The Best One Yet - 🥩 “The Plant-Based Myth” — Beyond Meat’s virtue issue. Hopper’s vacation game. The British Pound’s opposite day. Episode for Sep 27, 2022

Episode Date: September 27, 2022

Beyond Meat just sank to an all-time low after a new survey revealed a problem with plant-based meat: You think it’s lying. Investors are literally treating England like an Emerging Market — so the British Pound is the weakest it’s ever been. And Hopper is now the most-downloaded vacation app in the US because its new strategy is to pay you to party in Mykonos.$BKNG $BYND $GBPFollow The Best One Yet on Instagram, Twitter, and Tiktok: @tboypodAnd now watch us on YoutubeWant a Shoutout on the pod? Fill out this formGot the Best Fact Yet? We got a form for that tooLearn 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. It's Tuesday. T-Boy Tuesday, September 27th. And today's pod is the best one yet. It's the best one yet. What emergency T-boy takeaway update. Oh, boy.

Costco will not raise the price of their $1.50 cent hot dog soda deal combo. Hallelujah. It is a T-boy. Jack, what's the first story for this one? Beyond meat stock fell after a study revealed what we really think of plant-based meat. Perception isn't reality, but perception is totally. Totally reality. For our second story, the British pound.

It's extremely weak right now. So weak. Like historically weak. And England's an old country. Because England is acting a lot like Turkey. And our third and final story. Instead of travel commercials, a new travel app is simply paying you to open up the app.

Yeah, Hopper just gamified your gals trip to the Galapagos. But Yeties, before we hit that wonderful mix. Just a fantastic mix, Jack. I love this mix, man. Nick, you do anything cool last night? Actually, yeah, baked a key lime pie. Came out great. Excellent.

Typical Monday for me, Seinfeld, Scrabble, teeth, whitening strips. You know the deal. Sounds like a typical Monday. But wait, Jack, wasn't there that? There was like that other thing, right? Like that other thing?

Oh, right. Well, NASA intentionally crashed a rocket into an asteroid. Oh, yet he's no big deal. Just another Monday night. Right, except for that asteroid explosion, saved the planet tank. Get this. At 7.14 p.m.

Eastern Standard Time last night, NASA conducted its first ever dart. That's right. NASA conducted its first ever double asteroid redirection test. Translation, our space agency blasted an 11 billion tonne asteroid with a satellite to see if it could. We repeat, we just shot a meteor that was moving 15,000 miles per hour through outer space. Because, Jack, what's a bigger threat to our economy than a recession? How about an extinction-causing asteroid hit directly at planet Earth?

Yeah, I don't know what the Fed's going to do about that one. By the way, we should clarify, we should emphasize the word test. Yeah, test. This was a test. Consider this practice. Right. The asteroid that we hit, it wasn't heading towards Earth. Our planet was not at risk of a huge rock landing in the ocean and drowning us with a tsunami

before the rock could intervene in a classic giant thriller movie. No, it wasn't, Nick. But we pretended that we were at risk so that we could practice hitting it. Practice. It was practice. Alan Iverson's not into practice. NASA is. Again, it was practice.

For the avoidance of doubt. Practice. But it also kind of reminds us of the plot of Don't Look Up. Yeah, mixed with Independence Day. Would have been a good job for Will Smith. He would have jumped right into this thing. I think McConaughey would have signed up to this game. McConaughey.

Or is it more of a Bruce Willis kind of job? I don't know. As long as Jeff Goldblum's the co-pilot, I'm watching this thing, Jack. Again, it was just practice. Let's practice our three stories. Fifteen years before this song, two boys from the Northeast met in the dawn. had an idea to cause a cultural storm. It's the best one yet, but the best is an only 50%.

That's a fat tip. Tea Boy City on your at list. If you know, you know because we're ready to go. We can't wait no more, so just start the show. For our first story, beyond meat stock just fell another 7% to an all-time low because of one new survey. And because plant-based meats have a virtue problem. Jack, can we say plant-based meats are lying to?

I don't think we should. Okay, we won't. that. But Beyond Meat, that was really the first plant-based, like, brand to go public. May 2019, Nick and I were there. Beyond Meat went public. We bought the stock on the IPO day. The stock searched like an angry rooster. Yeah, it did. It was the first stock we ever bought on IPO day. And it was a tremendous success until it no longer was. It's lots of a fun story these days. But, Jack, why was it such a success at first? From Taco Bell to McDonald's, from Duncans to Denny's, Beyond Meat had become fetch.

was the must-have menu item if you didn't have it were even a fast food chain. Revenues were growing wicked fast too. Get this, revenues tripled each of those first four quarters after the IPO of Beyond Meat. But Yetis, the growth has completely stopped. In the last two years, Beyond Meat's annual growth has been just 7%. The most exciting news from this company lately was that CFO biting that guy's schnaz. We had to remind all the Yetis not to bite people that day, remember, Jack? Things aren't looking good for Beyond, but it's not just Beyond.

