Stephen Johnston – Portfolio Manager – August 20, 2019

Throughout my investment career, it never ceases to amaze me how businesses can come from nowhere and, virtually overnight (slightly exaggerating), be multi-billion dollar businesses.

The latest craze is plant-based meat. Think of it as a vegetarian substitute for bog standard meat products, for example, meat patties in your burgers. Ingredients for a plant-based meat patty could include your very own garden pea, coconut oil and they even use beetroot juice to make the burger “bleed” like the real thing.

Recently listed US company, Beyond Meat, is the poster child for plant-based meats and have you seen the share price? At one stage, the company shares were up 8 times since its IPO in May. Today, the company is valued at a whopping NZ$15.3 billion dollars.

Beyond Meat burger patty

In investing, sometimes the greatest challenge is to overcome your own internal biases. Many books have been written on biases and the one I am about to illustrate is called “belief perseverance bias”, where you cling to your long-held beliefs.