Darling Ingredients (NYSE:DAR) vs. Vital Farms (NASDAQ:VITL) Financial Review

Darling Ingredients (NYSE:DAR) and Vital Farms (NASDAQ:VITL) are both consumer staples companies, but which is the superior stock? We will compare the two companies based on the strength of their risk, valuation, profitability, earnings, dividends, analyst recommendations and institutional ownership.

Analyst Ratings

This is a breakdown of current recommendations for Darling Ingredients and Vital Farms, as provided by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Darling Ingredients	0	2	10	1	2.92
Vital Farms	1	8	5	0	2.29

Darling Ingredients presently has a consensus target price of $69.00, indicating a potential upside of 4.05%. Vital Farms has a consensus target price of $17.18, indicating a potential upside of 75.50%. Given Vital Farms’ higher probable upside, analysts clearly believe Vital Farms is more favorable than Darling Ingredients.

Risk & Volatility

Darling Ingredients has a beta of 1.02, suggesting that its stock price is 2% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Vital Farms has a beta of 1.05, suggesting that its stock price is 5% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Valuation & Earnings

This table compares Darling Ingredients and Vital Farms”s revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Darling Ingredients	$6.14 billion	1.71	$62.80 million	$3.71	17.87
Vital Farms	$759.44 million	0.55	$66.28 million	($0.04)	-244.75

Vital Farms has lower revenue, but higher earnings than Darling Ingredients. Vital Farms is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Darling Ingredients, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Profitability

This table compares Darling Ingredients and Vital Farms’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Darling Ingredients	9.13%	12.98%	6.08%
Vital Farms	0.02%	3.46%	2.25%

Insider & Institutional Ownership

94.4% of Darling Ingredients shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 98.6% of Vital Farms shares are held by institutional investors. 1.9% of Darling Ingredients shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 3.9% of Vital Farms shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, endowments and large money managers believe a stock is poised for long-term growth.

Summary

Darling Ingredients beats Vital Farms on 10 of the 15 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Darling Ingredients

Darling Ingredients Inc. develops, produces, and sells natural ingredients from edible and inedible bio-nutrients in North America, Europe, China, South America, and internationally. The company operates through three segments: Feed Ingredients, Food Ingredients, and Fuel Ingredients. It offers ingredients and customized specialty solutions for customers in the pharmaceutical, food, pet food, feed, industrial, fuel, bioenergy, and fertilizer industries. The company also collects and transforms various animal by-product streams into useable and specialty ingredients, such as collagen, edible fats, feed-grade fats, animal proteins and meals, plasma, pet food ingredients, organic fertilizers, yellow grease, fuel feedstock, green energy, natural casings, and hides. In addition, it recovers and converts used cooking oil and animal fats, and residual bakery products into valuable feed and fuel ingredients. Further, the company provides environmental services, including grease trap collection and disposal services to food service establishments. It primarily operates under the Rendac, Sonac, FASA, Ecoson, Rousselot, Gelnex, and CTH brand names. The company was formerly known as Darling International Inc. and changed its name to Darling Ingredients Inc. in May 2014. Darling Ingredients Inc. was founded in 1882 and is headquartered in Irving, Texas.

About Vital Farms

Vital Farms, Inc., a food company, provides pasture-raised products in the United States. It offers shell eggs, butter, hard-boiled eggs, and liquid whole eggs. The company was founded in 2007 and is headquartered in Austin, Texas.