The takeaway that day was bite a carrot, not Carol. Nick, how could I forget? I'm not going to let you forget. He bit another human being. But Bloomberg reports that in the past year, grocery sales of plant-based meat across the whole country are down by 11 percent, so it's not just beyond. But besties, here's what Jack...

It's pronounced to Schnaz. Yeties, here's what Jack and I find fascinating about Beyond Meat right now. Now, people believed Beyond Meat had two key virtues, and that was the issue. Because only one of them was true. Yeah, Jack, let's talk about Beyond Meat's brand. What did it look like? It's a pea protein vegan burger of do-goodness. It was like green with a side of green.

Here were the perceived values of this product. It was healthier few and better for the whole world. Yeah, what the juice cleanse was to 2010, plant-based meat was to 2020. All right, let's start with the better for the whole world. Talk to me, Jack, what were we seeing? Beyond Meat says all over their market. how this is a phenomenal product that's basically Captain Planet. Earth, wind, fire, beyond meat.

This thing requires 99% less water, 93% less land, and 90% less greenhouse gases than a beef burger does. All right, so Jack, add all that up. Is it more environmentally safe? Absolutely, yes. But Jack, is it healthier for you, the human being? About that. Turns out, Beyond Meat never actually markets itself as healthier, but here's the funny thing. Plant-based implies that it's healthier.

Being plant-based implies that this is better for you. I'm meat and trees. Of course this thing's got to be healthy. It's a burger that photosynthesized itself. It's got to be better for me. The unfortunate truth for Beyond Meat, it's not that healthier product at all. Honestly, we didn't even jump in T-boy style for this. You don't have to be like a muck-raking journalist to figure it out.

Just look at the nutrition label for a second and you can see that it's not that healthy. Ipsophacto, that healthiness virtue, turns out it was a false virtue. benefited from that myth for a while until it didn't. So, Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over it beyond me? Perception is reality. Perception is reality. Now, besties, the consulting firm Deloitte tried to figure out why sales of plant-based meats are shrinking, and it came down to one word.

Perception. Perception. Deloitte found that perception of plant-based meat has changed in this country. According to that recent Deloitte survey of 2,000 diners, most people don't think Plant-based meat is healthy. Well, one patty has a lot of fat and a lot of sodium. So that perception is true. But here's what Jack and I found fascinating.

Now, people are doubting the true part about plant-based meat's virtues. That's right. The survey shows that fewer people believe that plant-based meat is good for the environment, which it definitely is. It is good for the environment. That was the good virtue. That was the virtue that Beyond Meat had all over their marketing the whole time. Okay, so Beyond Meat's convenient myth about healthiness,

that has been outed as false. But awareness of that false virtue is now killing belief in the true virtue. Because reality isn't reality. Perception is reality. For our second story, the British pound just hit its weakest point ever compared to the United States dollar. It's because the English government just did the opposite of every other government in the world. King Charles is basically getting zero honeymoon period right now. Everyone's focus immediately pivoted.

from Buckingham Palace to their bank accounts which are shrinking. Because besties to sprinkle on a little context here, the United Kingdom's inflation problem is significantly worse than what we've got over in the United States. In the United States, we have 8% inflation, which is really bad. There's is 10% and growing. Have you seen the fish and chips jack? Is this haddock or is this tuna? You just started paying for double digit lattes here in the States.

He dropped $10.42 on an old milk macachino. Well, if you live in London, you've been paying double-ditchiefts, digit quid on double digit latte since Frappuccino season. It is that bad, people. It's expensive over there. They call it the cost of living crisis. Well, inflation is a global problem. And to kill it, countries are making less money available in the economy by raising interest

rates, which will lower prices eventually. Like we've said, raising interest rates is a central bank's way of telling you, stop buying things. Because you're buying things is driving up prices. But here's the funny thing going on across the pond. The United Kingdom is doing the opposite of what we just described. They're doing the opposite of every other country to stop their inflation madness. Yeah, to ease pain at the pump, the new prime minister, Liz Trust, just cut taxes by their most in 50 years.

Tax cuts are great politics, you know? Like, that's a universal thing. People love having more money in their wallets and in their bank accounts. So we understand the move. But that move just dropped kicked England's economy like a judge. Jason Statham pub fighting scene. Yeah, because cutting taxes is probably going to make England's inflation problem a lot worse. Yeah, Jack, remember we were just saying, uh, the central banks want you to stop spending money?

