Beyond Meat Beefs Up McDonald's Canada Partnership

Plant-based food maker Beyond Meat Inc BYND is expanding its trial run with McDonald's Corp MCD in Canada.

What Happened

McDonald's last September started testing a Beyond Meat branded "PLT" sandwich (Plant, Lettuce, Tomato) at a few locations in Southwestern Ontario. The chain is ready to expand its tests, according to Canada's Financial Post. McDonald's Canada will now offer the PLT at 27 more locations in two more Southwestern Ontario regions, including Kitchener-Waterloo and Guelph.

The sandwich will stay exactly the same but McDonald's is testing a 50 cent cheaper price point. McDonald's Canada's head of consumer insights Michaela Charette told the Financial Post the new price change has more to do with testing supply and demand dynamics and isn't related to any customer feedback.

Coinciding with Beyond Meat and McDonald's expanded partnership, rival plant-based food maker Impossible Foods told Reuters it ended talks with McDonald's. Impossible said it can't produce enough of its plant-based products to enter into a partnership with the fast food giant.

Why It's Important

Some investors might be surprised by McDonald's findings so far. Charette said people who ordered the "PLT" sandwich also added a meat product to the same order. Also, the restaurant makes it very clear to clients the PLT patty will come in contact with the same grill used for beef, chicken and eggs.

McDonald's will take its findings and see if it's consistent with a larger sample size. Charette told the Financial Post it would be a mistake to "make any assumptions on a small group of people."

Beyond Meat's stock traded higher by 4.5% to $87.71 per share at time of publication. The stock rose more than 12% in Tuesday's session.

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