The Best One Yet - 🌈 “All I want for Christmas is fries” — Mariah Carey’s McMenu. Meadow’s cannabis truck. Samsung’s $17B Austin party.

Episode Date: November 29, 2021

The latest McDonald’s famous meal is only in the app and it’s only with Mariah Carey… because fast food is learning from the sneaker industry. Meadow is turning cannabis dispensaries into food trucks just as weed hits a delivery milestone. And Samsung’s newest factory will cost $17B — and it’s in Austin, because agglomeration.$UBER $MCD $ACBGot a SnackFact? Tweet it @RobinhoodSnacks @JackKramer @NickOfNewYorkWant a shoutout on the pod? Fill out this form:https://forms.gle/KhUAo31xmkSdeynD9Got a SnackFact for the pod? We got a form for that too:https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSe64VKtvMNDPGSncHDRF07W34cPMDO3N8Y4DpmNP_kweC58tw/viewformLearn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is Nick. This is Jack. And this is Snacks Daily. Welcome back. It is Monday, November 29th. Stocks fell Friday for the worst day of the year so far. Worst of the year. There is a new COVID variant and it's coming out of South Africa.

Stocks were down about 2.5%. We've recorded this pod Friday. A lot is still being learned about the Omicron variant. In the meantime, after a very heavy serving of leftovers, Jack and I can confirm this is the best pod episode we've ever done. This is a T-boy for our first story. McDonald's newest menu. edition is the Mariah Carey meal. Because tomorrow's fast food looks a lot like today's sneaker industry.

For our second story, Meadow helps cannabis dispensaries turn into a food truck. Jack, weed delivery, it just hit a minivan milestone. For our third and final story, Samsung's newest factory cost $17 billion and it's in Austin, Texas. Bachelorette's barbecue and agglomeration. That's what Austin does. But before we hit those three wonderful stories, fantastic mix to start the holidays. It's week 89, so we're turning to page 89 of the hoarder's almanac. Things were running out of because of the pandemic. Jack and I have been keeping track for you. Thanksgiving was a wild swing from not enough turkey to not too much leftovers.

So here's the thing. Now that we're after Thanksgiving, we got to do what you got to do. We got to talk about Christmas. Christmas trees specifically because unfortunately, there's a shortage of Christmas trees. Yeah, we got a warning snackers, fake trees or real trees. The price of pine is up 30% this year. The reason for the shortage of Christmas trees this year is actually shocking. Get this, Snackers.

The key cause for the great Christmas tree shortage of 2021 goes all the way back a full decade. The 2008 financial crisis has resulted in a Christmas tree shortage today. Okay, Snackers, back then the economy was not being so nice, so farmers planted fewer Christmas trees. And you can't rush the development and growth of a Christmas tree. You got to let those rings form. Scott's Miracle Grows tried to figure it out. They can't do it. No.

It takes 10 years for a Christmas tree. to reach optimal festive tree height. It takes 10 years for it to get big enough for Santa to stick presents under those bows. Okay, so here's what Jack and I noticed. That planting decision way back in 2009, that's what's messing with Christmas tree prices here in 2021. Our strategic supply of Christmas trees has been shrinking for the past four years because it's 10 years after the crisis. So, Jack, what's the takeaway for all our buddies chopping down Christmas trees?

Don't blame the Grinch if you can't find the right-sized Christmas tree. Blame Lehman Brothers. Crazy story, true story. Let's hit our three stars. Too big to fur. You're tuned in to snacks daily. We spoke to the lawyers and we got to get something legal out the way. It's snacks about the hearing food.

It's air candy. They don't reflect the views of the Robberhood family. It's all informational just so. We're not recommending any securities. It's not a research report or investment advice. Not an offer or sale of a security. Snacks is digestible. Business news to you.

Robahood Financial, LLC. Fembra slash SIPC. For our first story, fast food is in the middle of a star's race. Here's the surprise, though. Celebres aren't endorsing the entire food chain. They're endorsing just one menu item. Okay, I'm sorry, November 29th, not too early. All I want for Christmas is Mariah Carey's hits.

It's the number one song. Yeah. Fun fact, she wrote the lyrics in just 15 minutes for that song. And that's the reason why this Christmas song is the number one Christmas song every year since ever. All right. Back to McDonald's. They just signed a promotional deal with the Mariah Carey herself.

