The Best One Yet - “Beyond Meat is Regina George” — Starbucks’ Impossible deal. Delivery is like golf. COVID data is econ data… again.

Episode Date: June 25, 2020

Starbucks just announced a plant-based partnership with Impossible Foods in the US, which is awkward because Starbucks already has a relationship with rival Beyond Meat. Gatik’s delivery obsession with “the middle mile” reveals how the shipping industry looks a lot like your golf game. And the recent surge in coronavirus cases highlights how COVID-19 data is economic data.Financial News Curator: https://grnh.se/459f4b871usSnacks Editor: https://grnh.se/b82c83271usLearn 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. It is Thursday, June 25th. Nick, do you hear that? T-B-O. Do you hear that? T-B-O-1.

Oh, my God, what is that? T-B-O-Y. That was one man doing all the sound of X people. This is a T-B-O-Y, T-Boy, the best one yet. How about for stocks, Jack? Not so good. The Dow dropped by 2%. That's actually our second story, though.

Rewaned Waffle Wednesday. Jack, first story, what do we got? Starbucks just defined the relationship with impossible foods to spread its plant-based sausage across the United States. Sounds inappropriate, except Starbucks was already selling beyond meat in Canada and China. We're looking at the complicated relationship Starbucks is trying to pull off. It's awkward.

Jack, second story, what do we got? Dr. Tony Fauci, just alerted Congress of a disturbing surge of new COVID-19 cases. When Fauci speaks, markets sometimes listen. So we're snackifying what Fauci's words mean for stocks. Jack, third and final story, what do we got? Gattuck. It's a startup that's also our seven iron of the day. The self-driving startup partnered with Walmart to fix the middle mile of shipping and delivery. You got the driver, you got the seven iron, you got the putter. Delivery logistics looks a lot like golf. But snackers, before we get to that,

we have a very exciting announcement. For like seven years, it was just Jack and I whipping up the snacks every day making more snacks. Then we got Rebecca, aka the third snacker, to crush our Robin Hood Snacks daily email newsletter. But now it is to time to supersize the snackers and add a little extra guack to this team. We're pulling McDonald's vibes here. We want to get bigger. We are hiring. We're hiring an editor and we're hiring a news curator for now with more juicy details to come soon. Jack, first up in the lineup, our financial news curator, which looks a lot like a news chef. What does this describe? You won't be making the snacks, but you'll be deciding what's on the day's news menu in the Robin Hood News feed.

Next up in the lineup, we got our snacks editor, kind of like the regional main. to the traveling secretary. Assistant to the regional manager. Just kidding. This is more like just a straight-up regional manager. How can we best grow snacks by opening new locations while also maintaining ridiculously high 100% quality? Robin Hood has millions of people using its app to follow news on the markets. And he got millions more indulgent in snacks. Robin Hood's original financial news served extra digestible like you like it. So yeah, these roles can kind of have a huge impact. And we're looking for untapped talent of all background. So if you identify as BIPOC, we especially want to hear from you. As we grow snacks, it's important to us that we bring in new voices to help us build and evolve our collective voice.

And like everything we do digestibly, we're going to make it easy for you. You can apply by following the job post linked in the description of this podcast. Check out the description of this episode, and you'll find easy links for the job descriptions. Or hire in Snackers. It's like Amazon's HQ2 sweepstates, except for Snackers for five and six. Let's hit our three stories. tuned in the snacks daily. We spoke to the lawyers and we got to get something legal out the way. The snacks about to hear ain't 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 for you. Robohood Financial, LLC, member FINRA slash SIPC.

There is no other news force. getting these three stories for our first story, Starbucks just broke Beyond Mead's heart. It just added Beyond's arch rival to the Starbucks menu. This one hurts, so we're going to go back in the relationship notebook to February when Starbucks hooked up with Beyond Meat in Canada. It was pretty cool. They launched plant-based breakfast sandwiches with sausage north of the border. You know what they say? All great romances begin north of Toronto. Now our big question, where's the Beyond Canadian bacon? And when you're you, you make the Beyond Canadian bacon, do you flatten the peas or do you just flatten the final product?

A lot of questions. TBD, because they're just calling it Beyond sausage. Missed Opportunity. Okay, so that was February. Then in April, Starbucks and Beyond decided to define the relationship a bit more. Starbucks took Beyond Meat to Canada, which is Starbucks' second biggest market with 4,500 locations. Kick things up a notch. We're talking meat the parents' level on this relationship.

