Plant-based meat merchant Beyond Meat (NASDAQ:BYND) has seen its stock surge 162% off March lows, getting another big boost Wednesday after posting a surprise quarterly profit. The company has benefited from meat shortages and plant shutdowns in the U.S. as processors such as Tyson grapple with the coronavirus pandemic.
Those results shined a light on the alt-meat universe beyond Beyond Meat. Rivals such as Tyson, Hormel and Kellogg’s have their own lines of plant-based proteins; grocery chains Kroger, Walmart and Amazon’s Whole Foods carry Beyond products; and Starbucks and Dunkin’ are two of Beyond’s biggest retail partners.
Lately, news has been swirling over the prospect of a merger between BYND and McDonald’s (NYSE:MCD). According to one analyst at JP Morgan, "Though we wish the test with MCD Canada had been expanded rather than concluded, we are increasingly satisfied with Ethan's response on the matter. He seems optimistic that MCD is happy with how the test went, and he explicitly did not rule out an expansion down the road.
"Since we are skeptics by nature, we will take more of wait-and-see approach, but at least Ethan did not sound worried."
The analyst got the sense from BYND management that the primary goal on the earnings call was not necessarily to convince investors that estimates were too high, but to simply make sure no one extrapolated Q1's success into the rest of the year.
The surge did not continue early Thursday; BYND shares gave back $5.56, or 4.4%, to $120.65.
