Beyond Meat To Bring Plant-Based Beef To China - Yahoo Finance

Beyond Meat (BYND) is teaming up with Starbucks (SBUX) to bring its famous plant-based beef to China for the first time. From Wednesday, Starbucks will offer a new menu to Chinese customers featuring BYND’s ‘beef’ in pastas and lasagna, as well as non-dairy milk and fake pork products.

To help boost the appeal of alternative meat products in China, Beyond Meat will create a dedicated Chinese website, and ramp up its presence on social media sites Weibo and WeChat.

On April 20, Yum China’s KFC also announced that it will begin its first Chinese trial of a plant-based version of its popular fried chicken. According to the company’s Weibo page, U.S. agribusiness Cargill Ltd will supply the nuggets.

“We remain favorable in general to the BYND fundamentals over the long run, but we see too much near-term uncertainty to be constructive at this time, especially with 51% of 2019’s revenues going to foodservice,” commented analyst Kenneth Goldman earlier this month.

According to Goldman, higher retail sales will not be sufficient to offset the drop in demand from the foodservice sector.

As a result, the analyst cut his Beyond Meat price target from $108 to $77 and maintained his hold rating on the stock. Indeed, analysts remain firmly sidelined on BYND stock right now- with a Hold analyst consensus.

Moreover, the $82.40 average analyst price target indicates only marginal upside potential of 4% from current levels. Shares are currently trading up 5% year-to-date. (See Beyond Meat stock analysis on TipRanks)