Taking the old weekend retreat and borrowing Dad's trunks to go swimming. in the spontaneous pond visit. Next thing you know, they're going to get the plus one to the cousin's wedding jack. So beyond thought things were going really well with the relationship with Starbucks, but then it got its heartbroken yesterday. Shares fell because Starbucks, it turns out, is seeing someone else, too, in the plant meat game. What the hell at Starbucks? I thought we had something going here. Starbucks will start selling Impossible Foods plant-based sausage at 15,000 of its locations.

Now, bear in mind, Impossible Foods is that. the Regina George to Beyond Meets Lindsay Lohan, which makes Starbucks air in, if you know, you know. So Starbucks is offering cage-free eggs, cheddar cheese, chibata bread, and impossible sausage at all U.S. locations. Interesting, Jack, because that sounds a lot like the beyond sausage that Starbucks was offering as well in Canada and China. Starbucks is pitting these two faux meat competitors against each other. By the way, if you want impossible food stock, you are sumo.

Straight up missing out, literally impossible to get the impossible stock if you're public. Because it's a private company, hasn't IPOed yet. So, Jack, what's the takeaway for our phenomenaja meat going on over at Starbucks? I need my French translation book for that one, man. Got you covered. Now, our big question for Impossible versus Beyond, who is going to Chipotle themselves first? Snackers, Jack and I want to know who's going to launch their own chain of restaurants, beyond or Impossible?

Now, neither beyond nor impossible can go directly to consumer with a delicious plant-based sandwich right now. They're both dependent on restaurants like Duncan or Burger King to whip up something tasty for you. Or they're relying on brave home cooks to whip it up just right on their own stove top. That means relying on other chains and grocery stores. But if they open their own plant-based burger bars, you get a whole new situation. They could introduce to the masses their plant-based meat in a perfectly prepared situation. This could be the buzzy marketing push. They need to move past.

early adopters to mainstream consumers. For our second story, there is a disturbing surge in COVID cases. COVID data is the new econ data. Again, preach. Jack, back in March and April, which I believe was six generations ago, if I'm correct, there was some alarming data out there about the spread of COVID that sank stocks 35%. But then in May and June, which I just checked out my yearbooks for it, was hilarious.

Markets went back to economics data, and stocks are, approached record highs again. But snackers, now with economies reopening nationwide aggressively, we've seen a quote unquote disturbing surge. Anthony Fauci's words, not ours. Disturbing surge. Which brings us down south to the lovely city of Houston, which has sadly become the new New York and not in a good way. Houston is the new New York and ICU beds in the city of Houston are at 97% capacity. Not a good sign. Also, we've got to put a little early snack fact here. Fourth largest city in America? Houston. No, it's not just Texas. Florida, Arizona, South Carolina, and California are among other states where infections of COVID-19 are just spiking. And that's because coming out

a shelter in place is a lot like coming back from a leg injury. If you come back too fast, you could re-injure yourself and end up in physical therapy for like 12 months. Then you're stuck with some guy named Maurice Massage and your hamstring every Tuesday. There is literally an episode of that Michael Jordan documentary on ESPN about this dilemma. that American economies are facing. You are so right. Now, it's not just that we're reopening Snackers, it's that we're reopening the wrong way. European economies are opening as well, but new infections there are close to zero. And here in the U.S., infections just rose to their highest rate ever. 38,000 new infections yesterday, and that alarming COVID data is why stocks fell

2%. So, Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies who are the U.S. economy? The longer COVID-19 lasts, the more tech stocks will likely soar. Snackers, this crazy year 2020, tech companies are living their best lives. The NASDAQ, a stock index loaded with tech stocks, is at an all-time high, up 9% this year. The S&P 500, which is loaded with all stocks, tech and otherwise, is down 6%. Think about it, Snackers. The more people shelter in place, the more tech will outperform brick-and-mortar's companies. Just look at Trolls World Tour.

Again, classic movie. It skipped theaters. straight to streaming. Pre-COVID, movie theaters would have profited from Trolls World Tour, but now Apple and Amazon are because it went straight to streaming. And that's because the coronavirus economy is generally good for tech, generally bad for physical companies. For our third and final story, Gaddick is the self-driving delivery company with a very specific focus. It is fixated on the middle mile of delivery logistics. Honestly, Jack and I jumped and snacks out of this. We're going to call this an unhealthy passion. They may want to see somebody.

