Vegetarians of the capitalist persuasion can put their money where their mouths are, as plant-based meat substitute company Beyond Meat soars in its first day of public trading on the stock market.

Beyond Meat surpassed expectations at their Thursday initial public offering, or IPO, selling at $46 per share after analysts projected it would achieve $25 per share.

Harvard Business School historian Nancy Koehn told Boston Public Radio Thursday the company's impressive debut could mark a paradigm shift in meat eating.

“It’s a long-term thing. This is a part of now a real shift in the $4.6 trillion market for meat. Americans eat 272 pounds of meat on average a year,” she said. “This represents, from an investor financial interest standpoint, some kind of real shift, longer term shift, in what will be meat eating habits.”

Koehn holds the James E. Robison chair of Business Administration. Her latest book is "Forged in Crisis: The Power of Courageous Leadership in Turbulent Times."

She is also a vegetarian.

“Something interesting is going on here, in what has been a kind of company that’s been around since 2009 and basically largely below the radar,” Koehn said. “This has all happened, in terms of its public awareness and the financial interest in it, relatively recently."

Beyond Meat is debuting as an unprofitable company, which is not wholly uncommon for young firms aiming to grow quickly.

“Join the land of IPOs, particularly fast growth IPOs,” said Koehn.

For context, Koehn said, it took Amazon more than 10 years before it went into the black.