Well, tax cuts are like free money for everyone, which screams to the public, spend more money, which is going to push prices up even more. And here's the wildest part. The prime minister's plan to cut taxes to stop inflation just backfired. Wall Street hates the idea. The value of Britain's currency, the British pound, has planned. plummeted in response. Jack, remember when we were in college and he traveled to London? It was not pretty. One British pound cost two U.S. dollars back then.

But Jack, the pound is so weak right now. Where is it today? It's almost at parity with the U.S. dollar for the first time ever. One pound, one dollar. So Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over in the United Kingdom? The UK is acting like an emerging market. So investors are treating it like one. Uh, Yettys, you want to hear about another country trying to fix inflation just like Britain? opposite way? Look at Turkey. Turkey also just made an opposite move, cutting interest rates, and now inflation there has surged to a crippling 80%. So investors are starting to treat the United Kingdom as if it were Turkey, an emerging economy, and you can see that treatment in the bond market. Exactly,

Jack, because to borrow money, Britain now must pay more interest than Italy or Greece would pay to borrow money. Britain must pay more than Italy or Greece. Italy or Greece. Italy or Greece. Historically, countries more focused on paying for Negronies than paying back their government IOU. If so facto, the United Kingdom is acting like an emerging market with their economic policy. So Wall Street is treating the United Kingdom

like an emerging market. Now, a word about our sponsor, Robin Hood. You can do just about anything from your phone, but some industries, they've just been slow to move. The finance industry was slow to move from phone to computer, and then from computer to app. Robin Hood wasn't.

It's the Silicon Valley-based brokerage that's been update an app since it was born in 2015. Using the Robin Hood app for your stocks and crypto is almost as easy as downloading it. So you can invest to your pace on your terms by downloading the Robin Hood app. If you're not investing on Robin Hood yet, to get started, go to robinhood.com slash T-Boy and choose your free stock. That's Robinhood.com slash T-B-O-Y limitation supply. Stocks are offered by Robin Hood Financial LLC, member SIPC. Crypto offered through Robin Hood crypto. All investments involve risk. By the way, this podcast is not owned by or part of Robin Hood, and we are not employees of Robin Hood. For our third and final story, the new number one travel

app in the United States is Hopper. And they've got kind of a shocking new strategy. Hopper's not doing commercials and ads like all the other travel companies. They're simply paying you to use the app. Okay. By the way, when do you arrive? Because you arrive tomorrow, man. What time? 1130 Pacific. I got a thing. I don't know if I can pick you up at the airport, but I'm, uh, I need you, man. Okay, I'll be there. I'll be there. I'll be there. I can't find my way in that big city. What did you end up using by? I know you used hotel tonight. You love hotel tonight. I search for the cheapest trips on Expedia and then I booked directly through the air. Oh, you sound like exactly who we're about to talk about. But Jack, what is the biggest, what are the two biggest travel app companies out there?

Number one and number two are booking.com and Expedia. Those are the travel giants. And together, they own travel app icons. They're conglomerates. They own kayak. Expedia, Open Table, VRBO, Orbits, priceline, Hotels.com, a bunch of other ones. A price line. Chef's Kiss. That is Shatner's greatest work. But Hopper. Little startup Hopper.

A company called Hopper. Passed both of those travel giants to become the most downloaded travel app in the U.S. We repeat, $5 billion startup. Hopper is growing way faster than $60 billion booking.com. Or Expedia. But here's the problem that's facing booking and Expedia and Hopper at the same time. travel customers are the worst type of customer if you think about. They are.

Because they are chronic comparison shoppers. If you travel shopping as opposed to other e-commerce, you're guilty of the three bees. First you browse every option, then you bargain hunt, and then finally you buy from the cheapest option. And you're only traveling like twice a year anyway. That's why the travel industry's practice of spending a bunch of money on ads makes no sense to us. Because if a customer is only going to go for the lowest price and then is going to comparison shop across a bunch of apps, why spend to advertise? That's the question. And that is why Hopper is trying a whole new advertising strategy. This is what we thought was wild. No ads.

Instead, they're going to take the money they would have spent on ads and give it to their people who open the app. They're like, the best way to win loyalty is not advertising to you that you should be loyal. It's like, we'll just give you cash and hope you stay loyal to us. The goal of Hopper's new campaign is to drive you consistently to open the travel app that you typically otherwise, only use a couple times a year. And they do it with games that have nothing to do with travel. Here is a hopper game that drives their app users into the app for nothing related to travel. Okay, again, you're going into a travel app, but you're going to play a mini game where you're a hopping bunny who has to water a tree to keep it alive, and you have to do that every day for 10 days.

