Beyond Meat Partners with Yum Brands’ Pizza Hut in Canada

Beyond Meat (BYND) and Yum! Brands’ (YUM) Pizza Hut are taking their strategic partnership to a new level. Thanks to their strengthened partnership, Canadian customers in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) and Edmonton can now order three new Pizza Hut-exclusive Beyond Meat menu items.

Customers can order a specialty pizza called the Beyond Italian Sausage Crumbles, a flatbread called Beyond Italian Sausage Alfredo Loaded Flatbread, and a pasta dish named Beyond Creamy Alfredo. All of the dishes combine Beyond Meat’s plant-based meat substitute with Pizza Hut’s pasta and pizza offerings.

These menu items reflect Beyond Meat’s efforts to enter the fast-food market through its recently created partnerships with McDonald’s and Yum! Brands. The agreements allow Beyond Meat to extend its reach and give the fast-food giants the ability to reach more customers through their new vegan- and vegetarian-friendly options. (See Beyond Meat stock analysis on TipRanks)

Following a wider-than-expected net loss in Q1, Jefferies analyst Robert Dickerson has reiterated a Hold rating on Beyond Meat. The analyst remains cautious that Q2 could be pressured given increased promos, overhead, freight, R&D, and marketing expenses.

Dickerson stated, “While we see upside to BYND’s Foodservice revenues relative to consensus given our bottom-up quick service restaurant analysis, we also see incremental risk to the U.S. retail business given heightened competitive activity, leaving us below consensus revenues. Given the elevated competitive backdrop, constrained near term margin expansion potential due to higher brand investment needs, and valuation, we remain sidelined.”

Dickerson has a $121 price target on the stock, implying 18.04% upside potential to current levels.

Consensus among analysts on Wall Street is a Hold based on 2 Buy, 6 Hold, and 4 Sell ratings. The average analyst price target of $122.60 implies 19.60% upside potential to current levels.

BYND scores a 2 out of 10 on TipRanks’ Smart Score rating system, implying it is likely to underperform market expectations.