The Best One Yet - “The $30/month Breakfast McClub” — McDonald’s new breakfast. Levi’s thrift store. Crispr’s Nobel Prize bump.

Episode Date: October 8, 2020

Levi’s shares popped 5% after earnings, but we are most focused on its new online thrift store for secondhand Levi’s. McDonald’s just added its 1st baked breakfast item in 8 years, so we’ve got a bold idea for Ronald: Breakfast Club. And gene-editing pioneer Crispr watches its stock jump 11% — doesn’t hurt when your co-founder just got a Nobel Prize in chemistry.$LEVI $CRSP $MCDGot a SnackFact? Tweet it @RobinhoodSnacks @TBOYJack @NickOfNewYorkWant a shoutout on the pod? Fill out this form:https://forms.gle/KhUAo31xmkSdeynD9Learn 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, October 8th. Thursday's the new Friday. We happen to have the best one yet. It's a straight-up TV-O-I. First story, Jack, what do we got over here? Levi's stock jumped 5% yesterday after announcing some poor earnings. It already does e-commerce. Now what's doing re-commerce with Levi's second-hand. For our second story, McDonald's just made its first breakfast menu change in almost a decade. Ronald, take a seat, bold idea from Jack and me. Launch the Breakfast Club 10 bucks a month, make it happen. For our third and final story, CRISPR therapeutics. It's a gene editing stock that just jumped 11%. Jack, doesn't hurt when your co-founder just snagged herself on Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Nobel Prize in Chemistry. A little better than your participation trophy. Must be nice.

But Snackers, before we jump into all that good stuff, quick reminder, Thursday's a new Friday. Snackers, do you miss all the small things about in-office collaboration from pre-concerners? of it. Anna, you walk into the conference room, Rebecca's morning, avocado toast, the envy of the entire third floor. You're sitting in the conference room, you're like, I wonder what crazy socks. Jaron's going to wear it today. Stripes, no stripes, stripes, avocato, who knows? You got the elevator. How's your weekend? It's Tuesday. How the great weekend. Uh, it's Wednesday. Weekend conversations is when you run out of gas. In the meantime, though, Fidelity is trying out a new virtual reality office experience for all of its employee onboarding. They got 140 new workers who all got

sent VR headsets to try to emulate the in-office orientation experience. Picture like the Sims here, but you're working on TPS reports instead. There's a fake digital conference room for fake conversation and fake small time. Classic, you got to love what they're doing over there. Now, some Fidelity Workers, they've already done like a virtual project together with this new virtual reality system. Other Fidelity workers had to do a team-building scavenger hunt in the middle of a virtual snowstorm.

Brutal. Because they're in Boston. True story. That is how Fidelity's first ever. virtual orientation is going down. We assume it was a virtual Northeaster, actually. The only flaw here, the graphics when it comes to virtual reality offices, not quite there yet.

Yeah, the pixels are like the size of your torso. Looks like EA Sports 2004, Jack or 2002? This is like 16-bit Sega Genesis status. Trick question, pre-Y2K. 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 are about to hear rain food.

It's air candy. They don't reflect the views of the robberhood family It's all informational just so You know, we're not recommending any securities 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 Robahood Financial LLC Member Fenra slash SIPC For our first story Levi's is winning It's dominating, living its best life On its women's biz Levi's is also launching its own online thrift shop, Patagonia style.

Founded in 1853 because gold miners back then, they needed some rugged and uncomfortable pants to be wearing. Still based in San Francisco where the gold rush happened, Levi's stock went public last year. And yesterday, Levi's announced third quarter earnings. Jack and I jumped in stock style. Pandemic hasn't treated Levi's that well. Comfort is king when you're working from home and none of your friends see anything on Zoom below the waist. Whipping out the L-eliteration, basically Levi's has become the anti-evales. The good part of Levi's earnings report, online sales climbed by 52% compared to last year. Jack, the bad part of Levi's earnings report, overall sales fell 27%. They got a B plus on participation.

