The Best One Yet - Vail Resorts’ adds 17 slopes — Yumi’s epic investors — NAFTA is reborn as USMCA

Episode Date: December 11, 2019

Just in time for your first turns, Vail Resorts’ earnings gave insights on where you should ski — and highlighted the growing showdown on ski passes. Yumi raised $8M for fancy subscription baby food, but we’re focused on who gave them that money. And the NAFTA trade treaty is being replaced by the USMCA now that Congress, the Senate, and the President are all on board.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 is Wednesday. December 11th, right? December 11th? This pod includes a ski story. It happens to be a way better podcast than we did yesterday.

This is the best one yet. It includes a ski story. Jacks, can you whip up the first story? Vell Resorts just reported earnings, and it's revealing the battle of the ski pass. This is actually highly entertaining. You should plan your winter break off of this story. Second story, NAFTA is getting killed. It's getting replaced by the USMCA.

Roll that. It's pretty much the North American car deal. This is how the United States, Mexico, and Canada are going to build and sell things to each other. Third and final story is the infant unicorn of the day. It's called U-Mates. We're talking organic baby food subscription. They just raised $8 million to make your baby's belly food forward. It's not a lot of money they've raised, but it matters who gave it to them.

Now, Snackers, before we jump into all that, there's nothing Jack and I appreciate more when you got one trend over here. And one trend over here. and they merge right here, a.k.a. Trendsend. It doesn't happen often. When it does happen, stars line in the universe, we wake up in the middle of the night, we start screaming, we go, oh my God, I can't believe this is happening. It's happening right, meow.

That's perfect, because you've noticed a couple trends that we've noticed. We've noticed meat alternatives, plant-based meat. Right. We've noticed oat milk become a thing. Yeah, milk alternatives. Now, in the fast food space, we've seen that plant-based issue play out with, like, the Impossible Whopper, the Beyond Meatball sub. Nestle, Awesome Burger. They're playing out plant-based meats at fast food chain.

Now Taco Bell is taking plant-based meats and merging it with milk alternatives in a bizarre way. This is going to be a new item called Oatrageous Taco. We actually thought that this said outrageous taco. And Jack and I were like, oh, this is a great name. Great story.

Then we noticed we misread it. It's the Oatrageous Taco. Instead of ground beef, they have some sort of oats. Even better, because now it made even more sense to cover. This is trend. This is meat made of oats mixed with those little spicy, medium, and mild taco bell sauces. It sounds gross. The little like kitchen geniuses over a Taco Bell.

They concocted this thing up themselves the other day in the kitchen. This is Taco Bell created. The outrageous taco is being tested in Finland. Now it's in Spain and it's scaling to broader Europe and probably the United States soon. Coming to a hard shell near you. Trend Sendance. Gross. You're tuned in the snacks daily.

spoke to the lawyers and we got to get something legal out the way. It snacks about the hair 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. 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. Robohood Financial, LLC. Member FINRA slash SIPC. For our first story, Jack, face shot off the champagne powder of

there. Vale Resorts just announced its third quarter shred report. I'm sorry, apologies. We meant earnings report. It happens. The shredder, the super shredder. Now, before you go skiing this year, you could like watch a Warren Miller movie if you're feeling like that.

Which I did this weekend. Or you could read the Vail Resorts earnings report. It's full of some pretty epic stats. Yeah, no joke. Don't go to TripAdvisor. If you're curious about where to ski this year, the earnings report from Vail goes into like deep detail about what's going on all the mountains. Well, Vail has a lot of mountains.

and at Breckenbridge, which is a Vail resort, it's upgrading the ski school and daycare so that parents can take a snow kit from the kids. Right, because there's nothing parents like hate more than being like pizza wedge, French fries, pizza way, French fries. Or if you're in Vermont, my home state, and you're going to Okimo, get this, they're increasing, they're upgrading the four-person chairlift to a six-pack.

Yeah, it's great. It speeds up the lines, but then you're sitting next to that person, you're like, oh, wait, oh, you're from out of town too. Okay. Yeah. Would you take 87 up here? Upgrading from the four to the six-pack is good for everyone, except the families of four who like taking just four alone.

