Contrasting Alico (NASDAQ:ALCO) & Simply Good Foods (NASDAQ:SMPL)

Simply Good Foods (NASDAQ:SMPL) and Alico (NASDAQ:ALCO) are both small-cap consumer staples companies, but which is the better business? We will compare the two companies based on the strength of their institutional ownership, risk, earnings, profitability, analyst recommendations, dividends and valuation.

Profitability

This table compares Simply Good Foods and Alico’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Simply Good Foods	-14.28%	9.34%	6.67%
Alico	8.98%	-20.77%	-11.09%

Risk and Volatility

Simply Good Foods has a beta of 0.17, indicating that its share price is 83% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Alico has a beta of 0.92, indicating that its share price is 8% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Insider and Institutional Ownership

88.5% of Simply Good Foods shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 62.3% of Alico shares are held by institutional investors. 8.8% of Simply Good Foods shares are held by company insiders. Comparatively, 6.7% of Alico shares are held by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, endowments and large money managers believe a stock is poised for long-term growth.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of recent ratings for Simply Good Foods and Alico, as provided by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Simply Good Foods	1	9	3	0	2.15
Alico	0	1	1	1	3.00

Simply Good Foods presently has a consensus target price of $14.45, suggesting a potential upside of 42.69%. Alico has a consensus target price of $45.00, suggesting a potential upside of 15.06%. Given Simply Good Foods’ higher probable upside, analysts plainly believe Simply Good Foods is more favorable than Alico.

Valuation and Earnings

This table compares Simply Good Foods and Alico”s gross revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Simply Good Foods	$1.45 billion	0.62	$103.61 million	($2.17)	-4.67
Alico	$17.07 million	17.00	-$147.33 million	$0.22	177.77

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

Summary

Simply Good Foods beats Alico on 8 of the 15 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Simply Good Foods

The Simply Good Foods Company operates as a consumer-packaged food and beverage company in North America and internationally. The company develops, markets, and sells snacks and meal replacements. It offers protein bars, ready-to-drink shakes, sweet and salty snacks, cookies, protein chips, and recipes under the Atkins and Quest brand names. The company also provides confectionery products, such as full-size and mini peanut butter cups, and fudgey brownie and gooey caramel candy bites, chocolatey coated peanut candies, and coconutty caramel candy bars under Atkins Endulge brand name.It distributes its products to various retail channels, such as mass merchandise, grocery and drug channels, club stores, convenience stores, gas stations, and other channels. The company also sells its products through e-commerce channels, including questnutrition.com, atkins.com, amazon.com and others. The Simply Good Foods Company was founded in 2017 and is headquartered in Denver, Colorado.

About Alico

Alico, Inc., together with its subsidiaries, operates as an agribusiness and land management company in the United States. The company operates in two segments, Alico Citrus, and Land Management and Other Operations. The Alico Citrus segment engages in planting, owning, cultivating, and/or managing citrus groves to produce fruit for sale to fresh and processed citrus markets, including activities related to the purchase and resale of fruit and value-added services, which include contracting for the harvesting, marketing, and hauling of citrus. The Land Management and Other Operations segment is involved in the activities related to native plant sales, grazing and hunting leasing, management, and/or conservation of unimproved native pastureland; and activities related to rock mining royalties and other insignificant lines of business, as well as in the activities related to owning and/or leasing improved farmland. The company was incorporated in 1960 and is based in Fort Myers, Florida.