Reviewing Darling Ingredients (NYSE:DAR) and BellRing Brands (NYSE:BRBR)

Darling Ingredients (NYSE:DAR) and BellRing Brands (NYSE:BRBR) are both mid-cap consumer staples companies, but which is the superior investment? We will compare the two companies based on the strength of their dividends, valuation, earnings, institutional ownership, analyst recommendations, risk and profitability.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of recent recommendations for Darling Ingredients and BellRing Brands, as provided by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Darling Ingredients	1	1	9	1	2.83
BellRing Brands	2	5	12	0	2.53

Darling Ingredients currently has a consensus price target of $55.00, indicating a potential upside of 7.92%. BellRing Brands has a consensus price target of $38.88, indicating a potential upside of 117.77%. Given BellRing Brands’ higher possible upside, analysts plainly believe BellRing Brands is more favorable than Darling Ingredients.

Volatility and Risk

Darling Ingredients has a beta of 1.27, indicating that its share price is 27% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, BellRing Brands has a beta of 0.64, indicating that its share price is 36% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares Darling Ingredients and BellRing Brands”s gross revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Darling Ingredients	$6.14 billion	1.31	$62.80 million	$0.39	130.67
BellRing Brands	$2.32 billion	0.90	$216.20 million	$1.45	12.31

BellRing Brands has lower revenue, but higher earnings than Darling Ingredients. BellRing Brands 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 BellRing Brands’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Darling Ingredients	1.02%	2.44%	1.23%
BellRing Brands	7.88%	-64.79%	25.12%

Insider and Institutional Ownership

94.4% of Darling Ingredients shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 95.0% of BellRing Brands shares are owned by institutional investors. 2.1% of Darling Ingredients shares are owned by insiders. Comparatively, 1.5% of BellRing Brands shares are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, endowments and hedge funds believe a stock is poised for long-term growth.

Summary

Darling Ingredients beats BellRing Brands on 8 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 BellRing Brands

BellRing Brands, Inc., together with its subsidiaries, provides various nutrition products in the United States. The company offers ready-to-drink (RTD) protein shakes, other RTD beverages, powders, nutrition bars, and other products primarily under the Premier Protein and Dymatize brands. It distributes its products through club, food, drug, mass, eCommerce, specialty, and convenience channels. BellRing Brands, Inc. was incorporated in 2019 and is headquartered in Saint Louis, Missouri.