Hormel Foods (HRL) Competitors

Hormel Foods (NYSE:HRL) and Hershey (NYSE:HSY) are both large-cap consumer staples companies, but which is the superior business? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their community ranking, earnings, profitability, institutional ownership, valuation, media sentiment, dividends, analyst recommendations and risk.

Is HRL or HSY more profitable?

Hershey has a net margin of 19.83% compared to Hormel Foods' net margin of 6.75%. Hershey's return on equity of 44.77% beat Hormel Foods' return on equity.

Company	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Hormel Foods	6.75%	10.95%	6.39%
Hershey	19.83%	44.77%	15.14%

Do analysts prefer HRL or HSY?

Hormel Foods currently has a consensus target price of $32.33, suggesting a potential upside of 4.96%. Hershey has a consensus target price of $163.35, suggesting a potential downside of 1.96%. Given Hormel Foods' stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, equities research analysts plainly believe Hormel Foods is more favorable than Hershey.

Company	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Hormel Foods	1 Sell rating(s)	3 Hold rating(s)	1 Buy rating(s)	1 Strong Buy rating(s)	2.33
Hershey	5 Sell rating(s)	15 Hold rating(s)	0 Buy rating(s)	0 Strong Buy rating(s)	1.75

Does the media prefer HRL or HSY?

In the previous week, Hershey had 20 more articles in the media than Hormel Foods. MarketBeat recorded 33 mentions for Hershey and 13 mentions for Hormel Foods. Hormel Foods' average media sentiment score of 1.20 beat Hershey's score of 0.97 indicating that Hormel Foods is being referred to more favorably in the media.

Company	Very Positive	Positive	Neutral	Negative	Very Negative	Overall Sentiment
Hormel Foods	8 Very Positive mention(s)	1 Positive mention(s)	3 Neutral mention(s)	1 Negative mention(s)	0 Very Negative mention(s)	Positive
Hershey	20 Very Positive mention(s)	2 Positive mention(s)	5 Neutral mention(s)	4 Negative mention(s)	0 Very Negative mention(s)	Positive

Which has stronger valuation and earnings, HRL or HSY?

Hershey has lower revenue, but higher earnings than Hormel Foods. Hershey is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Hormel Foods, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Company	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Hormel Foods	$11.91B	1.42	$805.04M	$1.37	22.49
Hershey	$11.20B	3.01	$2.22B	$10.90	15.29

Does the MarketBeat Community favor HRL or HSY?

Hershey received 154 more outperform votes than Hormel Foods when rated by MarketBeat users. However, 57.31% of users gave Hormel Foods an outperform vote while only 50.76% of users gave Hershey an outperform vote.

Company	Underperform	Outperform
Hormel Foods	Outperform Votes 451 57.31%	Underperform Votes 336 42.69%
Hershey	Outperform Votes 605 50.76%	Underperform Votes 587 49.24%

Is HRL or HSY a better dividend stock?

Hormel Foods pays an annual dividend of $1.16 per share and has a dividend yield of 3.8%. Hershey pays an annual dividend of $5.48 per share and has a dividend yield of 3.3%. Hormel Foods pays out 84.7% of its earnings in the form of a dividend, suggesting it may not have sufficient earnings to cover its dividend payment in the future. Hershey pays out 50.3% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Hormel Foods has increased its dividend for 60 consecutive years and Hershey has increased its dividend for 15 consecutive years. Hormel Foods is clearly the better dividend stock, given its higher yield and longer track record of dividend growth.

Which has more risk and volatility, HRL or HSY?

Hormel Foods has a beta of 0.31, meaning that its share price is 69% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Hershey has a beta of 0.28, meaning that its share price is 72% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Do institutionals and insiders have more ownership in HRL or HSY?

41.0% of Hormel Foods shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 58.0% of Hershey shares are owned by institutional investors. 0.7% of Hormel Foods shares are owned by company insiders. Comparatively, 0.3% of Hershey shares are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, hedge funds and endowments believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Summary

Hormel Foods beats Hershey on 12 of the 22 factors compared between the two stocks.