By Kim Khan
Investing.com – Beyond Meat (NASDAQ:BYND) fell Thursday and while that’s not unusual for a stock that is the sole public bellwether for plant-based meat substitutes, there’s an interesting twist.
Shares of Beyond Meat (NASDAQ:BYND) fell 2% in afternoon trading.
There’s no denying that investors may want to take money off the table after BYND's recent run. The stock is up more than 55% since the start of the year, including today's and yesterday’s slide.
Shares fell after it was announced that Softbank had led fundraising for Memphis Meats to the tune of $161 million.
Memphis Meats makes its products from animal cells in labs, differing from companies like Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods, which develop their meat alternatives from plant-based proteins.
Plant-based meat and other meat alternatives are soaring in popularity, with millennials and Gen Z consumers increasingly shunning beef, poultry and pork for environmental and health reasons.
But close to the end of trading yesterday, Bloomberg reported that the largest franchisee of Burger King, Carrols Restaurant Group, would be discounting Impossible Whoppers as sales had tapered off.
The burger was moved to the two-for-$6 menu in more than 1,000 Burger Kings restaurants.
Beyond Meat (NASDAQ:BYND) caught a bid just before the close yesterday on that news, perhaps on hopes that it could get the Burger King supplier deal. But then tapered off and the selling continued today as there are worries that plant-based burgers just don’t cut it.
Bill Oakley, a television writer and former showrunner for “The Simpsons,” now runs a very influential fast food review on Instagram.
His conclusion was that the plant-based Impossible Whopper is only 70% as good as the original Whopper.
-- Reuters contributed to this report