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ERROR: type should be string, got "https://www.barrons.com/articles/impossible-foods-keeps-the-heat-on-beyond-meat-51593456763\nImpossible Sausage Is Coming to Burger King. What It Means for Beyond Meat.\nAl Root\nUpdated June 29, 2020 3:49 pm ET / Original June 29, 2020 2:52 pm ET\nThe Impossible Sausage, served as a croissant sandwich.\nCourtesy Burger King\nBeyond Meat’s rival Impossible Foods is launching its faux-sausage product at Burger King—a signal to investors that interest in alternative protein remains high and that competition within the burgeoning industry remains strong.\nBurger King, owned by Restaurant Brands International (ticker: QSR), sells the Impossible Whopper and will sell Impossible Sausage too. The Impossible Sausage will be available in Starbucks (SBUX) stores, as well as the top 30 diners in America, as rated by Yelp.\nBeyond (BYND) stock was down more than 10% before the announcement after Barclay’s analyst Benjamin Theurer, a longtime bull, cut his rating all the way from the equivalent of Buy to Sell. In midafternoon, it was down 8% at $130.38.\nTheurer doesn’t believe some of the coronavirus-induced business headwinds related to restaurant closures are adequately reflected in the stock price. About half of Beyond Meat’s sales come in the food-service distribution channel and many restaurants, of course, have seen business crimped by the pandemic.\nThe news about additional competition isn’t hurting as much as the downgrade and it shouldn’t. The alternative-meat industry is growing rapidly, so there will be space for a few winners over time.\n“Raising animals for food makes up the vast majority of the land footprint of humanity,” points out the Impossible news release. “All the buildings, roads and paved surfaces in the world occupy less than 2% of Earth’s land surface, while more than 45% of the land surface of Earth is currently in use as land for grazing or growing feed crops for livestock.”\nThat’s one reason Impossible believes growth will continue rapidly. They believe vegetable-based protein is more sustainable because the less meat people eat, the fewer animals are needed to feed them.\nYet Wall Street still has questions. With Theurer’s new Sell rating, only three analysts rate Beyond shares at Buy, while 17 have ratings of either Hold or Sell. The 15% Buy-rating ratio is far below the average of 55% for stocks in the Dow Jones Industrial Average.\nValuation appears to be the primary reason for the large percentage of pans. The average price target among analysts is about $100 a share, almost 30% below recent trading levels.\nBarron’s also struggles with Beyond’s valuation. We panned the stock in May 2019, believing the price was too rich, while acknowledging the company’s ability to follow through on its business plans. Currently, Beyond shares trade for about 13 times sales, above where other high-growth food companies have traded in the recent past.\nOther food stocks in the S&P 500 trade for a little more than two times sales on average. Those companies, of course, grow much slower than Beyond.\nSince the 2019 article appeared, with the stock price at roughly $100, Barron’s has looked both smart and stupid. Shares have ranged from about $50 to $240. As of the close of trading on Friday, Beyond stock was up about 87% year to date.\nWrite to Al Root at allen.root@dowjones.com"