While reports of COVID-19 outbreaks have shut down factories or disrupted supply chains for the traditional meat industry, plant-based meat company Impossible Foods has found itself expanding its reach -- this time through a new partnership with Starbucks.
The coffee chain announced this week it will be featuring the Impossible Breakfast Sandwich on its summer menu.
"Something like one-third of all the 18- to 29-year-olds in the country hit a Starbucks at least once a quarter," David Lee, Impossible Foods' chief financial officer, told Cheddar. "And so for us to be available in this way, to have nearly 20,000 locations serve our Impossible Sausage products, is a wonderful milestone for us."
Lee explained that Impossible's co-manufacturing partnerships, such as the one it shares with food supplier OSI Group, provides enough scalability to supply the market for its meat alternatives.
"It means that we can meet the large demand we expect from Starbucks, Burger King, many other partners, but also a really rapid rollout in grocery stores, which we began to speed up sometime around March or so this year," he said.
The CFO was also confident the company was addressing challenges from the coronavirus pandemic by selling Impossible Burgers that can be delivered straight to customers' homes. He reported that grocery sales of its products had grown 30 times over since March when most stay-at-home orders began, in addition to the orders made directly to Impossible.
"The theme has been scaling to meet unprecedented demand. As a result we feel relatively well-prepared to handle how this current pandemic has changed the way meat-eaters like to get their meat," he said. "We're seeing folks order it directly from us to be shipped to their home, which is why we created our direct-to-consumer business."
Still, Impossible Foods has had to weather the pandemic like many other businesses, including the meatpacking industry. According to Lee, however, the stark differences in the businesses give plant-based meat an advantage.
"Unlike many of those unfortunate meat plants, we bypass a lot of the problems they face," he noted. "We don't grow animals, slaughter them, transport them, process them, so we don't have the same challenging conditions the meat industry faces."
Lee also agreed with Impossible Foods founder and CEO Pat Brown, who predicted on Tuesday that the meat industry will be facing its own extinction in just 15 years.
"I believe in the meat-eater," Lee said. "We meat-eaters are pretty sophisticated. You give us a better product that hits the spot, that's better for our health, that's better for the world -- we vote with our stomachs."
"I think the consumer will determine the future and will determine it pretty quickly."
In March, Impossible raised $500 million in Series F funding but despite the aggressive scaling and partnerships Lee described, he said there are no current plans to join fellow plant-based meat company, Beyond, as a public company.
The major U.S. indexes closed Tuesday off of session lows as investors digest the latest read on inflation, showing it remains hot. Wall Street is also preparing for earnings from big banks and monitoring potential policy moves from the Federal Reserve. Peter Tuchman, a stock trader at TradeMas, joins Cheddar News' Closing Bell and highlighted tech stocks in particular. 'The tech sector, which led us to record highs before the 1st of this year, are now the ones that are leading us lower,' he said.
The competition between streaming platforms is heating up as Apple TV+, HBO Max, and others acquire the rights to air live sports, oftentimes behind an exclusive paywall. While this is likely to entice some viewers, it also presents a risk that viewership will become fractured. Customers might steer away from subscription overload as content streaming options become seemingly endless. Jeff Agrest, deputy sports editor and media columnist at the Chicago Sun-Times, joins Closing Bell to discuss what it means for the live sports industry when content is put behind a paywall on streaming platforms, how it could impact viewership, impact on sports betting, potential acquisition targets, and more.
The Coca-Cola Company is teaming up with science education personality Bill Nye as part of its World Without Waste Initiative to describe the bottle-to-bottle plastic recycling process through a vividly animated, stop-motion short film. Christine Yeager, director of sustainability at The Coca-Cola Company, North America, joined Cheddar News to talk about their initiative and the partnership. "We really wanted to partner with someone who can help us make recycling relatable, but also has a very um respected voice in the climate change space," she said.
Billionaire Elon Musk made waves after revealing he's making an attempt at a hostile takeover of the social media platform Twitter. The Tesla CEO is offering $43 billion to buy the social media platform outright with "freedom of speech" allegedly at the forefront of his agenda. Dan Ives, managing director of equity research at Wedbush Securities, is taking the tech entrepreneur seriously. "I think through many twists and turns over the coming months, he ultimately ends up owning Twitter because Twitter's board, their back is going to be against the wall," he said.
Retail sales grew 0.5 percent in March, largely being attributed to the rise in gas prices. Jharonne Martis, director of consumer research at Refinitiv, joined Cheddar News to discuss why consumer confidence has remained strong despite high prices. "What's holding on the consumer is the strong employment market that we have right now in the United States, which is one of the strongest we had in a very long time. If consumers feel that they are secure in their job, they're going to continue to spend," she said. However, Martis noted that signs that consumer spending is slowing down are already visible as well.
Ann Mukherjee, the chairman and CEO of Pernod Ricard North America, joined Cheddar News to talk about Absolut Vodka’s decade-long partnership with the music festival Coachella. Perno Ricard's vodka brand has built the virtual world Absolutland in the Decentraland metaverse for users to explore. "We actually have a vending machine where you can actually purchase the cocktails that will be delivered right to your home," she said. The brand will also be featuring festival headliner Swedish House Mafia.
The tax deadline in the U.S. is on April 18 this year, and some filers may still not be able to complete their return by then. Cheddar has partnered with Jackson Hewitt to let you know what you can do should you blow the deadline.
With tax day just five days away, David Ragland, Certified Financial Planner, Certified Divorce Financial Analyst and Chief Executive Officer of IRC Wealth joined Cheddar's Opening Bell to break down everything you need to know ahead of the upcoming tax deadline.
Michelle Benvenuto, Executive Director of Winegrowers of Napa County, talks about the challenges winegrowers are having this season and discusses the battle over expanding vineyards in Napa County.
