The Best One Yet - “Dieting, but not cutting out milkshakes” — Uber-as-a-Service. Beyond Meat’s Cookout strategy. The (other) Dow’s filthy environmentalism.

Episode Date: June 18, 2020

Beyond Meat’s early adopters didn’t care about price, but everyone else does. So it’s launched an “affordable” bulk pack to get beyond them. Dow Inc. (not “The Dow”) is okay making filthy materials because it says they make Tesla possible. And Uber is teaming up with the public transportation it’s historically always crushed — we’re calling it UaaS (“Uber-as-a-Service”).Learn 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 18th. Nick, yesterday I went to Home Depot for the first time in my life. Understandable, I know what you went for, the week number 14 of Corona Economy shortage item. It was barely a success because we got the last patio umbrella in the entire store. Snackers, the sun is going direct to consumer this season. Thank goodness for the sake of our skin that we actually got the last middle man available. Umbrellas are the new toilet paper. Jack, how you feel about today's pot? This is the best one yet for our first story. Beyond Meat Burgers are typically beyond budget, and that's a problem. So they just launched the Cookout Classic, a 10 pack of piece disguised as beef.

For our second story, the other Dow, Dow Inc, the Michigan-based materials company. They're saying it's okay that their products are filthy, dirty for the environment because they make Tesla possible. For our third and final story, Uber is launching its first ever Uwah. It's an UAS. That's Uber as a service. We're talking public transportation, which is about to be powered by the Uber app, which is also competing with public transportation. But before we hit those three grade stories, sports, they're finally back on July 31st. They're back. NBA is officially relaunching their season with all 30 teams. Down in Disney World must be nice.

Is it 30 teams or 32 teams? Let's just round up to 30. Also, to play at Disney World, you need to be at least this tall to play. Six foot two, we're talking. They're going to be enforcing that hard. And this also marks a bad day for the Russian Table Tennis Federation. The old RTTF. They've had a monopoly on live sports for like three months that's coming to an abrupt end. In Russia, ping pong ball spike you. The NBA players are set to arrive at Disney World's Wide World of Sports on July 7th.

Now, if Durant's going to take the court, he's got to pass two negative tests in a row, consume an entire turkey leg, and then follow a whole bunch of other precautions. These are real rules. Players must wear a mask when they're out in public. like a Disney World. Yep. They can't spit in games, and they're not allowed to pick their nose ever.

These are real rules. And Snackers, get this. There's even a Narc hotline to report players who are violating rules, aka Snitch on LeBron. Um, hello, this is Russell. I'm pretty sure I just saw LeBron with a buggy. The other wild element of this,

there will be no fans. So TV has taken a trick from Seinfeld and Friends. Those shows had laugh reels, letting you know when a joke just happened. So NBA games will have cheer reels, letting you know when LeBron just stuffed somebody. So we're thinking there are a whole bunch of other ways they could emulate the real in-person viewing experience from the comfort of your living room. Why don't you make viewers on TBS wait in line to use their own bathroom, like in the stadiums?

Why don't you get the graphics team to throw a few obstructions in front of your TV? Excuse me, Ottoman, could you get out of the way? I can't even see the court. Let's hit our three stories. You're 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 rain food. It's air candy.

They don't reflect the views of the robberhood family. It's all informational. So you know, we're not recommending any securities. Nope. It's not a research report or investment advice. Not an offer or sale of a security. Right. Snacks is digestible.

Business news for you. Robberhood Financial, LLC, member FINRA slash SIPC. For our first story, Jack, Sawyer P. I just watched a documentary on Netflix that said soy is actually not an issue for dudes. Trick question, it's P-Soy. That's always the answer. Now, Snackers, Beyond Meat Stock jumped 3% yesterday, but not because of just a new product.

Because of new packaging. Exactly. It's basically just new packaging. Now, we're in that time of year when every guy you know pretends to be an expert on the grill. They all like circle around the grill and start sweating profusely.

I'll tell you, if you want to get in tight with your father-in-law, don't give him unsolicited grilling advice. Hey, you're going to want to flip it again, but then definitely not too much because you don't want to flip it again. You sure you turned the propane tank on? You're really underutilizing

that left side of the grill real estate, not sure what the strategy is there. Now that Nick and I are done with those lines, Beyond Meat just launched the affordable cookout classic. This is a 10-pack of Beyond burgers for 1599. And since we've got a meat shortage lately, meat alternative sales have nearly tripled this spring compared to last year. But this new 10-pack from Beyond is way more than just a grill season marketing ploy. It's actually a big move in the price war in meat. Jack and I got fascinated with what's going down with like the Department of Agriculture and the cost of beef these days. The battle is with beef that Beyond faces. And beef

