Contrasting Vital Farms (NASDAQ:VITL) & Kerry Group (OTCMKTS:KRYAY)

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

Volatility and Risk

Vital Farms has a beta of 1.09, indicating that its share price is 9% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Kerry Group has a beta of 0.67, indicating that its share price is 33% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a breakdown of recent ratings and target prices for Vital Farms and Kerry Group, as reported by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Vital Farms	2	8	5	0	2.20
Kerry Group	0	1	3	0	2.75

Vital Farms presently has a consensus target price of $24.08, indicating a potential upside of 107.08%. Given Vital Farms’ higher possible upside, equities analysts clearly believe Vital Farms is more favorable than Kerry Group.

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares Vital Farms and Kerry Group”s top-line revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Vital Farms	$759.44 million	0.66	$66.28 million	$1.04	11.18
Kerry Group	$7.64 billion	1.91	$745.03 million	N/A	N/A

Kerry Group has higher revenue and earnings than Vital Farms.

Profitability

This table compares Vital Farms and Kerry Group’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Vital Farms	6.10%	14.47%	9.95%
Kerry Group	N/A	N/A	N/A

Insider and Institutional Ownership

98.6% of Vital Farms shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 0.2% of Kerry Group shares are owned by institutional investors. 3.9% of Vital Farms shares are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, large money managers and endowments believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.

Summary

Vital Farms beats Kerry Group on 8 of the 12 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 Kerry Group

Kerry Group plc, together with its subsidiaries, provides taste and nutrition solutions. The company operates in two segments, Taste & Nutrition, and Dairy Ireland. The Taste & Nutrition segment offers taste and nutrition solutions for the food, beverage, and pharmaceutical markets. The Dairy Ireland segment provides value-add dairy ingredients and consumer products, including functional proteins and nutritional bases. It operates in Ireland, rest of Europe, the Americas, the Asia Pacific, the Middle East, and Africa. Kerry Group plc was founded in 1972 and is headquartered in Tralee, Ireland.