Smithfield Foods (NASDAQ:SFD) vs. Blue Star Foods (NASDAQ:BSFC) Head to Head Review

Blue Star Foods (NASDAQ:BSFC) and Smithfield Foods (NASDAQ:SFD) are both consumer staples companies, but which is the superior investment? We will compare the two companies based on the strength of their analyst recommendations, dividends, valuation, earnings, profitability, risk and institutional ownership.

Analyst Ratings

This is a summary of recent recommendations for Blue Star Foods and Smithfield Foods, as provided by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Blue Star Foods	0	0	0	0	0.00
Smithfield Foods	1	0	5	0	2.67

Smithfield Foods has a consensus target price of $31.50, suggesting a potential upside of 41.38%. Given Smithfield Foods’ stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, analysts plainly believe Smithfield Foods is more favorable than Blue Star Foods.

Profitability

This table compares Blue Star Foods and Smithfield Foods’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Blue Star Foods	-82.34%	-134.60%	-66.98%
Smithfield Foods	6.84%	15.55%	8.84%

Earnings & Valuation

This table compares Blue Star Foods and Smithfield Foods”s gross revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Blue Star Foods	$5.93 million	0.03	-$4.47 million	($0.03)	-0.03
Smithfield Foods	$15.53 billion	0.56	$987.00 million	$2.68	8.31

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

Risk and Volatility

Blue Star Foods has a beta of 1.71, indicating that its share price is 71% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Smithfield Foods has a beta of -0.44, indicating that its share price is 144% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Institutional & Insider Ownership

18.8% of Blue Star Foods shares are owned by institutional investors. 53.7% of Blue Star Foods shares are owned by insiders. Comparatively, 1.8% of Smithfield Foods 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

Smithfield Foods beats Blue Star Foods on 11 of the 14 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Blue Star Foods

Blue Star Foods Corp., through its subsidiaries, operates as a marine protein company in the United States and Canada. The company imports, packages, and sells refrigerated pasteurized crab meats and other premium seafood products. It sells its products primarily to food service distributors, as well as wholesalers, retail establishments, and seafood distributors under the Blue Star, Oceanica, Pacifika, Crab & Go, Lubkin's Coastal Pride, First Choice, Good Stuff, Coastal Pride Fresh, TOBC, and Little Cedar Farms brands. Blue Star Foods Corp. was formerly known as John Keeler & Co. Inc. The company is based in Miami, Florida.

About Smithfield Foods

Smithfield Foods, Inc. produces and markets a variety of fresh meat and packaged meats products both domestically and internationally. The Company operates in four segments: Pork, Hog Production, International and Corporate, each of which consists of a number of subsidiaries, joint ventures and other investments. The Pork segment consists mainly of its three wholly owned United States fresh pork and packaged meats subsidiaries: The Smithfield Packing Company, Inc. (Smithfield Packing), Farmland Foods, Inc. (Farmland Foods) and John Morrell Food Group (John Morrell). The Hog Production segment consists of the Company’s hog production operations located in the United States. On September 2012 (fiscal 2013), the Company acquired a 70% controlling interest in American Skin Food Group, LLC. Effective September 26, 2013, Shuanghui International Holdings Ltd merged with Smithfield Foods Inc, a producer and wholesaler of pork meat products.