BellRing Brands (NYSE:BRBR) versus Ajinomoto (OTCMKTS:AJINY) Head-To-Head Analysis

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

Analyst Ratings

This is a breakdown of current recommendations and price targets for BellRing Brands and Ajinomoto, as provided by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
BellRing Brands	2	8	9	0	2.37
Ajinomoto	0	2	0	1	2.67

BellRing Brands presently has a consensus target price of $22.47, suggesting a potential upside of 153.15%. Given BellRing Brands’ higher probable upside, analysts clearly believe BellRing Brands is more favorable than Ajinomoto.

Risk and Volatility

BellRing Brands has a beta of 0.74, meaning that its stock price is 26% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Ajinomoto has a beta of 0.5, meaning that its stock price is 50% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Profitability

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

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
BellRing Brands	6.78%	-44.06%	19.42%
Ajinomoto	N/A	N/A	N/A

Earnings & Valuation

This table compares BellRing Brands and Ajinomoto”s top-line revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
BellRing Brands	$2.32 billion	0.45	$216.20 million	$1.29	6.88
Ajinomoto	$10.05 billion	2.72	$463.80 million	$0.83	33.69

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

Institutional & Insider Ownership

95.0% of BellRing Brands shares are held by institutional investors. 1.5% of BellRing Brands shares are held by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, large money managers and hedge funds believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Summary

BellRing Brands beats Ajinomoto on 8 of the 15 factors compared between the two stocks.

About BellRing Brands

BellRing Brands, Inc., together with its subsidiaries, provides various nutrition products in the United States. The company offers ready-to-drink (RTD) protein shakes, other RTD beverages, powders, nutrition bars, and other products primarily under the Premier Protein and Dymatize brands. It distributes its products through club, food, drug, mass, eCommerce, specialty, and convenience channels. BellRing Brands, Inc. was incorporated in 2019 and is headquartered in Saint Louis, Missouri.

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.