They got a D overall. You're not telling mom. But interesting, the most fascinating thing, Jack and I noticed, their women's clothing sales increased the most and now make up 37% of their total sales. Five years ago, Levi's had 80% men sale, only 20% women. First impression of the brand, you're not thinking that Levi's would have such a small percentage of its sales just be women. In fact, if you Google image search Levi's jeans right now, you have to scroll through a couple pages before you see a picture of a male model. It's all women. No joke. Jack and I did this. We literally counted through 174 Google images of Levi's jeans before we found a dude wearing the jeans. It makes us think Levi's cultural impact is a little different than its actual dude-centric customer base.

True story. In the meantime, Lou series in Levi's New Style. more relaxed, softer, caught, and less scratchy, itchy, giving you that feeling that I hate. The bigger story, though, than yesterday's earnings report, was two days prior when Levi's launched something called Levi's secondhand. If there is one thing we've learned from Bruce Springsteen, it's that his butt shows that jeans are timeless. Born to run the iconic Levi's tag, it's a memory burner. Now, to encourage reuse of Levi's jeans and avoid landfill, Levi's wants to own the entire life cycle of the denim it's producing. It's pushing secondhand gene sales because buying used Levi's saves 80% of the CO2 emissions and a pound and a half of waste compared to buying new Levi's.

So here's what they're rolling with. It's called ReCommerce, a second Levi's website for pre-owned jeans and jackets. And they want your pre-owned jeans and jackets. They're offering up to $25 of store credit for any jeans you send them. Ripped, damaged, whatever. Jack, we got a statue of liberty situation here. Give me your tired. Give me your poor. Give me your ripped at him, baby. Now, according to Levi's, 60% of Gen Z likes shopping regularly for secondhand clothes. And here's the wild thing. Even if you prefer new Levi's clothes, it's nice to know that Levi's will take your jeans back when you're done with them. So encouraging secondhand clothes could be a genius way to boost firsthand jeans sale.

Levi's is Levi's. It's not UNICEF. So Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over at The trend has always been Levi's friend. Snackers, yesterday we told you about Gucci finally embracing the secondhand clothing movement by partnering with the real real. Gucci's move yesterday, though, was reactive. Yep. After years of resisting sustainable fashion. But Levi's moves have been proactive focused on sustainability. Back in 2009, Levi's threw a tag on all their jeans that said wash less, wash cold, hang dry, and donate to Goodwill when done. No joke. 2011, two years later, Levi's revamps its entire manufacturing process saves three billion liters of coal, I mean water. And in 2014, the CEO said something that sounds kind of crazy,

but makes kind of crazy sense. Don't wash your jeans. No, he washes them once per year. No need to waste. By the way, Jack, nickname around the office, they call him Smelly Chuck. I'm talking about the CEO of Levi's tells people not to wash their jeans. But by 2020, this is an apparel company with the sustainability rep that could take on Patagonia. For our second story, we're going from Jeans with a J to Jeans with a G, the Swedish Academy of Royal Sciences, has chosen the few the worthy geniuses for Nobel Prizes. Two stocks jumped as two women try to edit human genes that cause diseases. In the chemistry category, Emmanuel Charpentier of France and Jennifer Dudena of the United States

both walking away the winners. Nobel Prize winners for chemistry, a category that has been dominated by men historically. Big time. So congrats to these brilliant. women. We're talking 185 prizes total. Mostly dudes looking like Walter White. Yeah, these two just drawing a group of seven women who've won Nobel prizes in chemistry, including Marie Curie. There was literally facial hair on the award medal. Marie Curie, by the way, won two Nobel Prizees, one in physics, one in chemistry. In the meantime, we got to talk here about the legendary acronym CRISPR. You may know CRISPR as clustered, regularly interspaced, short palindromic repeats. Yeah, it just kind of rolls off the tongue. And it basically

