it; free cash flow is the figure the scorecard's free-cash margin reads.
Quality & stewardship
Returns, the balance sheet, capital allocation, and pay.
Owner’s Scorecard
Will it survive?
- Can it pay its interest? -1.8×Does not cover its interestOperating income ($11M) ÷ interest expense $6M
What this means
A full year of operating profit didn't cover the interest bill. This is the zombie zone: the business depends on refinancing, asset sales, or forbearance to service its debt.
- Net debt against an operating lossCash $64K − debt $8M
What this means
Netting $64K of cash and short-term investments against $8M of debt leaves $8M owed, with no operating profit this year to measure it against — understand that combination before anything else about the company. Net debt is the leverage figure that matters: the cash is already set against the debt. Strategic or illiquid investments aren't counted here.
- Negative, funded by othersDSO 32 + DIO 63 − DPO 220 days
What this means
Days cash is tied up between paying suppliers and collecting from customers. A negative cycle is a quiet moat: suppliers and customers fund the operation (Buffett's “float”), the company grows on other people's money.
Is it a good business?
- Not meaningful hereInvested capital ($12M) = debt $8M + equity ($19M) − cashIndustry peers: median 12%
What this means
Invested capital is near zero or negative, usually years of buybacks pulling equity down. ROIC explodes or flips sign and stops meaning anything. Judge this one on Owner Earnings instead.
- Not enough dataIndustry peers: median -3%
What this means
The filing data didn't include the inputs for this check.
- Loss, and burning cashNet income ($19M) · cash from operations ($7M)
What this means
The company reported a net loss, so a conversion ratio isn't meaningful. What matters then is whether operations still threw off cash, here, they did not.
How is the cash used?
- Not enough data
What this means
The filing data didn't include the inputs for this check.
- Investing or harvesting? —Not enough data
What this means
The filing data didn't include the inputs for this check.
Graham’s defensive tests · 0 of 3 met
Graham’s numerical criteria for the defensive investor (The Intelligent Investor, ch. 14), run on the filings. A floor of safety, not a buy signal; many fine modern businesses fail his strictest liquidity rules by design.
- Adequate size MissRevenue ≥ $2B · $30M
What this means
Big enough to weather a storm. Graham's 1972 floor was ~$100M of sales (≈ $700M today); we use a $2B revenue line as a conservative modern stand-in.
- Strong liquidity MissCurrent ratio ≥ 2× · 0.12×
What this means
Current assets at least twice current liabilities, near-term bills covered without touching the business. Strict by design: many cash-rich modern firms run leaner and miss it, holding their cushion in longer-dated securities.
- Conservative debt MissDebt ≤ working capital · $8M vs ($62M) WC
What this means
Graham's rule that borrowings not exceed net current assets. Capital-heavy and buyback-heavy firms routinely fail it, read it next to interest coverage, not alone.
- Moderate price —P/E ≤ 15 and P/E × P/B ≤ 22.5 · decided by the price
What this means
Graham's valuation gate, the wall he kept between a sound business and a sound investment. Three-year average earnings are $-1.11/share (latest year $-0.88), the averaged base the calculator's gate runs on, and book value is $-0.90/share. Enter a price in “What the price implies” just below for the P/E, P/B, and whether it clears. But this is the rule Buffett outgrew: there's no hard P/E law, and a wonderful business can deserve a far richer multiple if the thesis holds, treat it as the bargain-hunter's floor, not a verdict on the price.
All figures as filed; the source filing is linked above.
Current Position
as of the latest quarter, Mar 31, 2026Can the business pay what it owes this year, off the freshest balance sheet: the quality of the assets, the debt actually coming due, and what a low ratio means here.
- Cash & short-term investments$500K
- Receivables$2M
- Inventory$4M
- Other current assets$1M
- Accounts payable$17M
- Other current liabilities$54M
From the company's latest filing.
What an owner would ask, FY2025
read the 10-K →- How much of the revenue rides on one buyer?≈$18M · 57% of revenue on the largest customer (TTM)
“Our largest customer represented approximately 57% of revenues in 2023, approximately 22% of revenues in 2024 and approximately 23% of revenues in 2025.”verify →
The questions the record and the charts do not answer on their own; each carries the figure and the place to look.
Peers, Food Products
The same industry, side by side on owner economics. Each column names the period it is read over, and a median resting on fewer than three years carries that count beside it; the group median at the foot is the line to read each figure against.
| Company | Revenuelatest FY, USD | Gross marginmedian over the record | Op. marginmedian over the record | ROICmedian over the record | Owner earn. marginmedian over the record |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| VITLVital Farms | $759M | 34% | 6.0% | 19% | 5% |
| BYNDBeyond Meat Inc. | $275M | 13% | -47.8% | -30% | -48% |
| LWAYLifeway Foods Inc. | $212M | 26% | 4.3% | 6% | 3% |
| AFRIForafric Global PLC | $176M | 10% | 0.6% | — | -3% |
| MAMAMama's Creations Inc. | $172M | 29% | 4.0% | 27% | 4% |
| WYHGWing Yip Food Holdings Group Limited | $135M | 32% | 10.3% | 12% | -3% |
| BRLSBorealis Foods Inc. Class A | $30M | 8% | -66.5% | -258%1y | -68%2y |
| TWGTop Wealth Group Holding Limited | $9M | 53% | — | — | 155%2y |
| Group median | — | 28% | 4.0% | 9% | 0% |
The price
What a price has to assume.
What the price implies
reverse-DCFThe owner-earnings base could not be formed from this filing’s tagged data (operating cash flow or capital spending is missing), so the owner-earnings reverse-DCF has no base to grow. We read the price from both ends instead: type a price to see the profitability it demands, then set the mature margin you would believe and weigh the two against each other. Nothing leaves your browser unless you enter it in your notebook.
Enter a price to run it.
A dated snapshot of the price you typed, the assumptions you set, and what the page showed for them. A snapshot is never edited after it is saved. Your notebook is yours alone — the commitment states what is stored and what we will never do.
Two reads of one future. From your price: the owner earnings the company must reach, valued at a mature multiple and discounted back at your rate, expressed as the margin it implies on revenue grown at your rate. From your belief: the mature margin you would credit, set on the dial above. When the margin the price demands runs above the one you would believe, you are paying for a future taken on faith. For a deep cyclical at a trough, normalized through-cycle earnings are the better lens; this mode is for the genuinely unprofitable, and for the profitable business whose capital spending currently outruns its cash.
Manual order: ← BRKRP its page in the Manual BRO →
Industry order: ← BRBR the Food Products chapter BYND →