We assume the bunny's name is hopper. And if you keep that tree alive for 10 days, like it was a Tomagachi, then you earn 10 hopper bucks, which, can be used in the app for future travel. It's like candy crush, but it's getting you to that cruise to Croatia kind of a thing. So this random travel app is also a game app because that gets you to play, which will eventually get you to book. And that is why they've shifted like most of their ad budget into these in-app game cash scenarios. So Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over at Hopper? Money flies when you're having fun.

Yeties, we know what you're thinking. Airlines have miles, credit cards have points. To drive loyalty in the travel industry, that's not a new thing. But what is new is using games to drive engagement to drive loyalty in the travel industry. Hopper is harnessing the power of whortle and the addictiveness of opening whordle every day. Good point. To get your next voyage to Machu Picchu. So typically, you only go into a travel app to plan the occasional trip.

But now you may plan an extra trip because you're in the travel app every day because this addicting game. Yeah, because money flies when you're having fun. Jack, can you whip up the takeaways for Tevoid Tuesday for us over there? The reality is that plant-based meat is very good for the environment. The perception, though, is that it's not. For beyond meat, that perception is their unfortunate reality. For our second story, global investors are showing the UK just how they feel about that new economic tax-cutting policy. Hey, Brynn, you're acting like an emerging market.

So Wall Street is going to treat you like one. And our third and final story is Hopper. It's a travel app that also dabbles with data. mobile games too. Because money flies when you're having fun. Your money flies. We should clarify it's your money. That's fly. Oh, yeah, true. But you'll eventually fly. It's actually a pretty deep takeaway, Jack. It's a pretty deep takeaway. Yeties, time for the best fact yet. This one sent in by Gabe Reed, not our buddy Dave Reed, but Gabe Reed is a fantastic Yetty from Provo, Utah. Yesterday, we told you that typewriter, typewriter is the longest word you can type

using just one line of a keyboard. It's ironic. It was the best fact yet. But we got some people wondering. What's the longest word you can type using just your left hand on the keyboard? Which then got some people wondering, what's the longest word you can type with just your right hand on a keyboard?

All right, you ready for the longest left-handed typewriter word? Hit us, Jack. Stewardess. Oh, that's a good one. What about right hand? The longest word you can type using just your right hand is Lollipop. Lollipop and stewardess.

I'm looking at stewardess, though. I'm pretty sure you can tag on an ES, still using your left hand. So it's really stewardess is. And that is a Scrabble power move. Triple Lever score. Yeties, you look fantastic for Tea Boy Tuesday. And remember, if you get hungry today, keep this in mind. Bite a carrot.

Don't bite Carol. And remember to count up your unused tiles and subtract that from your score, because I just want Scrabble. If you know, you know. And before we go, Shanatova for all our Rush Ashana, celebrating yeties out there. And congratulations to Sean and Mara Darcy, who just had a baby boy, Henry Darcy. High, 20 and a half inches, weight 6.9 pounds, batting unknown position jack? Bassinet warmer. Classic. Jessica Herrera and Milton Nunes. A couple that T-boys together, by the way,

just had an anniversary in Tampa Bay. We hope you stay safe as the hurricane heads your way. And Jason and Don and their French Bulldogs, happy three-year anniversary over in Buffalo. And congratulations to Cassandra. and Ryan Domagala, who met at pharmacy school, became besties, and just got married in Rochester. And a happy birthday to Israel Martinez in California, who also is getting his braces off on the birthday. And happy 57th to Chris Gills in Carpenteria, California. And to Campbell Soup's Frank, happy 11th birthday in Shoreview, Minnesota. And to anyone else, celebrating something today, make it a T-boy.

Celebrate the wins. This is Jack. Nick on Stock of Beyond Me, and we both on Stock of Brow. Robin Hood. Now, a word about our sponsor, Robin Hood. You know, honestly, your salad, it says so much about you. Nick, you like to blaze your own trail at the salad bar. I'm ordering a salad. I go off menu, man, like a combo of kale and croutons that has never been made before. Me? I'm not reinventing the wheel. I like to go classic. Sweakerian thinks it's a good combo. Jack's not going to change that. Kind of like investing

strategies. Someone to build a custom portfolio of stocks, crypto, and options. Others don't want to reinvent. Just give me the most standard ETF. Whether you're tweaking your one-of-a-kind portfolio every day or prefer a more hands-off approach, Robin Hood has the tools. If you're not investing on Robin Hood yet, to get started, go to robin hood.com slash T-Boy to choose your free stock. That's Robinhood.com slash T-B-O-I. Limitations apply.

Stocks offered by Robin Hood Financial LLC, member SIPC. Crypto offered through Robin Hood Crypto. All investments involve risk. By the way, this podcast is not owned or part of Robin Hood, and we are not employees of Robin Hood.