Head to Head Survey: Cal-Maine Foods (NASDAQ:CALM) and Vital Farms (NASDAQ:VITL)

Vital Farms (NASDAQ:VITL) and Cal-Maine Foods (NASDAQ:CALM) are both consumer staples companies, but which is the better investment? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their dividends, risk, analyst recommendations, valuation, institutional ownership, profitability and earnings.

Earnings & Valuation

This table compares Vital Farms and Cal-Maine Foods”s gross revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Vital Farms	$759.44 million	0.46	$66.28 million	($0.04)	-204.00
Cal-Maine Foods	$2.91 billion	1.00	$316.68 million	$1.17	53.03

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

Institutional & Insider Ownership

98.6% of Vital Farms shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 84.7% of Cal-Maine Foods shares are owned by institutional investors. 3.9% of Vital Farms shares are owned by insiders. Comparatively, 3.6% of Cal-Maine Foods shares are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, endowments and hedge funds believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Profitability

This table compares Vital Farms and Cal-Maine Foods’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Vital Farms	0.02%	3.46%	2.25%
Cal-Maine Foods	2.32%	2.21%	1.89%

Analyst Recommendations

This is a breakdown of recent ratings for Vital Farms and Cal-Maine Foods, as provided by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Vital Farms	1	8	5	0	2.29
Cal-Maine Foods	0	5	1	0	2.17

Vital Farms presently has a consensus price target of $16.73, suggesting a potential upside of 104.99%. Cal-Maine Foods has a consensus price target of $84.17, suggesting a potential upside of 35.67%. Given Vital Farms’ stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, research analysts clearly believe Vital Farms is more favorable than Cal-Maine Foods.

Volatility and Risk

Vital Farms has a beta of 1.08, meaning that its stock price is 8% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Cal-Maine Foods has a beta of 0.25, meaning that its stock price is 75% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Summary

Vital Farms beats Cal-Maine Foods on 8 of the 14 factors compared between the two stocks.

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.

About Cal-Maine Foods

Cal-Maine Foods, Inc., together with its subsidiaries, produces, grades, packages, markets, and distributes shell eggs. The company offers specialty shell eggs, such as nutritionally enhanced, cage free, organic, free-range, pasture-raised, and brown eggs under the Egg-Land's Best, Land O' Lakes, Farmhouse Eggs, Sunups, Sunny Meadow, and 4Grain brand names. It sells its products to various customers, including national and regional grocery store chains, club stores, independent supermarkets, foodservice distributors, and egg product consumers primarily in the southwestern, southeastern, mid-western, and mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. Cal-Maine Foods, Inc. was founded in 1957 and is headquartered in Ridgeland, Mississippi.