Critical Analysis: Utz Brands (NYSE:UTZ) versus Ajinomoto (OTCMKTS:AJINY)

Utz Brands (NYSE:UTZ) and Ajinomoto (OTCMKTS:AJINY) are both consumer staples companies, but which is the better business? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their risk, dividends, profitability, analyst recommendations, valuation, earnings and institutional ownership.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a breakdown of current recommendations for Utz Brands and Ajinomoto, as reported by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Utz Brands	1	3	4	0	2.38
Ajinomoto	0	2	0	1	2.67

Utz Brands presently has a consensus price target of $12.06, indicating a potential upside of 55.46%. Given Utz Brands’ higher possible upside, research analysts clearly believe Utz Brands is more favorable than Ajinomoto.

Volatility and Risk

Utz Brands has a beta of 0.87, indicating that its stock price is 13% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Ajinomoto has a beta of 0.5, indicating that its stock price is 50% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Dividends

Utz Brands pays an annual dividend of $0.25 per share and has a dividend yield of 3.2%. Ajinomoto pays an annual dividend of $0.18 per share and has a dividend yield of 0.6%. Utz Brands pays out 2,500.0% of its earnings in the form of a dividend, suggesting it may not have sufficient earnings to cover its dividend payment in the future. Ajinomoto pays out 21.7% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Utz Brands has increased its dividend for 3 consecutive years. Utz Brands is clearly the better dividend stock, given its higher yield and longer track record of dividend growth.

Insider & Institutional Ownership

96.0% of Utz Brands shares are owned by institutional investors. 12.7% of Utz Brands shares are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, endowments and large money managers believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Valuation & Earnings

This table compares Utz Brands and Ajinomoto”s top-line revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Utz Brands	$1.44 billion	0.77	$800,000.00	$0.01	775.50
Ajinomoto	$10.05 billion	2.72	$463.80 million	$0.83	33.69

Ajinomoto has higher revenue and earnings than Utz Brands. Ajinomoto is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Utz Brands, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Profitability

This table compares Utz Brands and Ajinomoto’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Utz Brands	-0.58%	8.57%	4.16%
Ajinomoto	N/A	N/A	N/A

About Utz Brands

Utz Brands, Inc. engages in manufacture, marketing, and distribution of snack foods. It offers a range of salty snacks, including salty snacks, including potato chips, tortilla chips, pretzels, cheese snacks, pork skins, veggie snacks, pub/party mixes, tortilla chips, salsa and dips, ready-to-eat popcorn, and other snacks under the Utz, Zapp’s, ON THE BORDER, Golden Flake, Boulder Canyon, Hawaiian, TORTIYAHS!, etc. The company sells its products to wholesale and other distributors, grocery stores, convenience and drug stores, discount stores, mass merchandisers, membership club stores, hard discounters, and specialty and e-commerce retailers. Utz Brands, Inc. was founded in 1921 and is headquartered in Hanover, Pennsylvania.

About Ajinomoto

Ajinomoto Co., Inc. engages in the seasonings and foods, frozen foods, and healthcare and other businesses in Japan and internationally. The Seasonings and Foods segment offers sauces and seasoning products under the AJI-NO-MOTO, HON-DASHI, Cook Do, Ajinomoto KK Consommé, Pure Select Mayonnaise, Ros Dee, Masako, Aji-ngon, Sazón, Sajiku, and CRISPY FRY names; and solutions and ingredients for foodservice and processed food manufacturers, processed foods, and restaurants, as well as industrial, retail, and other applications. This segment also provides instant noodles under the Knorr Cup Soup and YumYum names; coffee beverages under the Birdy and Blendy brands; powdered drink under the Birdy 3in1 name; MAXIM brand products; Chyotto Zeitakuna Kohiten brand products; and gift sets and office supplies comprising coffee vending machines, tea servers, etc. The Frozen Foods segment offers Chinese dumplings, cooked rice, noodles, desserts, shumai, processed chicken, and other products under the AJINOMOTO FRESH FROZEN, Bernardi, FRED’S, Golden Tiger, José Olé, LingLing, POSADA, and TAI PEI brands. The Healthcare and Other segment provides amino acids for applications in various industries, such as pharmaceuticals and foods; contract development and manufacturing services for pharmaceutical intermediates and active ingredients, aseptic fill finish services, etc.; personal care ingredients; and medical foods, crop services, etc. This segment also offers Ajinomoto Build-up Film, an interlayer insulating material for semiconductor packages; fundamental foods under the Glyna and Amino Aile names; sports nutrition supplements under the amino VITAL brand; and functional materials, such as activated carbon, release paper, etc. Ajinomoto Co., Inc. was founded in 1909 and is headquartered in Tokyo, Japan.