Utz Brands (NYSE:UTZ) versus Nomad Foods (NYSE:NOMD) Financial Contrast

Nomad Foods (NYSE:NOMD) and Utz Brands (NYSE:UTZ) are both small-cap consumer staples companies, but which is the better stock? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their profitability, dividends, earnings, valuation, risk, analyst recommendations and institutional ownership.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a breakdown of current ratings and target prices for Nomad Foods and Utz Brands, as provided by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Nomad Foods	1	1	3	0	2.40
Utz Brands	1	2	5	0	2.50

Nomad Foods presently has a consensus price target of $18.67, indicating a potential upside of 56.67%. Utz Brands has a consensus price target of $14.93, indicating a potential upside of 51.64%. Given Nomad Foods’ higher possible upside, equities research analysts clearly believe Nomad Foods is more favorable than Utz Brands.

Dividends

Nomad Foods pays an annual dividend of $0.68 per share and has a dividend yield of 5.7%. Utz Brands pays an annual dividend of $0.25 per share and has a dividend yield of 2.5%. Nomad Foods pays out 47.2% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Utz Brands pays out 357.1% of its earnings in the form of a dividend, suggesting it may not have sufficient earnings to cover its dividend payment in the future. Nomad Foods has raised its dividend for 2 consecutive years and Utz Brands has raised its dividend for 3 consecutive years. Nomad Foods is clearly the better dividend stock, given its higher yield and lower payout ratio.

Risk and Volatility

Nomad Foods has a beta of 0.71, meaning that its share price is 29% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Utz Brands has a beta of 0.9, meaning that its share price is 10% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Profitability

This table compares Nomad Foods and Utz Brands’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Nomad Foods	6.56%	9.73%	3.96%
Utz Brands	0.39%	8.12%	4.02%

Institutional & Insider Ownership

75.3% of Nomad Foods shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 96.0% of Utz Brands shares are owned by institutional investors. 16.3% of Utz Brands shares are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, large money managers and endowments believe a stock is poised for long-term growth.

Valuation and Earnings

This table compares Nomad Foods and Utz Brands”s gross revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Nomad Foods	$3.35 billion	0.54	$245.74 million	$1.44	8.27
Utz Brands	$1.41 billion	1.00	$15.97 million	$0.07	140.64

Nomad Foods has higher revenue and earnings than Utz Brands. Nomad Foods is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Utz Brands, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Summary

Utz Brands beats Nomad Foods on 9 of the 17 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Nomad Foods

Nomad Foods Limited, together with its subsidiaries, manufactures, markets, and distributes a range of frozen food products in the United Kingdom and internationally. The company offers frozen fish products, including fish fingers, coated fish, and natural fish; ready-to-cook vegetable products, such as peas and spinach; and frozen poultry and meat products comprising nuggets, grills, and burgers. It also provides meal products that include ready-to-cook noodles, pasta, lasagna, pancakes, and other ready-made meals; ice creams, such as in-home and out-of-home ice creams; and other products consisting of soups, pizzas, bakery goods, and meat substitutes. The company sells its products to supermarkets and food retail chains primarily under the Birds Eye, Green Cuisine, iglo, Findus, Aunt Bessie's, Goodfella's, Frikom, Ledo, La Cocinera, and Belviva brand names. Nomad Foods Limited was founded in 2014 and is headquartered in Feltham, the United Kingdom.

About Utz Brands

Utz Brands, Inc. engages in manufacture, marketing, and distribution of snack foods. It offers a range of salty snacks, including salty snacks, including potato chips, tortilla chips, pretzels, cheese snacks, pork skins, veggie snacks, pub/party mixes, tortilla chips, salsa and dips, ready-to-eat popcorn, and other snacks under the Utz, Zapp’s, ON THE BORDER, Golden Flake, Boulder Canyon, Hawaiian, TORTIYAHS!, etc. The company sells its products to wholesale and other distributors, grocery stores, convenience and drug stores, discount stores, mass merchandisers, membership club stores, hard discounters, and specialty and e-commerce retailers. Utz Brands, Inc. was founded in 1921 and is headquartered in Hanover, Pennsylvania.