A lot of annoyed forced conversation. Can we just remove the lift already? And then at Whistler Blackholm, which is also a Vail Resort, they're investing in restaurants. Yeah, they're putting in a lot of apprae options for you because that's pretty much while you're skiing in the first place. Snackers, one thing you really need to know about the modern ski and snowboard industry,

resorts are like DC and Marvel. There are two mega alliances. And you're having to choose which alliance you're part. Ski resorts, they're not doing it alone. They're joining either the Epic Pass, which is owned by Vail Resorts, or the Icon Pass, which is owned by Altera. These are, like, the season ski passes. You've got to commit to, and you know, you get to that point in the year

where you're like, it kind of feels like a life commitment. It is. Like, you have to consult your friends. Are you more icon? Are you more epic? You're not dating somebody who has the other pass. This has ruined a lot of relationships making you choose which pass is which. There should be a box on your Tinder profile that clarifies right off the bat

so that you won't waste any time on a first date. Oh, Julie, okay. Julie, you have that pass. It's blacked out for Jackson Hole during Presidents Day weekend. This isn't going to work out. Snackers, as you can tell by our enthusiasm, we're both skiers here on Snacks Daily. Epic has 79 resorts on the ski pass, and Icon has 41. Now, here's the thing. These passes are merging because of global warming.

One degree warmer on average can be the difference between a great season with a ton of snow and powder, or a terrible season that's full of rain and ice. Now, if you're a small, adorable, independent mountain that's got like two chairlifts. Like a mom-and-pop situation. Yeah, and instead of the hot chocolate, you're giving out Swiss Miss powder, one bad season could send you into bankruptcy. Yes, it would be a major, major, major bummer for your finances if you didn't get as much snow. So as members of this elite team, if one mountain has a bad year, it's okay

because another mountain having a good year can compensate for that. Basically, your teammates will pick you up and the team's going to be fine. So, Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over at Vail Resorts? Don't let Vale's acquisitions distract you from its lack of profit. Jack and I notice one key number here. They're seasoned pass sales over for Vale resorts. They rose a shocking 22%. That sounds fantastic.

It sounds ripping. It's aggressive. Popped off the shoot feeling good straight up. Here's the thing, though. Vale has 17 new mountains in the Epic Pass. If you used to have a ski pass at Mount Snow, my whole mountain, or Stowe, which is also in Vermont, now you probably have an epic ski pass because they're part of that giant alliance. So sales at Vail Resorts, they're growing faster because it's adding more resorts faster.

That doesn't mean, though, that the core business is doing better. It's just getting bigger. What would actually be more helpful when evaluating VAL Resorts is noticing what the sales were at each individual slope, or, as we would call it, same slope sales. Right. Basically, how would things have been if they didn't add 17 new mountains? Would sales still have increased? I don't know. And by the way, you probably should be too excited about those season past sales jumping 22% because Vail actually lost money over the last few months. It's not making profits. Those charlifts need a lot of polls, which are expensive.

And they're big and thick and they hurt. For our second story, this feels like opposite day. It's a non-trade war trade story. We're talking trade peace. Trade peace. Kumbaya, the new NAFTA is among Mexico, Canada, and the United States. It's about to become official. Jack, you want to share with everyone that joke you're telling me about.

Republicans, Democrats, and President. Trump walk into a bar and agree on something. You got to have a pause there. It's perfect. Can we rewind back to November 2018? Feels like it was a year. When President Trump pulled out his gigantic Sharpie marker to sign a trade treaty with Mexico and Canada.

They called it. They didn't get creative with this one. The U.S. M, C, and A. The United States-M-C-Kand-A agreement, I think. Yes, like we borrow a vowel. That rewrote the rules of trade between these North American companies, and it fulfilled President Trump's campaign promise to replace NAFTA.

So the only issue is at this point, Congress has to approve because that's what Congress does. They approve all trade treaties. I think that's like a constitutional law. It's written in there. It's one of the small lines in very fine writing. Now that means that Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat, Mitch McConnell, a Republican in the Senate, and President Trump all need to agree to pass this deal and make it actual law. So Nancy whipped out her glasses, took a look through this thing, made a few changes,

and now she said she's good with it. She's good. She called for it a win for American workers. It was a big announcement yesterday. Mitch McConnell is probably going to pass this deal. Trump is very excited to sign it. But it takes a little while for a bill to become lost. First, it's with Nancy in the House, then it's with Mitch in the Senate, then it goes to the president's desk.

