Morning Brew Daily
Big Banks Pushback Against Credit Card Cap & Beyond Meat Launches Protein Drink
16 Jan 2026
Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Good morning Brew Daily Show. I'm Neil Freiman. And I'm Toby Howell. Today, Ben Affleck goes from robbing Fenway Park to disrupting Hollywood.
Then Beyond Meat is launching its first non-meat product ever, a drink. It's Friday, January 16th. Let's ride. Let's ride.
Good morning and happy Friday. The year may be 2026, but at least on social media, it's 2016. You've probably seen this on your own feeds or participated it in yourself. A viral trend has users posting pictures and memories from 10 years ago when Hamilton was huge, Beyonce released Lemonade, and everyone was doing the mannequin challenge.
Apparently people are nostalgic for the summer of Pokemon Go. Toby, what were you doing in 2016?
Well, that was my first year of college, and I hate to say it. I had a full-on man bun during that time. But I also went back through the year and found some things to reminisce on. On social media, in addition to the mannequin challenge, we saw the rise of the evil Kermit the Frog meme where he's wearing the hood and also Arthur's fist.
Feels like those have been around internet lore forever, but no, they emerged in 2016. 2016 is when Instagram stories were first introduced, which is wild to think about. I do remember Pokemon Go, too. I was running down a road looking for Blastoise. My mom was visiting me at college. It was not my finest moment ever, but hey, that was a fun time. 2016 is when Stranger Things was released.
That is insane to me. We're still watching Stranger Things to this day, and also AirPods were released. This is a dangerous game, though, because I could go on all day. The year you entered college is one of the last years I feel like you really, really remember, so I'm going to stop there. Are you going to post on social media? Are you going to join this trend? I don't know.
You really don't want to see me with that man, bud. It was not a good look. He was a little ratty. And now a word from our sponsor, Indeed. Neil, I got something pretty exciting for you. A snowmobile? Nope. Better insights highlighting six dynamics that will define hiring in 2026 from evolving skill demands to the growing influence of AI on job structure and productivity.
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Chapter 2: What trends are shaping the banking industry's earnings reports?
Toby, that was a joke I was going to laugh at in 2016. It's a joke I'm going to laugh at in 2026. So according to the market research firm Stercana, nearly half of Americans are trying to increase their protein intake. And where are they trying to get protein? It's not the center of the plate, which is this industry term for the most expensive item, the main protein.
As part of your meal, the meat, poultry, seafood, it's outside the center of the plate. It's things like drinks. And that's what Beyond Meat is looking at. Protein beverages grew 122% between 2020 and 2024. And companies as disparate as Starbucks, Dunkin', Propel are all getting into the protein trend. And Beyond Meat thinks that it can use the pea protein that it made its main products on.
That can transfer pretty easily into the drink realm.
But I would actually argue that protein isn't even the star of the show here. The fiber that is included in this drink is something that I do think, one, is a growing food trend. People are paying more attention to their fiber intake. But also they think that the tapioca fiber derived from cassava that they crammed into this drink has a lot of functional effects. It can benefit gut bacteria.
It can regulate blood sugar. And it also triggers satiety hormones, the same ones that are triggered by – GLP-1 drugs, essentially. So they think that not only are you getting this protein, but they have this fiber at a time where people want to increase their intake and also hopefully allow them to eat less. So they think the fiber portion is kind of the ace in the hole here.
Beyond Meat is just really rowing upstream here because the food pyramid... according to the government, has essentially been flipped on its head and it just completely fell on what Beyond Meat was doing with its plant-based burgers because demand for animal proteins, actual meat, is absolutely surging. JBS, which is a meat giant, just posted record revenue.
Cargill, another massive meat company, had a 44% profit increase. What is at the top of the food pyramid now, according to RFK Jr. ? Red meat, whole milk, things that are just actually come from animals. So maybe this is beyond meat saying, actually, our main business that we've been trying to do for 10 years is dead in the water right now. We're just going against all of the trends.
Why don't we hop on a trend and actually go with the current right now? And we'll see whether consumers will be amenable to that. One thing that is smart that I think they're doing is they're throwing this up on their DTC website. It's kind of a separate thing from their main homepage, and it's just a limited run test. to see how it does.
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Chapter 3: How did Goldman Sachs outperform its competitors?
If people seem to respond to it, they'll ramp up production. If not, I guess they'll just have to pivot again. All right, we're going to take a quick break and come back with Neil's dog of the week. Pretty much everybody is using AI agents these days to automate just about everything.
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Chapter 4: What impact could Trump's credit card cap proposal have on banks?
Hair and makeup is catching the first chair at Killington. Devin Emery is our president, and our show is a production of Morning Brew. Great show today, Neil. I wish you all well.