Beyond Meat’s (NASDAQ: BYND) recovery from its post-IPO crash seems to be well underway. On Monday, the stock went up by nearly 20% to hit a three-month high.
This coincided with restaurant chain Dunkin’ Brands Group Inc (NASDAQ: DNKN) announcing that rapper Snoop Dogg would star in a TV ad campaign. The campaign will promote a sausage sandwich made from Beyond Meat’s plant-based protein.
The Snoop Dogg-Dunkin’ partnership will also feature a limited-time-only menu hack. For a week, the restaurant chain will offer the Beyond D-O-Double G Sandwich. The Snoop Dogg-approved product will be available nationwide.
The stock’s Monday surge wasn’t an outlier. Since the year started, BYND is up over 50%.
Besides Snoop Dogg, reality TV celebrity Kim Kardashian boosted the stock when social media followers spotted Beyond Sausage packages in her fridge.
The rally comes at a time when Beyond Meat is ramping up its partnerships. Besides Dunkin’, it’s struck partnerships with McDonald’s, Subway, Del Taco, Carl’s Jr, and A&W Restaurants.
Recently, McDonald’s expanded tests of the P.L.T burger made from Beyond patties to 52 outlets in Canada. The tests will run for three months starting this week.
Since falling from an all-time high of $240 hit in August, the plant-based meat producer has consolidated its lead in the market. While Beyond Meat plots growth, rival Impossible Foods had to scrap a partnership with McDonald’s over fears that it couldn’t meet demand.
Global expansion could widen BYND’s lead even further.
Earlier this week, the firm’s executive chairman, Seth Goldman, revealed that the company would expand into mainland China and Europe this year. He predicts plant-based meat could soon represent 13% of all meat sales:
With the brand evolution and with the right products, we could see plant-based meat come to represent 13% of sales from the meat case.
While the BYND bulls have been in control throughout 2020, short volume has risen dramatically in the last two weeks.
At the beginning of January, the ratio of short volume to the total volume of shares traded was 14.78%. This rose to 28.62% at the beginning of this week.
Currently, the consensus rating among analysts for the plant-based meat firm is HOLD, with the average stock price target being $103.84.