Contrasting Calavo Growers (NASDAQ:CVGW) and Moolec Science (NASDAQ:MLEC)

Moolec Science (NASDAQ:MLEC) and Calavo Growers (NASDAQ:CVGW) 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, profitability, risk, earnings, analyst recommendations, dividends and valuation.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of current ratings and recommmendations for Moolec Science and Calavo Growers, as provided by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Moolec Science	0	0	0	0	0.00
Calavo Growers	0	2	1	0	2.33

Calavo Growers has a consensus target price of $40.00, suggesting a potential upside of 82.65%. Given Calavo Growers’ stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, analysts plainly believe Calavo Growers is more favorable than Moolec Science.

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares Moolec Science and Calavo Growers”s gross revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Moolec Science	$5.62 million	0.41	-$7.31 million	($2.20)	-0.26
Calavo Growers	$693.71 million	0.56	-$1.08 million	$0.88	24.89

Calavo Growers has higher revenue and earnings than Moolec Science. Moolec Science is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Calavo Growers, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Profitability

This table compares Moolec Science and Calavo Growers’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Moolec Science	N/A	N/A	N/A
Calavo Growers	2.28%	11.73%	7.86%

Volatility & Risk

Moolec Science has a beta of -0.53, suggesting that its stock price is 153% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Calavo Growers has a beta of 0.41, suggesting that its stock price is 59% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Institutional and Insider Ownership

0.1% of Moolec Science shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 81.3% of Calavo Growers shares are held by institutional investors. 19.9% of Moolec Science shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 7.2% of Calavo Growers shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, endowments and hedge funds believe a company is poised for long-term growth.

Summary

Calavo Growers beats Moolec Science on 13 of the 14 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Moolec Science

Moolec Science SA, a science-based food ingredient company, focuses on developing real animal proteins in plants using molecular farming. It offers Chymosin SPC, a dairy ingredient; GLA SONOVA, a nutritional oil; POORK+, a plant-based, animal meat free ingredient with porcine proteins in soybeans; and BEEF+, a meat replacement product. It operates in the United States, Europe, and South America. The company was founded in 2020 and is based in Luxembourg.

About Calavo Growers

Calavo Growers, Inc. markets and distributes avocados, prepared avocados, and other perishable foods to retail grocery and foodservice customers, club stores, mass merchandisers, food distributors, and wholesale customers worldwide. It operates through Grown and Prepared segments. The Grown segment distributes tomatoes and papayas; and procures avocados grown in California, Mexico, Peru, and Colombia. The Prepared segment is involved in the distribution of prepared avocado products, salsa, fresh-cut fruit and vegetables, fresh prepared entrees salads, wraps, sandwiches, parfaits, and fresh snacking products, as well as ready-to-heat entrees, other hot bars and various deli items, meals kit components, and salad kits. It offers its products under the Calavo brands and related logos; and Avo Fresco, Bueno, Avo Fresco, Bueno, Calavo Gold, Celebrate the Taste, El Dorado, Taste of Paradise, The First Name in Avocados, The Family of Fresh, ProRipeVIP, RIPE NOW!, Renaissance Food Group, Garden Highway Fresh Cut, Garden Highway, and Garden Highway Chef Essentials trademarks. Calavo Growers, Inc. was founded in 1924 and is headquartered in Santa Paula, California.