cost about $5.26 per pound right now. Now, if we time travel back to like before this week, Beyond Meat was going to cost you like $8.99 a pound over a target. That's right. So Beyond Meat is nearly twice as expensive as the actual beef, like ground beef that you need to make a burger. But when you whip out the whiteboard and do the math on the cookout classic, this 10-pack brings Beyond Meat's price down to $6.40 a pound. That's only about 25% more expensive than ground beef. Boom. not too shabby. Oh, and by the way, Beyond Meets pulling a Casper mattress and going direct to consumer. This is the craziest part of Beyond Meets announcement. The Cookout Classic hits Walmart and Target

next week. And then Kroger and Publix and Albertsons and Whole Foods and everyone else. But after that, Beyond is planning to sell directly from their own website to consumers where they could probably make it cheaper because they're cutting out the middleman. Next thing you know, they're going to be taken out like cheeky subway ads to make it seem like these things are not just beef. They're part of your life. Live beyond. So Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over and peat protein at Beyond Meat? Once you move beyond early adopters, you must knock down barriers.

Snackers, picture your early adopter buddy, probably Johnny, who bought gadgets before they were hidden the Best Buy shelves. Johnny paid like $1,000 because he was willing to look absurd with Google glasses on his face just so he could brag about it. And like Johnny came home and all your room, it's like, seriously, Johnny, what are you doing over there? Early adopters like Johnny take risks and pay more because they really value being first. with things. But mainstream consumers have different values like affordability. For Beyond to move from the early adopters to a bigger mainstream customer base of Beyond Burger buyers, they got to eliminate

barriers. And the first barrier is off in price. And that's why investors were rewarded Beyond Beef stock by about 3% yesterday bringing it to a nine month high. For our second story, Dow Inc, not the Dowd, Dow, Dow Inc, just set some aggressive sustainability goals. But they refused to stop doing their most unsustainable thing. Jack, I said it before, I'll say again, you know, I want to lose 10 pounds this year. Oh, so you're going to stop eating a double whopper with cheese like every day? I'm going to keep doing that. That's pretty much what's going on at the Dow Company, which has nothing to do with the Dow Jones

Industrial Average, by the way. Do not walk into a meeting at Dow and mention Dow Jones. It's not a good thing. You don't even want to talk about it. Full disclosure. This is Jack, and I got a fellowship at University of Michigan that was funded. by the Dow Company. A little bit of the old humble brag disclosure over there. This is Jack. No Big Deal. It was really prestigious and hard to get.

The acceptance rate's like negative 12%. Now, Dow Incorporated, does chemicals, plastics, and lots of special materials. You don't buy stuff from Dow, but Dow is all around you. Pretty sure that's a quote from Morpheus in the Matrix. He basically would turn to Neo and say, Dow's stuff is in cars, in houses, and machines. Real thing. It's all over the place. even though consumers don't really buy them. And Dow Inc. just pledged to become carbon neutral by 2050.

But they also announced that they won't stop producing petro chemicals. Which is a little awkward because Petro stands for petroleum, which means fossil fuels, which is not sustainable. You don't need a Dow Fellowship to put that together. Now, Dow's defense here, they're basically saying clean things require some dirty components. We're doing the dirty components. Tesla's electric cars, super efficient home insulation, food that doesn't waste. All those buddies of the environment aren't possible without Dow's carbon-intensive materials that go in them.

Exactly. Ford example, the Ford F-150. It's a gas guzzler that guzzles less gas thanks to Dow Incorporated. Well, let's check out the old mileage over here, Jack, step inside. 2014, the Ford F-150 is up to 19 miles per a gallon. That's not that good. So that's when Ford changed the body of that pickup truck from, steel to aluminum. And by body, I'm pretty sure we mean the old chassis, Jack. No, we don't mean

chassis, Dick. Chassy is not fetch. Nothing better than saying the word chassis. Only thing better is spelling it. Then in 2015, the Ford F-150 managed to get up to 22 miles per gallon from 19. So in one year, the Ford F-150 got 15% better fuel efficiency, thanks to that aluminum from steel switcheroo. Now, if we pull out the old periodic table of elements, we know that aluminum is lighter. But the thing about aluminum is you can't weld it to the chassis, Nick. And you need Dow's special adhesive to make aluminum bodies work with cars. That means that the Dow's glue is bad for the environment, but it makes Ford's trucks way better for the environment. Exactly. Dow Fellowship. So Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over at Dow? There should be an

Enviro badge for stock. Snackers, don't be fooled into thinking envio-friendlyness is just black and white. It's not just oils bad and plants are good. No, if it takes too much oil to get all those plants to your face to eat, that's bad. So think about it. When you're shopping for a stock, you know it's price, you know the company's market capitalization, you know the stock's 52-week high and the 52-week low. You know everything about it as you're making the investment. So you should also probably know whether it's working on environmental sustainability or not.

Think about it. When you buy appliances, you see whether they're energy star or not. When you're thinking about moving into a building, you see whether it has a lead certification. For stocks, you should be able to see a green bag. right there on your brokerage app. Are they pledged to meet the Paris Climate Accords? Are they carbon neutral? Are all of their employees trees?