Snackers starting on December 13th for 12 straight days. You're getting the Mariah menu. It launches in the McDonald's app. And here's the deal. For 12 days, there's going to be special items like included in this promotion. Okay. It's going to be on the Big Mac, the six-piece chicken McNuggets, the sausage biscuit. And Jack, can we talk about the pickles?

Each day, a different deal. Yes. I know Mariah likes extra pickles. She does love the pickles. So if you spend at least $1, ordering through the McDonald's, app, you get one of those items for free. Yes, you do. Also, this thing is going to be like gift wrapped in a bag, apparently designed by Mariah. Now, Mariah doesn't have a typical vocal range. No, she doesn't. So this isn't a typical endorsement deal with McDonald's. It kind of, though,

feels like the love actually cast. You get like a royalty on this? Can I watch that more than once this holiday season? It's weird if you don't watch it twice. Snackers, funny thing Jack and I have noticed, celebrities like Mariah aren't just signing promo deals with restaurants. They're signing with individual menu items instead. All right, get this. Just last year, McDonald's did a promo with Travis Scott, the rapper. Specifically for the quarter pounder with barbecue sauce. Okay, interesting. This year, McDonald's did a promo with BTS, the K-pop group.

Specifically for nuggets with sweet chili sauce. And guess what? It's not just Ronald. Justin Bieber signed up with his Canadian buddy Tim Horton's chain for donut holes that they're calling Tim Bebes. Oh yeah. Megan the Stallion, she put her name on a specific pop. buy sauce. Not like the whole situation with the chicken. We're talking just the sauce. And Burger King's not doing happy meals. They're doing real meals, which is famous combinations of celebrities like

Nelly. So you can order what Nelly orders. Perfect timing because Jack and I checked out the McDonald's earnings from last month. Jack, how are these famous promos doing for our buddies over McDonald's? Well, yeah, they said they're driving sales. So Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over McDonald's? McDonald's is taking a trick from the sneaker industry. Look, Snackers, endorsing a whole brand, you see it all the time. It's common. It's everywhere. It's nothing new. Honestly, you can't even remember who's endorsing what these days, Jack. I remember Aaron Rogers is endorsing an insurance company. I don't remember which one. State Farm, maybe? It's probably a state farm. I'm just, you know what? I think I gave it away

at State Farm. I think you did too. But endorsing a specific burger, specific nugget, or specific insurance policy, that's more memorable and could have more impact. Well, we also noticed that that's nothing new because the sneaker industry, they've been doing this specific marketing for years. Alan Iverson had his own rebarks. Kobe Bryant had his own Adidas. Classics. Michael Jordan has his own Nike. Snackers, all these athletes, they signed with the brand overall. Like Mariah did with McDonald's. But then they specifically promoted a specific product. Like the items included in the Mariah meal. Specific celebrity celeb deals that worked with shoes and now it's working with fries. Supercut should do like a celebrity endorsed haircut. Pete Davidson

should be doing a $5 chicken palm somewhere. $15 haircut at supercuts. Get the Pete Davidson. You'll suddenly start up in your dating game. Give me the Pete. For our second story. Did you wear the turtleneck, by the way? No.

You didn't wear the turtleneck? This was like the perfect occasion for the turtleneck on Thursday. Oh, Thanksgiving. I did wear the turtlene. I thought you wore the turtlene. You don't let the turtleneat wear you. Good, good, good. I'm glad you wore the turtleneck.

It's a great turtlene. You can take shelter in that turtleneck jacket. I got at least one compliment. But for our second story, Snackers, the cannabis industry in America, it just passed a delivery milestone. And Meadow is one of the startups booming with the cannabis delivery trend. The pot industry has been around for, I don't know, like give or take millennia. But this year, the U.S. pot industry went through a major change.

A majority of retail cannabis sales in the U.S. for the first time this year are delivery. Okay, so even though recreational marijuana is legal in 18 states, delivery of marijuana still faces a whole bunch of challenges. It's legal in 18 states, but it's heavily regulated. And that means it's time-consuming and costly to set up a physical dispensary in these states. You always know where these physical dispensaries are because there's like a line around the block, like there's some kind of sneaker drop. But apparently a lot of people like getting them delivered instead of going in store.

