Beyond Meat is on track for its best week since July

• Beyond Meat has gained 28% this week, putting it on track for its best weekly performance since July.
• The company's shares surged 12% on a Tuesday report that rival Impossible Foods was no longer pursuing a potential deal with McDonald's. The report has since been disputed.
• On Wednesday, McDonald's said it would expand the Canada test of its sandwich that uses a Beyond Meat patty. Shares of Beyond Meat gained Thursday and Friday.
• Watch Beyond Meat trade live on Markets Insider.

Beyond Meat, the buzzy plant-based meat alternative startup that captured attention with its blockbuster IPO in 2019, is on track to notch its best weekly performance in seven months.

Shares of the company have gained about 28% over the past five days, their best weekly gain since July. The S&P 500 has gained roughly 1.1% over the same timeframe.

There have been a number of stock-moving events that have lifted Beyond Meat this week. On Tuesday, Reuters reported that its main rival in the plant-based meat space, Impossible Foods, was abandoning attempts to land a deal to supply McDonald's with burgers.

That sent Beyond Meat shares soaring 12%, even though Impossible Foods later disputed the report. In a Wednesday interview, Impossible Foods CEO Patrick Brown told Business Insider "we would never blow off or disrespect a potential customer and any suggestion that we would do that is complete nonsense."

Also on Wednesday, McDonald's said that it would be expanding its test in Canada of the PLT burger, which stands for plant, lettuce, and tomato and uses a Beyond Meat patty. There's long been talk of a partnership between Beyond Meat and McDonald's, as a successful collaboration could be a game-changer for the plant-based meat company.

If McDonald's brings the PLT to the US, it could add as much as $168 million to Beyond Meat's sales, a 62% boost, according to a November note from Alexia Howard at Bernstein. And, it has positive implications for the stock price as well - when McDonald's announced in September it would test the PLT in Canada, Beyond Meat gained as much as 13%.

Shares of Beyond Meat gained another 11% Thursday. The rally was still gaining steam during the trading day Friday, where Beyond Meat traded up as much as 8%.

It's a busy first full week of trading in 2020 for Beyond Meat, which had a rollercoaster ride in 2019 after its initial public offering in May. Shares surged nearly 840% from the IPO price of $25 to the all-time high of $234.9 per share in July before falling to around $75 per share at the end of the year.

Still, shares are up roughly 261% from its IPO price through Thursday's close.