Plant-based food company Beyond Meat has the potential to grow as large as mega-cap tech stocks, CNBC's Jim Cramer said Thursday.
Beyond Meat is a small company but "so was Amazon, so was Facebook, so was Alphabet," Cramer said on "Squawk on the Street."
The stock has risen nearly 60% in 2020, though it is still at roughly half the price it was last July after a furious run following its initial public offering. The company's market cap is about $7.4 billion.
"It's all going Beyond Meat's way. And what is Beyond Meat doing? They're cutting prices," the "Mad money" host said. "So the price of meat is going to go up for the regular meat, and the protein that skips the whole meat chapter is going to do well. Beyond Meat is one of the most dangerous shorts in this market."
Several meat-processing plants in the United States have had to close due to outbreaks of the coronavirus among workers. This has led to rising prices and shortages for some products. Cramer interviewed Beyond Meat CEO Ethan Brown on "Mad Money" on Wednesday evening. Brown said the company was rolling out "value packs" and other discounts in an attempt to grow their customer base.
"I think the pandemic is saying start eating plant-based," Cramer said Thursday.
Beyond Meat reported better-than-expected sales numbers for the first quarter, rising 141% from last year, even as its sales to restaurants declined as a share of the overall business. The company generated 3 cents in earnings per share on $97.1 million in revenue for the quarter.
The rising demand for plant-based protein will not just be a passing fad, Cramer said.
"There's no hobby here. The hobby is going to end up being meat," Cramer said.
Correction: An earlier version misspelled Ethan Brown's last name.