Green Mountain Cuts Forecast, Plans Buybacks

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Green Mountain Coffee Roasters (NYSE:GMCR) — which was recently edged out Starbucks (NASDAQ:SBUX) for the best coffee brand of the year — cut its full-year forecast for sales yesterday after announcing Q3 earnings.

The company barely beat forecasts on the bottom line with earnings of $73.3 million, or 52 cents per share. Analysts had been expecting an EPS of 50 cents.

Sales, though, missed estimated by around $4 million. The $869.2 million on the top line was an improvement of 21% from last year.

For the year, revenue was originally expected to be at least $4 billion, but has been lowered to a range of $3.79 to $3.84 billion for its fiscal 2012. And earnings have also been cut around 10% to a range between $2.21 and $2.26.

The company announced plans to buy back $500 million worth of shares over the next two years.

GMCR shares took a hit right after the call on Wednesday but turned around and were up around 27% by mid-morning on Thursday.

Still, the company — which is part of InvestorPlace‘s Real America Index because of its commitment to environmentalism and sustainable agriculture — has lost almost half its value since the start of the year.