What happened
Beyond Meat (BYND 6.69%), one of the top names in the burgeoning alt-protein space, trounced the broader stock market on Tuesday. The company's shares rose past the 4% mark, more than quadruple the percentage gain of the S&P 500 index. Investors were cheered by a new product that will appear on the menu of a popular restaurant chain.
So what
Beyond Meat announced in a press release that its Beyond Italian Sausage Crumbles are now available in three dishes on the menu of Yum! Brands' (YUM 3.37%) Pizza Hut restaurants in Canada.
Image source: Beyond Meat.
In the press release, Beyond Meat said that the product launch "is part of a larger global strategic partnership between Yum! Brands, the parent company to the pizza purveyor, and Beyond Meat to create delicious and innovative plant-based protein menu items that meet the growing consumer demand for more diverse protein options."
Canada is the second Pizza Hut market to feature Beyond Meat ingredients. The company's Beyond Meat Pizzas are now a permanent menu item in the U.K. following a pilot program started in 2021.
The Sausage Crumbles rollout is the latest phase of a global collaboration deal signed by Beyond Meat and Yum! Brands in early 2021.
At the time, the two companies pledged "to co-create and offer craveable and innovative plant-based protein menu items that can only be found at KFC, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell over the next several years," referring to all three of the high-profile fast-food outlets owned by Yum! Brands. Neither company provided details about the financial particulars of the arrangement.
Now what
This news indicates that the Beyond Meat/Yum! Brands partnership is working just fine, thank you very much. It's encouraging that the former company continues to be assertive and get its products into the kitchens of popular chain restaurants.
Still, competition in the alt-meat segment is fierce, and Beyond Meat is habitually unprofitable. So investors should bear those negatives in mind before considering a buy on the latest bullishness.
