TreeHouse Foods (THS) Competitors

Lancaster Colony (NASDAQ:LANC) and TreeHouse Foods (NYSE:THS) are both consumer staples companies, but which is the better investment? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their analyst recommendations, community ranking, institutional ownership, media sentiment, earnings, dividends, profitability, valuation and risk.

Do institutionals and insiders believe in LANC or THS?

66.4% of Lancaster Colony shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 99.8% of TreeHouse Foods shares are held by institutional investors. 29.5% of Lancaster Colony shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 0.9% of TreeHouse Foods shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, hedge funds and large money managers believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Do analysts prefer LANC or THS?

Lancaster Colony currently has a consensus price target of $211.33, indicating a potential upside of 19.58%. TreeHouse Foods has a consensus price target of $34.83, indicating a potential upside of 31.55%. Given TreeHouse Foods' higher probable upside, analysts clearly believe TreeHouse Foods is more favorable than Lancaster Colony.

Company	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Lancaster Colony	0 Sell rating(s)	3 Hold rating(s)	1 Buy rating(s)	0 Strong Buy rating(s)	2.25
TreeHouse Foods	0 Sell rating(s)	7 Hold rating(s)	0 Buy rating(s)	0 Strong Buy rating(s)	2.00

Does the MarketBeat Community favor LANC or THS?

TreeHouse Foods received 99 more outperform votes than Lancaster Colony when rated by MarketBeat users. Likewise, 63.92% of users gave TreeHouse Foods an outperform vote while only 62.40% of users gave Lancaster Colony an outperform vote.

Company	Underperform	Outperform
Lancaster Colony	Outperform Votes 390 62.40%	Underperform Votes 235 37.60%
TreeHouse Foods	Outperform Votes 489 63.92%	Underperform Votes 276 36.08%

Which has preferable earnings & valuation, LANC or THS?

Lancaster Colony has higher earnings, but lower revenue than TreeHouse Foods. Lancaster Colony is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than TreeHouse 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
Lancaster Colony	$1.90B	2.56	$158.61M	$5.69	31.06
TreeHouse Foods	$3.35B	0.40	$26.90M	$0.54	49.04

Is LANC or THS more profitable?

Lancaster Colony has a net margin of 8.26% compared to TreeHouse Foods' net margin of 0.80%. Lancaster Colony's return on equity of 19.51% beat TreeHouse Foods' return on equity.

Company	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Lancaster Colony	8.26%	19.51%	15.19%
TreeHouse Foods	0.80%	6.42%	2.54%

Does the media refer more to LANC or THS?

In the previous week, Lancaster Colony and Lancaster Colony both had 8 articles in the media. Lancaster Colony's average media sentiment score of 1.55 beat TreeHouse Foods' score of 1.06 indicating that Lancaster Colony is being referred to more favorably in the media.

Company	Very Positive	Positive	Neutral	Negative	Very Negative	Overall Sentiment
Lancaster Colony	6 Very Positive mention(s)	1 Positive mention(s)	0 Neutral mention(s)	0 Negative mention(s)	0 Very Negative mention(s)	Very Positive
TreeHouse Foods	4 Very Positive mention(s)	1 Positive mention(s)	1 Neutral mention(s)	1 Negative mention(s)	1 Very Negative mention(s)	Positive

Which has more volatility and risk, LANC or THS?

Lancaster Colony has a beta of 0.31, suggesting that its stock price is 69% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, TreeHouse Foods has a beta of 0.15, suggesting that its stock price is 85% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Summary

Lancaster Colony beats TreeHouse Foods on 11 of the 17 factors compared between the two stocks.