let scientists remove the parts of our DNA that are susceptible to diseases. The Nobel Committee up in Scandinavia, they refer to CRISPR as genetic scissors. Jack and I like to picture this as like a control X situation on your body, but with no control Z. That's right. You can cut the genes, but you can't undo that cut if you cut. And if you try too many times, you definitely can't control Y. CRISPR is a technology that opens doors for tons of new drugs to cure lots of human diseases. So we're expecting hopefully lots of cures common thanks to these two scientists. Sorry, not just human diseases, life diseases, animals and plants too. But here's the wild thing about CRISPR. It's both an invention and a publicly traded company. Chrisper Therapeutics AG. It's a company

based in Switzerland that stock trades on the NASDAQ exchange. And just like any great invention, you got to ask, who's actually profiting from the intellectual property here? For the CRISPR technology, it's a combination of universities and companies. companies, not just CRISPR Therapeutics, AG. No, and Charpentier, the Nobel Prize co-winner is the co-founder of this company CRISPR. CRISPR stock jumped 11% yesterday because they're going to add Nobel Prize winning to the About Us page, which is a nice thing to do. And Jennifer Doudna, who also won co-founded in Telia Therapeutics, who stock jumped 13% yesterday for the same reason. Both companies just got a lot of earned media from coverage of these Nobel Prizes. But next, the attention's going to shift

over to three big universities, Cal Berkeley, MIT, and Harvard, who, who are all fighting in court for patents on this technology. Some of these inventions happen to be on their college campuses, so they want to license the technology to big pharmaceutical companies. And it's actually pretty common for universities to benefit financially from the tech breakthroughs happening on the other side of the quad. So Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over at the publicly trade company, CRISPR? CRISPR has huge potential, but also some controversy.

Snackers, BigFood, loves this idea of gene editing, because you can make crops that grow bigger, you can make things that are immune to past, stuff like that. Think about corn stocks who insects won't even think about messing with. We're talking about corn that's its own scarecrow. Or they could raise giant livestock with better, bigger meat and not a chance of catching a disease. The cows are jacked, and that's what Monsanto, with the world's largest seed producer, basically does, gene editing of food. But if all this goes down, will that food be considered organic?

I don't know. Big questions here. See, you got some controversy in food, but the biggest controversy is really about the human editing of human genomes. What's less controversial is using this breakthrough technology to cure all human inherited diseases. That's the potential here. None of the uses of CRISPR for this have been FDA approved yet, but hopefully they're coming soon. Got some ethics questions to answer, but this is a big net win for humankind. For our third and final story, McDonald's is launching its first new baked breakfast items in almost a decade, eight years. We think the breakfast wards, they could

use a breakfast club. All right, Jack and I didn't jump in snacks out of this one, but we can whip up the menu for you. You got an apple fritter, a blueberry muffin, and a cinnamon roll. Those are the new McDonald's breakfast items. The formula seems to be fruit, carb, and icing, because frosting is best in breakfast. Pretty, pretty simple. Definitely leaning into the treat yourself vibes kind of a thing. Spelio, more Oreo. Exactly. Now, breakfast snackers was the most disrupted pandemic meal of the mall. When it comes to American fast food restaurants, lunch sales fell by 11% and dinner sales fell by 12% after we all shut down the economy in mid-March. In the meanwhile, breakfast is looking and saying, hey, give me some attention. Breakfast sales fell 18% across fast food during the pandemic.

It's understandable why, because breakfast is the easiest meal to prepare at home. You just pour some milk, pours some Cheerios. Just grab a spoon. Done. Prep time, two pours. Taco Bell, they decided, let's just shut down restaurants. Let's not even try to make money with breakfast. Simple.

because the store will cost more than we'll make. No cheesy, toasty breakfast burrito potato coming. In May, McDonald's announced that restaurant sales were down, but half of those lost sales caused by the pandemic were breakfast sales. Lunch and dinner split the other half. That's how bad the breakfast sale hit was to McDonald's. And that's a problem, because breakfast is all that fast food has been thinking about for the past five years.

