Beyond Meat begins direct online sales of plant-based patties

(Reuters) - Beyond Meat Inc <BYND.O> on Thursday launched a new website to sell its plant-based meat products to U.S. customers, just nearly three months after rival Impossible Foods started its direct-to-consumer sales.

The move comes at a time when demand for vegan products has surged amid rising beef prices due to the COVID-19 pandemic and restaurant traffic has not recovered to normal levels.

Impossible Foods, which began direct online sales in June, and Beyond Meat currently sell their plant-based meat products in thousands of retail stores across the United States, including Kroger <KR.N> and Walmart Inc <WMT.N>.

Beyond Meat has been seeing a jump in consumer demand in its retail channels during the lockdown and said direct online sales would include the Beyond Beef and Sausage patties, with two-day shipping included in all orders.

(Reporting by Aditi Sebastian; Editing by Ramakrishnan M.)