I think there's actually a few more steps in between. Yeah, a couple people carry some things. There's some memos made. Expect this to be signed in January. So here are the two things you've got to know about these five fancy letters, USMCA. It's going to have a lot of impact on a lot of people, and it's basically one giant car deal. It's a car deal. What do we got to get to get you off this lot?

It's your agreement with your parents and brothers, like how you're going to share that one car? You know what they should have, Jack, when they announce this thing? They should have had those, you know, those balloons they have on the car lots that, like, wave? It's like the long, tall person. Those galactic, like, balloons. Or they could have done one of those giant red bows on top with the Lexus. And how did they get them? I don't even want the Lexus car.

I just want the bow. So it's mostly going to affect car workers. The biggest provision of this deal is that at least 30% of a car that sold in North America must be made by workers earning $16 an hour. So Snackers, let's say that vehicle takes 100 hours of human work to make. 30 of those 100 hours must have been done in the United States or Canada. And here's why. Because those are the places that will actually pay $16 now.

In Mexico, they pay much less than that for car workers. And if it doesn't fit those critical provisions, then it's going to have a tariff applied to it, which makes it more expensive. Boom. This deal is also great for corporations in general and the economy, Because businesses now have certainty on where they should build their factory. But it's not as great if you're in the market to buy a car right now. That's because a lot of workers are going to be paid $16 an hour.

That's going to be like a promotion. And those that costs are going to show up in the price tag of your car. It's especially going to hit cars that are like sedan small baby cars. It's kind of can like fit in your pocket. Because those are mostly made in Mexico like the Chevy Cruise. And now there's going to have to be a higher component of U.S. and Canadian wage. So, Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over with the old USMCA? trade is good

when done right when can we start calling this uskima the issues we're seeing with trade with China or with NAFTA which was like the precedent

uskma is that there were failures in U.S. politics it wasn't the trade deals themselves snackers we have all benefited from lower prices thanks to trade

I mean anything you buy that says made in China you're benefiting from a lower cost because it was made in China right there's a reason the microwaves are being made

in China but the maple syrup is being made in Canada on a hundred Your econ professor is going to tell you that the country that makes a product most efficiently should make that product and Americans should buy it. And for a lot of products, that means Mexico and China. And as a result of these trade deals, you've seen a lot of Americans lose jobs, but it was government policies that didn't help with that transition process.

Like job retraining programs or government services or lower taxes on the people who got affected negatively by losing their jobs. So what you saw with these trade deals that benefited consumers was that too much of the benefit it was also going to corporate profits and not enough to the workers. Right. And the New Deal forces companies to pay workers better. It's actually... For our third and final story, Jack, get a little carrot puree.

Oh, my big. Now it's on the mic. Now it's on the mic. Baby food subscription startup. Yumi just raised $8 million from the all-stars of its business model. Yumi is for parents who treat their baby like you treat your pet, which is how you should treat your baby. In the very first place.

This is an organic plant-based meal plan company for babies based on the baby's age. Yumi calls babies future foodies. The kind of people who are like asked the waiter 10 years from now. And where did the salmon spawn? Yes. And Yumi, which is spelled Y-U-M-I, it thinks these babies should have variety, freshness, and moreover, not just like little gruel pots. No, no, no, no, no.

So when you like go to order this subscription to Yumi food as a parent, you're going to go online, they're going to hook you up with like a Yumi coach who's going to analyze what kind of a baby you're dealing with. Yeah, I don't know what the coach is going to ask, but they're like, does your baby want fresh food? I don't know, it's a baby. It's like, yeah, I'm spending a lot of money on Yumi, so. Now, here's the thing that Jack and I thought was pretty funny. If you look at the food that Yumi's producing, the menu. The menu, right, the menu.

This is highly evolved. Yumi is serving babies dragon fruit chia parfe. It's serving baby eggnog, aka Babenog. It's serving chickpeepenis. That is like a better entree than I've ever had. The toddler's going to like, what is he can jump on the peloton after doing one of these things? These babies have keto diets. I've seen the baby's going to be like, Mom, I wanted the avocado sliced.

