Head-To-Head Analysis: US Foods (NYSE:USFD) & Maplebear (NASDAQ:CART)

US Foods (NYSE:USFD) and Maplebear (NASDAQ:CART) are both large-cap consumer staples companies, but which is the better investment? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their earnings, profitability, dividends, analyst recommendations, valuation, risk and institutional ownership.

Analyst Ratings

This is a breakdown of current recommendations and price targets for US Foods and Maplebear, as reported by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
US Foods	0	4	11	0	2.73
Maplebear	0	6	14	0	2.70

US Foods currently has a consensus target price of $114.85, indicating a potential upside of 13.76%. Maplebear has a consensus target price of $58.24, indicating a potential upside of 3.18%. Given US Foods’ stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, analysts plainly believe US Foods is more favorable than Maplebear.

Risk and Volatility

US Foods has a beta of 0.86, suggesting that its share price is 14% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Maplebear has a beta of 0.87, suggesting that its share price is 13% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Institutional & Insider Ownership

98.8% of US Foods shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 63.1% of Maplebear shares are owned by institutional investors. 0.7% of US Foods shares are owned by company insiders. Comparatively, 24.0% of Maplebear shares are owned by company 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.

Profitability

This table compares US Foods and Maplebear’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
US Foods	1.81%	20.53%	6.32%
Maplebear	11.97%	20.19%	14.13%

Valuation and Earnings

This table compares US Foods and Maplebear”s revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
US Foods	$39.42 billion	0.55	$676.00 million	$3.25	31.06
Maplebear	$3.74 billion	3.49	$447.00 million	$1.83	30.84

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

Summary

US Foods beats Maplebear on 8 of the 14 factors compared between the two stocks.

About US Foods

US Foods Holding Corp., together with its subsidiaries, engages in marketing, sale, and distribution of fresh, frozen, and dry food and non-food products to foodservice customers in the United States. The company's customers include independently owned single and multi-unit restaurants, regional concepts, national restaurant chains, hospitals, nursing homes, hotels and motels, country clubs, government and military organizations, colleges and universities, and retail locations. The company was formerly known as USF Holding Corp. and changed its name to US Foods Holding Corp. in February 2016. US Foods Holding Corp. was incorporated in 2007 and is headquartered in Rosemont, Illinois.

About Maplebear

Maplebear Inc., doing business as Instacart, engages in the provision of online grocery shopping services to households in North America. It sells and delivers grocery products, as well as pickup services through a mobile application and website. It also operates virtual convenience stores; and provides software-as-a-service solutions to retailers. The company was incorporated in 2012 and is based in San Francisco, California.