They do. But in California, only 35% of residents have access to a nearby dispensary, according to tech crunch. And a whole bunch of people are just out of delivery range. You're like must take forever to just get a simple gummy bear delivered. So Meadow is trying to solve that challenge with a new product launch they just announced. Dynamic Deliver. Now, they're calling it dynamic delivery because they're fans of alliteration.

But here's how Jack and I are seeing it. This is basically food truck cannabis. That's what this is. Right. Instead of serving waffles and lobster rolls at a food truck, these are serving marijuana gummies, rolled cannabis, whatever you're looking for. Okay. So, Jack, this is like a taco truck and all the inventory.

is on that truck, not in the store. Right. And people come up to the window to pick up their order. Well, Meadow's software is letting the dispensary fill up a vehicle, like launch mom's minivan and just like make sure that thing's full of cannabis. And roll up to any neighborhood where they think demand is not being mad. Okay. So, for example, they would bring this over to a San Francisco Giants baseball game

and they would be like, okay, there's going to be some demand here. Or they could park even better a couple blocks away from a music festival where there's very likely to be demand. So you, as the customer, are going to order on your phone, Meadow is going to text you, tell you where the truck is, just like how you're following your favorite numb, pang sandwich truck. So you pick up your order between the halal guys and gate six because that's where they told you where the truck is.

It's not dynamic delivery. It's food truck cannabis. So, Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over at Meadow? Public pot is dropping. Private pot is thriving. Snackers, most public cannabis stocks, they are producers. They're growing cannabis for mass distribution. And three of the four big Canadian cannabis stocks, they are down again this year so far.

Because pot prices are low. Pot is a commodity. And the U.S. hasn't federally legalized the stuff. But private cannabis companies like Meadow are enjoying an opposite fortune. They are booming in their valuations. Yeah. We're talking startups that are focused on weed tech more than making weed. Right.

We're talking the payment companies, the software companies, and the delivery companies. and the delivery companies that take fees in the cannabis industry. They're not dependent on the price of the product. The most valuable U.S. startup in the cannabis industry right now, it's a payment processing company for marijuana. Private pot companies are booming. Public ones aren't. For our third and final story,

Samsung is spending $17 billion with a B dollars to build a chip factory in Texas. It's going to be right near Austin. And the reason why is agglomeration. Okay, $17 billion, by the way, that's a single lift for a single factory. It's also Samsung's largest investment ever in the United States. Biggest thing they've done since their phone stopped exploding. Combusting. I don't know that exploding. I think it's just an emoji.

Well, this factory is going to be making chips for smartphones, artificial intelligence, 5G, yada, yada. Yeah, construction starts next year. New computer chips are going to roll off the whatever they roll off of in 2024. We're talking 2,000 new jobs, right? Now, we said last week on this pod that the best business is the one that the government wants to succeed. Yes. And last week, it was nuclear power. Right. There's big money in the infrastructure bill for nuclear power startups.

This time, it's not nuclear power. It is chips. Chips are getting more attention than the plus one your cousin brought to Thanksgiving on Thursday. Was that guy? Anything with a screen, a ping, a movement, you know, a car, a phone, a fridge, that it's going to need a chip. Here's the issue. Chips are super. Super, super critical, but the U.S. makes just 12% of the world semiconductor. Yeah, Snackers, 9 out of 10 chips. That's not one of our chips. And that actually makes it a security risk because we need chips. So in June, the Senate passed a $52 billion package of incentives for projects just like this, mega chip factories.

And that is why Samsung gave a shout out to President Biden and the U.S. Congress in their announcement of this new factory last week. It's also why the finance team over at Samsung is just. celebrating right now, Jack. Okay. Travis County. Yes. The city of Travis. Where Austin is. And the state of Texas have waived 90% of taxes for Samsung for 10 years.

Samsung, you know what you do with that money? You go to Franklin Barbecue. You get in line. You order the brisket. And they're probably going to be out of it. I'm a Barton Springs guy. Actually, Lucy's fried chicken. Been there twice, but only got the pulled pork. So Samsung gave three reasons for choosing Texas and they didn't mention barbecue. The first is tax incentives. The second is the techie. ecosystem. And the third is access to talent.

