Who makes the ingredients in plant-based meat?
Hey Snackers,
The age of endless bathroom Insta-scrolling is over. Behold, the tilted toilet. A 13-degree angled seat strains your legs — that subtle design nudges you back to your desk ASAP.
The market’s 5-day win streak ended as investors start chilling early for the holidays — but first we've got Nike's earnings due today.
Earth's biggest flavor/scent creator just merged (all because of faux meats)
You taste them daily... but don't know 'em. Back in 1889, a Dutchman with a strong sense of smell founded a flavor company. A century of mergers later, International Flavors & Fragrances (IFF) is publicly traded and worth $14B. IFF makes your gum taste like mint and shampoo waft of coconut — now it's merging with a way larger company.
- IFF sells its sensory formulas to the consumer goods companies that make what you eat and smell, with sales split between "Taste" and "Scent."
- Its 5,000-square foot greenhouse in New Jersey boasts 1,300 tropical plants whose enzymes end up in that eau de anything perfume.
- SnackFact: IFF sent a rose into space, where lack-of-gravity transformed its scent — then they brought it back to commercialize the fragrance as "Space Rose."
Scent of a merger... After 123 years, IFF is merging with the nutrition-focused subsidiary of chemical legend DuPont to create a $45B molecular science company. But investors aren't feeling the flavor, dropping IFF shares 9% after the announcement.
This merger isn’t about synergy — it’s a bet on 1 product... Plant-based meat. Turns out IFF creates flavors/colors for plant-based meats and DuPont produces plant-based proteins. Their customers are alt-beef icons Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods. Together, IFF/DuPont could leverage its supply chain importance to jack up prices, or develop better im-meat-ations at a molecular level.
FedEx's profit puppy is disappearing — and the new puppy it's chasing is expensive
"We are at the bottom"... An actual quote from FedEx's CFO, or Chief Freakout Officer, who called last quarter's 40% profit drop "horrific" (his words). The fallout:
- FedEx shares dropped 10% after the report.
- Now it's lost over $4B in market value since Tuesday.
- And it cut its projections for the holiday quarter (the 4th-straight quarter it's done that).
FedEx stuffed 2019 with excuses... Execs blamed the costs of expanding ground service, global trade disputes, a late Thanksgiving, and the loss of Amazon as a customer (FYI, rival UPS' stock is up 20% this year). The big profit loser for FedEx was ground delivery. Lots of it.
- It takes big bucks to expand ground delivery to 7 days a week (think more trucks, new facilities, and weekend shifts — all cost $$$).
- Typical ecommerce deliveries, like replacing your headphones (again), are generally light-weight, one-off deliveries — those generate less revenue than bulky business packages and require more costly routes/drivers.
Getting out of your comfort zone is hard... For decades, FedEx's profit puppy has been high-priced, overnight business shipments that you're expensing (like contracts that need to be signed yesterday). Now, you're e-scribling digital John Hancocks, instead. So FedEx execs are cockily optimistic that ground delivery investments to snag more ecommerce packages will pay off in 2021 — they boldly claimed they'd "start lapping" Amazon.
What else we’re Snackin’
- Carpool: Fiat Chrysler and Peugeot's board just approved their merger — that'll create Earth's 3rd largest automaker
- Insta-Banned: Instagram bans influencers from getting paid to promote vaping, tobacco, and weapons
- IoTeam: Amazon, Apple, and Google announce a connected partnership to make all your smart home gadgets have a common language to talk to each other
- Choco-Rich: Insomnia Cookies was founded 16 years ago by a college student, but just raised $3.4M in its first known round of venture capital funding
Thursday
- Earnings from Olive Garden-owner Darden Restaurants, Nike, Rite Aid, and AAR
Disclosure: Authors of this Snacks own shares of Amazon, Apple, Beyond Meat, and Google
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