Yeah. Or are they like Dow appearing bad for the environment, but actually kind of good. Thanks again for that money, Dow Incorporated. For our third and final story, this one's wild. Uber is selling its software to public transit agencies for the first time. It's like the wolf just offered the lamb to come over and make itself at home. Just come on in, let me make you a smoothie. Everything's going to be great. you like raspberries? Uber just announced it's making its ride tracking, route mapping software

available to government agencies so they can use them for public transportation. They're calling this thing Uber transit. We're calling this thing, Jack, the honors. OAS. OAS. UAS. UAS. UAS. UAS as a service. And the first client for UAS is Marin County, California. Lovely, Marin County, California. It's right on the other side of the Golden Gate Bridge. Not too shabby. So, Snackers, Jack and I jumped in snack style. Here's how this thing is going to go down. Imagine public transportation, but powered by Uber so you can, like, play on your smartphone app.

Now, if you're in the Bay Area, you know that Marin County? You're probably going between like a salon and a trailhead. I was actually shocked they had public transportation in Marin. True. Because two-thirds of the cars there are either Teslas or German-made luxury SUVs. You can't pronounce it, and it's probably going to run over you. Now, the way you use this is you open up your Uber app, just like everyone else. Yeah. It'll show you Uber X, Uber XL, but then you have another option called Marin Connect. That's right, Marin Connect.

And this is like your standard local Marin public transportation option. And if you select the Marin Connect option, Marin's public transit vans will come pick you up if you're going the same way as the other riders like pretty much on the bus route. Kind of like Enterprise, but a lot less creepy. So say you're using Marin Connect to get home from Whole Foods, but the nearest stop on the bus line is still a mile from your house and you don't want to carry the grocery bags all that way. Guess what? With this new service, you can get off that last stop and then get a discounted Uber XL ride back home. So you must be asking what's in it for Uber?

They're charging $80,000 to Marin County because let's face it, Marin County has a small public transit system. Yeah, that's tiny, but you got to think bigger than that. Imagine Uber Trans for 9 million people in Mexico City where most can't afford an Uber. Now, I live for five years in New York City. I'm thinking, Nick, can we look at our Uber app and see the MTA 14th Street bus approaching my stop so that I no longer need to just like hope it's on its way. Jack, sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night. I feel like I'm still waiting for the 14th Street bus to come and pick me up. It's a nightmare scenario. Just like you can see the Uber car approaching your stop, I want to see a bus approaching your stop. No more nervous, blind faith about

whether a bus is coming. So Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over at Uber? This shows that Uber is worried about the future of the gig economy. Snackers, this product competes directly with Uber's core gig rides. These public transit drivers, they're anti-gig. They're well-paid. They get benefits. They got like a 401k, and they might even win the employee of the month plaque. That's all anti-Uber. And by the way, cheap gig drivers for Uber, they were just reclassified as employees in California. So Uber Transit is an anti-Uber move, and they're doing it to find more revenues. That is until Robotaxies finally make Uber profitable. But this still fits with Uber's overall mission, which is to make car ownership extinct. And we're hoping this,

makes public transit feel a little bit more Uber-ish in the experience. Minus the ridiculous Uber will be there in three minutes, even though it's really 15 minutes when it finally arrives. Adjust it, adjusted, adjusted, adjust, adjust. Jack, can you whip up the takeaways force over there? Beyond Meat is offering a bulk pack of 10 patties starting next week for 16 bucks. Say that 10 times fast. It's a strike in the price war against beef burgers. For our second story, the Dow Company. It makes dirty petrochemical things to make clean

environmental things possible. One step back so Tesla can take two steps forward. For our third and final story, Uber is selling space in its app to transit agencies. UberX, UberXL, or the bus. Or the bus. Now, time for our snack fact. This one sent in by John in Dallas, Texas. Get this, the first meal ever eaten on the moon was a holy communion eaten by Buzz Aldrin.

Didn't see that coming. And it turns out NASA hid this fact out of a fear of a lawsuit for years. Now, my dad always said the Holy Communion was Doritos and Mountain Dew. Buzz, tell us what you were eating up there. We're waiting for the cookout classic at the International Space Station. Yes. Beyond space cheese. Beyond.

Works with the Beyond theme. Also, want to drop a happy birthday for Leanne and Davy, who are a couple that tune in daily, but argue over the snacks takeaways. Not clear whether it was Leanne or Davy's birthday, but we'll just say happy birthday to both. Oh, Davey. Never mind. There it is, Dave. They're in Atlanta, Georgia. Odds are it's going to be someone's birthday this year.

Everybody, it's thirsty Thursday. If you've got a buddy who's thirsty for some snacks, why don't you go ahead and text them, HY, HYSD? They're going to be like, I'm just trying to get a drink here. What is HY, HYSD? Have you had your snacks daily? And if you know, you know, we'll see you tomorrow. This is Jack. Nick and I still own stock of Beyond Meat. 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.