All right. The first taxes, we just told you all about it. Yeah. The second and third are all about one funky word, agglomeration. Jack, this feels like a takeaway moment. So what is the takeaway for our buddies over at Samsung? Agglomeration is how you get hubs. Snackers, Austin, Texas, it is the new emerging hub of tech in America. Just ask like all your buddies who apparently are there right now. The Bay Area of California was America's OG Tech Hub.

Thanks to Stanford, University, Cal Berkeley, and a bunch of garages where whizzes created like the first ever motherboards for computers. Real question here is, what's going on with these Bay Area garages? How do we get more of those? I don't know. From San Francisco to San Jose, that 50-mile stretch is still the undisputed number one for U.S.

Tech 80 years after Hewlett and Packard made their motherboard. And that is agglomeration. It's when talent and schools and collaboration all collide in one place in one wonderful way. The result is pretty beautiful. It's innovation, cutting edge innovation. And what we're seeing in Austin, Texas, is tech agglomerating. And it is agglomerating fast. Dell and Texas instruments were the first techies to get to Texas decades ago.

Jack, looking on our whiteboard here. Then you got Tesla, HP, Apple, Facebook, Google, and Bumble. All of them have added an office in Texas or just moved to Texas too. The techies are agglomerating fast in Texas. Jack, can you whip up the takeaways for us to start the holiday season? McDonald's signed Mariah Carey to a 12 days of Christmas promo. Celebrate deals for specific items, not the whole brand. As cannabis becomes majority delivered, Meadow is enabling moving dispensers.

Here's the thing. Public cannabis stocks are struggling, but some private ones are thriving. For our third and final story, agglomeration is a really fancy word that you know now, thanks to this podcast. There is tech agglomoration happening in Texas. It just feels good to say. Can you use it in a sentence? Just dead. Now time for our snack fact of the day. This one sent in from Garrison Nyphon. Garrison, all you. Hey guys. This is Garrison from Dusseldorf, Germany. You may have recently heard about Portugal banning companies from contenting employees outside of work hours. Portugal, however, is the

second shaker. The first mover in this case was France. Passing a law back in 2016, requiring companies with more than 50 employees to negotiate with employee representatives on specific work hours and ensure the, pardon my French, right to disconnect. Have a great one and keep snacking. Jack, a perfect snack pack for returning to work from vacation. This feels like a good transition one. The right to disconnect.

The obligation to disconnect. You may have the urge to disconnect. In France, you must disconnect. Best way to handle a case of the Mondays, completely disconnect. Snackers, that was great potting with you. If there's one lesson you take, it's wear the turtleneck. Don't let the turtleneck wear you. If you know, Jack knows.

Nick it out, see you tomorrow. Can't wait. And before we go, happy belated birthday to Melissa Ramsey, who was celebrating over Thanksgiving in Virginia, Beach, Virginia. Happy 15th birthday to Adela Hand, who also just finished school applications in San Francisco. Jose Figuera, happy 26th over in West Columbia, Texas, agglomerating. Happy birthday to Winston, who also just moved to the Big Apple.

Great way to celebrate. And Staten Islander Ariana celebrating down in Dallas. Happy birthday, Andy in Santa Fe Springs, California. Oh, and Dalton Clevenger, he's got a birthday, and he's got his first day on the job at AWS. Congrats to Billy and his family who just bought a home in Austin, hope you got some tax incentives. They're probably agglomerating. Happy one-year anniversary to the Schreemans over in Bakersfield, California. And Guillermo Chevaria just finished med school and is snacking all the way from Managua, Nicaragua.

Anybody else celebrating something today? Make it a tea boy. Celebrate the wins. I own stock of Bumble and Nick own stock of Apple. Robin Hood Snacks, newsletters, and podcasts reflect the opinions of only the authors who are associated persons of Robin Hood Financial LLC and do not reflect the views of Robin Hood Markets, Inc, or any of its subsidiaries or affiliates. They are meant for informational purposes only and are not a recommendation to buy or sell any security, cryptocurrency, or investment strategy in any account.

This is not an offer or sale of a security, not a research report, and is not intended to serve on the basis for any investment decision. Any third-party information provided therein does not reflect the views of Robin Hood Robinhood Markets, Inc. Robin Hood Financial LLC, or any of their subsidiaries or affiliates. All investments involve risk, including loss of principal and past performance, does not guarantee future results. Robin Hood Financial LLC, member FINRA, SIPC. I got at least one compliment.