Contrasting Nocera (NASDAQ:NCRA) & TreeHouse Foods (NYSE:THS)

Nocera (NASDAQ:NCRA) and TreeHouse Foods (NYSE:THS) are both small-cap consumer staples companies, but which is the superior stock? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their earnings, dividends, institutional ownership, risk, profitability, analyst recommendations and valuation.

Risk & Volatility

Nocera has a beta of 1.41, suggesting that its share price is 41% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, TreeHouse Foods has a beta of 0.18, suggesting that its share price is 82% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of current recommendations and price targets for Nocera and TreeHouse Foods, as provided by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Nocera	1	0	0	0	1.00
TreeHouse Foods	1	7	0	0	1.88

TreeHouse Foods has a consensus price target of $23.40, indicating a potential downside of 4.22%. Given TreeHouse Foods’ stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, analysts clearly believe TreeHouse Foods is more favorable than Nocera.

Valuation and Earnings

This table compares Nocera and TreeHouse Foods”s gross revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Nocera	$17.01 million	0.34	-$2.35 million	($0.24)	-1.68
TreeHouse Foods	$3.35 billion	0.37	$26.90 million	($4.80)	-5.09

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

Insider & Institutional Ownership

1.3% of Nocera shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 99.8% of TreeHouse Foods shares are owned by institutional investors. 5.2% of Nocera shares are owned by insiders. Comparatively, 11.1% of TreeHouse Foods shares are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, hedge funds and endowments believe a stock is poised for long-term growth.

Profitability

This table compares Nocera and TreeHouse Foods’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Nocera	-24.59%	-81.74%	-69.13%
TreeHouse Foods	-7.25%	5.52%	2.06%

Summary

TreeHouse Foods beats Nocera on 10 of the 13 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Nocera

Nocera, Inc., together with its subsidiaries, designs, develops, and produces recirculating aquaculture systems for fish farms in Taiwan. The company also offers consulting, technology transfer, and aquaculture project management services to new and existing aquaculture management business services. In addition, the company sells signature seafood porridge bowl through its flagship bento box store. The company was founded in 2014 and is headquartered in New Taipei City, Taiwan.

About TreeHouse Foods

TreeHouse Foods, Inc. manufactures and distributes private brands snacks and beverages in the United States and internationally. The company provides snacking products, such as crackers, pretzels, in-store bakery items, frozen griddle items, cookies, and candies; and beverage and drink mixes, including non-dairy creamer, coffee, broths/stocks, powdered beverages and other blends, tea, and ready-to-drink-beverages. It also offers groceries comprising pickles, refrigerated dough, hot cereal, and cheese and puddings, as well as natural, organic, and gluten-free products. The company sells its products through various distribution channels, including retailers, foodservice distributors, food-away-from-home customers, refrigerated and frozen formats, and co-manufacturers, as well as industrial and export, which includes food manufacturers and repackagers of foodservice products. TreeHouse Foods, Inc. was founded in 1862 and is based in Oak Brook, Illinois.