Andersons (NASDAQ:ANDE) & Village Super Market (NASDAQ:VLGEA) Head-To-Head Survey

Village Super Market (NASDAQ:VLGEA) and Andersons (NASDAQ:ANDE) are both consumer staples companies, but which is the superior investment? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their earnings, institutional ownership, risk, analyst recommendations, profitability, valuation and dividends.

Institutional & Insider Ownership

39.0% of Village Super Market shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 87.1% of Andersons shares are owned by institutional investors. 59.1% of Village Super Market shares are owned by insiders. Comparatively, 4.3% of Andersons shares are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, hedge funds and large money managers believe a stock is poised for long-term growth.

Volatility & Risk

Village Super Market has a beta of 0.44, suggesting that its stock price is 56% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Andersons has a beta of 0.65, suggesting that its stock price is 35% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Valuation and Earnings

This table compares Village Super Market and Andersons”s top-line revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Village Super Market	$2.32 billion	0.28	$56.38 million	$3.68	11.88
Andersons	$10.94 billion	0.21	$95.71 million	$5.18	12.86

Andersons has higher revenue and earnings than Village Super Market. Village Super Market is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Andersons, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Dividends

Village Super Market pays an annual dividend of $1.00 per share and has a dividend yield of 2.3%. Andersons pays an annual dividend of $0.80 per share and has a dividend yield of 1.2%. Village Super Market pays out 27.2% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Andersons pays out 15.4% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Both companies have healthy payout ratios and should be able to cover their dividend payments with earnings for the next several years. Andersons has raised its dividend for 28 consecutive years.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of recent recommendations and price targets for Village Super Market and Andersons, as provided by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Village Super Market	0	0	1	0	3.00
Andersons	0	1	3	1	3.00

Andersons has a consensus price target of $95.00, suggesting a potential upside of 42.62%. Given Andersons’ higher possible upside, analysts plainly believe Andersons is more favorable than Village Super Market.

Profitability

This table compares Village Super Market and Andersons’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Village Super Market	2.27%	10.80%	5.40%
Andersons	1.62%	16.23%	5.84%

Summary

Andersons beats Village Super Market on 13 of the 17 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Village Super Market

Village Super Market, Inc. operates a chain of supermarkets in the United States. The company offers grocery, meat, produce, dairy, deli, seafood, prepared foods, and bakery and frozen foods. It also provides non-food products, including health and beauty care, general merchandise, liquor, and pharmacy products through retail and online stores. Village Super Market, Inc. was founded in 1937 and is based in Springfield, New Jersey.

About Andersons

The Andersons, Inc. operates in trade, renewables, and nutrient and industrial sectors in the United States, Canada, Mexico, Egypt, Switzerland, and internationally. It operates through three segments: Trade, Renewables, and Nutrient & Industrial. The company’s Trade segment operates grain elevators; stores commodities; and provides grain marketing, risk management, and origination services, as well as sells commodities, such as corn, soybeans, wheat, oats, ethanol, and corn oil. This segment also engages in the commodity merchandising business, as well as offers logistics for physical commodities, such as whole grains, grain products, feed ingredients, domestic fuel products, and other agricultural commodities. Its Renewables segment produces, purchases, and sells ethanol, and co-products, as well as offers facility operations, risk management, and marketing services to the ethanol plants it invests in and operates. The company’s Nutrient & Industrial segment manufactures, distributes, and retails agricultural and related plant nutrients, liquid industrial products, corncob-based products, and pelleted lime and gypsum products, as well as turf fertilizer, pesticide, and herbicide products; and crop nutrients, crop protection chemicals, and seed products, as well as provides application and agronomic services to commercial and family farmers. In addition, this segment produces corncob-based products for laboratory animal bedding and private-label cat litter, as well as absorbents, blast cleaners, carriers, and polishers; professional lawn care products for golf course and turf care markets; fertilizer and weed, and pest control products; dry and liquid agricultural nutrients, pelleted lime, gypsum, and soil amendments; and micronutrients, as well as industrial products comprising nitrogen reagents, calcium nitrate, deicers, and dust abatement products. The Andersons, Inc. was founded in 1947 and is based in Maumee, Ohio.