It's the most important meal of the day for fast food. For the industry. Starbucks and Duncan, by the way, they're now upselling. us on like plant-based meat breakfast sandwiches, that's been their focus of 2020. Wendy's finally launched breakfast because they wanted it on this, and it's already representing 8% of sales. So if we're looking at McDonald's and how they're investing in a new breakfast item, it's also a signal that things are kind of returning to normal. Pepsi and General Mills have been benefiting from extra cereal and snack bar sales. This could be bad news for them if we go back

to the normal ways. Yeah, if you're grabbing an egg McMuffin, it means you're probably on your way to work. So Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies eating over at McDonald's? Nick, we got a crazy idea we want to tell the Snackers. This is wild. This is wild. McDonald's should launch a $30 a month breakfast club. Mickey, do it. Actually, Ronald, I guess, do it. Subscription Snackers, they're all about capitalizing on routines. And breakfast is the most routine of any meal. My routine for breakfast the past couple weeks, coffee, walk the dog, breakfast, yoga, second breakfast. Routine has very little variability. Oh, wow. No, no. phone call to Nick in there. Very interesting, Jack. Very interesting. I'm going to add some

variability to buy routine, apparently. Now, that is why Panera just launched a $9 a month, unlimited coffee subscription. But if McDonald's launches a $30 a month, a dollar a day, they could win your daily routine, probably some lunch and dinner business do. And McDonald's, they're probably going to get some interest with like their new breakfast items and this apple frittata dessert situation. But to win breakfast loyalty, they should launch a $30 a month unlimited breakfast Club. The real happy meal. Jack, can you whip up the takeaways for us over there? Levi's just launched Levi's secondhand its own thrift store online. Honestly, Jack, Levi's definitely drives a Prius. It's a sustainability company. You've got to do that now. For our second story, Chris Burr is both the

Nobel Prize winning gene editing technology and accompanying. Plants, animals, humans, all can get sick less, but we also have some ethical questions that need some answering. For our third and final story, McDonald's just launched Apple Fritters to spice up its morning menu. But to When the breakfast wars once and for all, launch a $30 a month breakfast club already, Ronald. Big players make big plays and big games. But-da-pah-pah-ba-ba-ba. Now, time for our snack fact of the day. This one tweeted in at Robin Hood Snacks by Tiffany Schmidt, her second in lovely Ann Arbor, Michigan.

I think we can all agree that life is a little more stressful right now than a year ago today. Yeah, it may happen. I mean, it's understandable. Well, dentists can confirm it. That's right. The American Dental Association is showing it. a jump in stress-related oral issues. We got a 53% jump in chip teeth. And a 53% jump in cracked teeth as well. And a 30% jump in periodontal disease, which just sounds bad. Snackers, I googled

it. It means gum disease. So a takeaway here, Jack and I just want to prescribe a little wholesome feel-good comedy. I've been watching Ted Lasso on Apple TV Plus. It'll make you feel like the world's a little better place. You get through three episodes and we're not Dennis, but we're pretty sure you'll chip fewer teeth. Thanks for snack, and happy Thursday. It's almost Friday, let's just round it up. It's basically Friday, which means HY, HY, Slax it out to all your coworkers. Have you had your snacks daily?

Nick and I'll see you tomorrow. If you know, you know. And Snackers, before we go, we got to say congrats to Anne Shram Dien's List over in Haberfield, Massachusetts. And congrats to Cheyenne Short, who just started playing professional soccer in France. And Brian and Caroline having a baby over in San Francisco. And congrats, Moshe Ohana and Ricky Wedgill for proposing to each other in the Rockies. And Ellie Glazer and Danielle Pinnock, we know we got your one month anniversary down

in Tribeca. Happy first anniversary to Jesse Kerr and Laura Gifford in Portland, Oregon. In the meantime, Mary and Austin got their anniversary over in Boston. And Go Gators, happy first anniversary to Crawford and Callie Battlitch in Gainesville, Florida. But a happy birthday to Sab Niswati over in Beaverton, Florida. And happy birthday to Mary Franke in San Francisco, California. And Aaron Tech Lab in Richardson, Texas. And Chris Sykes in Chicago, Illinois.

and Charlene Tillotson and Weatherford, Texas. And Adam Reynolds to Winchester, Massachusetts. We'll see you tomorrow. This is Jack, nickel and stock of Lou Lemon. I sold mine. 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.