Inventure Foods (NASDAQ: SNAK) and Hershey Company (The) (NYSE:HSY) are both consumer staples companies, but which is the better stock? We will compare the two companies based on the strength of their institutional ownership, dividends, earnings, profitability, analyst recommendations, valuation and risk.
Analyst Recommendations
This is a summary of current ratings and recommmendations for Inventure Foods and Hershey Company (The), as reported by MarketBeat.com.
| Sell Ratings | Hold Ratings | Buy Ratings | Strong Buy Ratings | Rating Score | |
| Inventure Foods | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 2.00 |
| Hershey Company (The) | 2 | 8 | 4 | 0 | 2.14 |
Inventure Foods presently has a consensus price target of $8.00, indicating a potential upside of 129.23%. Hershey Company (The) has a consensus price target of $110.71, indicating a potential upside of 4.92%. Given Inventure Foods’ higher probable upside, research analysts clearly believe Inventure Foods is more favorable than Hershey Company (The).
Profitability
This table compares Inventure Foods and Hershey Company (The)’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.
| Net Margins | Return on Equity | Return on Assets | |
| Inventure Foods | -19.06% | -38.89% | -5.30% |
| Hershey Company (The) | 8.95% | 119.66% | 18.88% |
Dividends
Hershey Company (The) pays an annual dividend of $2.47 per share and has a dividend yield of 2.3%. Inventure Foods does not pay a dividend. Hershey Company (The) pays out 78.7% of its earnings in the form of a dividend, suggesting it may not have sufficient earnings to cover its dividend payment in the future. Inventure Foods has increased its dividend for 7 consecutive years.
Volatility & Risk
Inventure Foods has a beta of 0.75, indicating that its stock price is 25% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Hershey Company (The) has a beta of 0.38, indicating that its stock price is 62% less volatile than the S&P 500.
Earnings and Valuation
This table compares Inventure Foods and Hershey Company (The)’s revenue, earnings per share and valuation.
| Gross Revenue | Price/Sales Ratio | EBITDA | Earnings Per Share | Price/Earnings Ratio | |
| Inventure Foods | $255.01 million | 0.27 | $3.31 million | ($2.24) | -1.56 |
| Hershey Company (The) | $7.52 billion | 2.13 | $1.72 billion | $3.14 | 33.61 |
Hershey Company (The) has higher revenue and earnings than Inventure Foods. Inventure Foods is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Hershey Company (The), indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.
Institutional & Insider Ownership
81.4% of Inventure Foods shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 51.3% of Hershey Company (The) shares are owned by institutional investors. 6.4% of Inventure Foods shares are owned by insiders. Comparatively, 0.9% of Hershey Company (The) shares are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, hedge funds and endowments believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.
Summary
Hershey Company (The) beats Inventure Foods on 10 of the 16 factors compared between the two stocks.
About Inventure Foods
Inventure Foods, Inc. is a marketer and manufacturer of healthy/natural and indulgent specialty snack food brands. The Company operates in two segments: frozen products and snack products. The frozen products segment produces frozen fruits, vegetables, beverages and frozen desserts for sale primarily to groceries, club stores and mass merchandisers. The snack products segment produces potato chips, kettle chips, potato crisps, potato skins, pellet snacks, sheeted dough products and extruded products for sale primarily to snack food distributors and retailers. The products sold under its snack products segment includes products considered part of the indulgent specialty snack food category, as well as products considered part of the healthy/natural food category. Its Frozen Products segment’s brands include Rader Farms and Jamba. Its Snack Products segment’s brands include Boulder Canyon, Nathan’s Famous, T.G.I. Friday’s, Poore Brothers, Bob’s Texas Style and Vidalia.
About Hershey Company (The)
The Hershey Company is a producer of chocolate in North America. The Company’s principal product offerings include chocolate and non-chocolate confectionery products; gum and mint refreshment products; pantry items, such as baking ingredients and beverages, and snack items, such as spreads, meat snacks, bars and snack bites and mixes. Its segments include North America, and International and Other. The North America segment includes its chocolate and non-chocolate confectionery business, as well as its grocery and snacks business. This includes developing and growing its business in chocolate and non-chocolate confectionery, pantry, food service and other snacking product lines. The Company distributes and sells confectionery products in export markets of Asia, Latin America, the Middle East, Europe, Africa and other regions. As of December 31, 2016, the Company marketed, sold and distributed its products under more than 80 brand names in approximately 70 countries across the world.
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