Gaddock is a new fleet of temperature-controlled self-driving delivery trucks to make sure your coconut yogurt arrives chilled. That's how you got to have it. Now, they partnered up with Walmart last year to get fresher groceries closer to customers. And Gaddock's not just some startup that's never done anything. It's driven 50,000 miles of paid self-driving miles. They love pointing out. And by the way, they've got one human in the car right now, a safety driver. Now, eventually they plan to cut out that safety driver once they've proven they can safely navigate the road with just robots. A little awkward for the safety drivers out there listening to Snacks Daily right now. Yeah, they might be sabotaged in the situation like pulling the e-break out of nowhere. Now, Snackers, what fascinated us

about this company is that they are fascinated with the middle mile. The middle mile, aka getting your slamming fresh salmon filets between one Walmart facility to a another. The middle mile, the kind of thing Tom Hanks would star it. Now, Gaddock's goal is to cut delivery times between a company's distribution center and another distribution center by 50%. Cutting delivery time by 50% is especially important for fresh groceries, which if you think about it, could spoil or wilt while in transit. I'm thinking about it and I'm not liking what I'm thinking, Jack. I was hoping you'd like my word choice. Wilt. I did. We never get to say that on this pod. We never do. Now, Walmart, remember, is shockingly the biggest grocery company.

in America. And it's signed up for 20-foot-long Gattuck trucks with 14 cameras and a whole bunch of LIDAR. LIDAR with lasers. So, Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies with laser being strapped to their LIDARs? The shipping industry is starting to look like a game of golf. Yeah, Snackers, driving off the T, that's your long haul shipping right there. And you know the players, there's only a few. FedEx, UPS, the United States Postal Service, and Amazon. And there's only a few because this requires a huge investment in trucks, planes, and ships to ship things a far away. But you don't have to be Arnold Palmer to know that putting is where you really save the strokes. So true Jack. Pudding is what we call the last mile, which is that last mile to your doorstep.

And the last mile has been the focus of a whole bunch of startups these days because it's the most expensive and annoying part of shipping. You're sitting back watching Netflix, you're ordering like six things on Amazon at a time. So Postmates, LodginX, Nero, and a whole bunch. of other startups are focused on the last mile. All right, so we've got driving off the tea. We've got your putting game. What about the middle of your golf game, Jack? We're talking the seven iron after the drive to get to the green.

The middle mile for shipping is between facilities, and it has been ignored. Everyone's focused on the tea or the green. How do you get 48 pints of Ben and Jerry's half bank from Walmart's mega sorting facility to the super center just a few miles away from you where you actually get it? Jack, that sounds like a G-Mack question. Snackers, when you break down delivery, into a golf game, it becomes way more clear where the opportunity is. Jack, can you whip up the takeaways for us over there? Beyondmead's stock fell because Starbucks is sausagesing around with

impossible foods too. We're going to have to make this an unfamily-friendly pot. Beyond could separate itself by Chipolifying itself, aka, open up some plant-based food chains. Our second story, yesterday the United States set a record for most confirmed COVID infections in one day. COVID data is the new econ data again. Our third and final story, Gaddock. is helping Walmart get the 150 yards from the fairway to the green. It's the middle, mile, and often forgotten about part of delivery logistics. Now, time for our snack fact of the day. This one sent in by Eli Long from Jim Borden's blog.

It's Wild. This is a great one. Nick, yes. Trivia question. What is the leading manufacturer of tires in the United States? Snackers will give you a second, and a hint, it's not American. No, it's not even based in the tire rubber state. of Ohio. Second hint, little kids drive it more than you do. Okay, so this is either go-kart

related or toy-related. Third hint, the company is based in Denmark. And the answer is Lego. Lego made 318 million sets of tires in 2011. 70% more than your buddy's over at Good Year. Incredible fact. Thank you, Eli Long. Now, quick, happy birthday to Anna Tomani, a long time Snacker. And a big anniversary shout out to the couple that snacks together, Aaron and Ryan, eighth anniversary in Riverton, Ohio. Finally, we mentioned that COVID set a record high in the United States. Let's say one thing about wearing masks in public. Yeah, you can listen to Snacks daily and definitely be wearing a mask. Also, it's kind of like not smoking in public. It's just as much about protecting others as it is about protecting yourself. And it's the new statement

fashion accessory. Lip gloss and goatees are out. A mom jeans made denim mask. Is it? Is it? and they've got a great hole that fits your AirPods. It's perfect. Snackers, H-Y-H-Y-Y-S-D. Have you had your snacks daily? Ask a friend. We'll see you tomorrow. If you know, you know. This is Jack. Nick and I both own stock of Beyond Meat. I own stock of Amazon. Nick on stock of Chipotle and Apple. The Robin Hood Snacks podcast you just heard reflects the opinions of only the hosts who are associated persons of Robin Hood Financial LLC and does not reflect the views of Robin Hood Markets, Inc, or any of its subsidiaries or affiliates. The podcast is for informational purposes only and is not intended to serve as a recommendation to buy or sell any security and is not an offer or sale of a security. The podcast is also not a research report and is not intended to serve as the basis of any investment decision. Robin Hood Financial LLC, member FINRA, SIPC.