You mashed this thing. It's basically ruined. So Yumi has a bunch of food badges. Check out the menu of food. They'll be tagged with nutritional goals like eyes, bones, skin, heart, and my favorite tummy. Tommy's great. Although, honestly, can we do all of the above? Yeah, parents should want all of those things.

No, I want my child to be lacking in tummy. Whoever said that? So pricing, it's five bucks per meal. It gets delivered to your door, and you can order a subscription that delivers one, two, or three meals per day. It just depends how much actual parenting you want it in source. Yeah, it sounds charming. They're also going up against, like, Johnson and Johnson. So it's a long battle they're going to fight.

Yumi's customer highlights a key segment of the subscription mark. At the core of subscriptions, and we talked about subscription ratio race before when you have too many subscriptions. At the core, though, is one customer need. Convenience. Convenience. Especially when you're getting stuff delivered to your door on a regular schedule. That's why you want to do something where you set it and you forget it. Right.

So with quip toothbrushes, you get a new toothbrush and toothpaste every three months you don't even need to think about. So that's what Jack and I thought was interesting about. Yumi, is that they have found an audience, a customer segment that is highly subscription-hungry. Parents. Parents of newborn babies have the littlest amount of time and are desperate. for convenience in their schedule. They're feeding these things like every two hours. You don't want to do an unplanned trip to the grocery store. It'd be great if the dragon fruit chia parfe just arrive. If you sign up for Yumi, you set it once and you forget it and the baby's belly is

full. So, Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over at Yumi? Yumi has the best parents of all. It's all-star entrepreneur investors. It's not that they raised $8 million. What fascinated us was that the investors are the founders of Albers, Warby Parker, the founders of Harris, the founders of Sweet Green, Soul Cycle, Uber, Casper. And the The CEO, the current CEO of Blue Bottle Coffee. These are millennial darling direct-to-consumer companies. And imagine how much this baby Yumi is going to learn as it grows up with those parents. One phone call calls up its investors, you know, the co-founders of all birth and says,

I need help on packaging. Or call up the Warby Parker founders and say, I want to open up some brick-and-mortar stores in New York City. How do I do that? Or call up the Harry's founders, get some advice on pricing. Sweet Green has the freshest salads I've ever tasted. Soul cycle on how to build a community that hates everyone else but loves each other. Casper. Because these are parents

who need to sleep more. It's sleep advice. And in some sleep. The expertise that Yumi's gaining from this fundraise is way more valuable than the money itself. Jack, can you whip up the takeaways for us over there? Vell Resorts, which is a publicly

traded stock, and it has 79 ski resorts involved. It added 17 more results this past season. So, yeah, like sales rose, but don't let the acquisitions distract you. Watch out for that tree! The U.S.MCA is replacing NAFTA now that the president, the Senate,

and the house are all on board. This is going to increase the pay of car workers, but also likely increase the price of cars a little. Yumi wants parents to set it and forget it with their high end organic baby meals. And Yumi's been blessed with well-capitalized parents. And it's targeting well-capitalized parents. Snackers, time for a snack fact of the day. This one's sent in by Shariar Khan

from Pakistan originally. Now he's a new wave in Connecticut. He points out that the Dutch East India Company was worth 78 million guilders way back in 1637. This is like the shipping company that sailed around the world brought stuff back, you know, 400 years ago. And if you translate guilders to U.S. dollars

and adjust the 1637 U.S. dollars, sorry, the 1637 King George's dollars, to today's dollars, the Dutch East India Company was worth $7.9 trillion. A.k.a. the biggest company in history, aka bigger than Apple, Google, Facebook, Amazon, and a bunch of other companies combined. Can you imagine like bringing the first bushel of coconuts

to England. You're like, this water, there's water in here, it's going to be great, we got to bottle this. I'll tell you, the people were probably pretty pumped about that. They're like, Vonder, no, this is not happening. You're like, actually, do you have almond milk? Like, it does not taste good. Whatever, it's all about the package. Snackers, love to having you with us today. That was a fun one.

Should we do this tomorrow? I'm in, and I'll be wearing the same sweater. Perfect. This is Jack, Nick and I own stock of Beyond Meat, and I own options of Peloton. 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.