Beyond Meat is booming in the U.S., which has the highest level of animal-based meat consumption per person on a global basis and where meat is the largest category in the food industry, a $270 billion business. The U.S. opportunity is just getting started: Nielsen data shows Beyond Meat has just 2% household penetration in the United States.

But the company has said that the global opportunity is just as compelling — meat is estimated to be a $1.4 trillion market — and that is where some of Beyond Meat's fastest growth may yet come.

Shares of Beyond Meat, already the best initial public offering of 2019, soared after its first-ever earnings report as a public company, and the opportunity in Asia is one that CFO Mark Nelson highlighted.

Responding to a question from an analyst on the quarterly earnings conference call about the international opportunity and how much of the growth it will drive going forward, Nelson said it is an important "but still pretty small percentage of our overall revenue." He noted that Europe and Asia are "very significant" markets for its products and pointed to the fact that Europe already has a "very well-developed market" for plant-based proteins.

But it was the word he used to describe the Asian opportunity that was about as dramatic as CFO talk ever gets. "Asia has a desperate need for this. So I'm going to be very aggressive in going into those markets, and our team will be as well. ... Asia is absolutely a strong part of our strategy."

Beyond Meat has been planning for international expansion since well before its public debut. It noted in 2018 that 10% of its consumer inquiries in the previous year were from international markets, a factor that contributed to its rollout across 40 countries. Beyond Meat is currently distributed internationally to through local partners in Australia, Chile, the European Union, Hong Kong, Ireland, Israel, the Middle East, New Zealand, South Korea, Taiwan and the United Kingdom, markets where the company said it "received strong inbound interest for our plant-based products."

In March, Beyond Meat introduced its plant-based protein burger in Singapore. That followed the 2017 introduction of the Beyond Burger in Hong Kong. Among international markets, Australia is among Beyond Meat's most penetrated to date. The company had said in its S-1 filing ahead of the IPO, "for several years we have maintained a presence and generated brand awareness in Asia through our local distributor, and expect further expansion in the region over time."