By Dhirendra Tripathi
Investing.com – Beyond Meat stock (NASDAQ:BYND) traded 3% higher in premarket Thursday on reports the company’s joint venture with PepsiCo (NASDAQ:PEP) has launched its first product in the market.
The joint venture, struck a year back, is meant to focus on creating, producing and marketing plant-based snacks and drinks. Beyond Meat hopes to leverage Pepsico’s wide marketing reach to drive sales of its products.
Rivals like ConAgra Foods (NYSE:CAG) already have plant-based snacking items in the market.
After being slow to market new products last year, Beyond Meat has already done two launches this month, both under its partnership with Yum! Brands (NYSE:YUM).
Yum! Brands’ KFC is now selling Beyond Meat’s plant-based fried chicken at its U.S. restaurants while the restaurant chain’s Pizza Hut outlets in Canada are retailing plant-based Beyond Italian sausage crumbles.
Beyond Meat’s partnership with Yum! was sealed in February last year. Besides KFC and Pizza Hut, it also aims to create plant-based menu items for Taco Bell outlets over "the next several years."