Critical Survey: Monster Beverage (NASDAQ:MNST) and Westrock Coffee (NASDAQ:WEST)

Monster Beverage (NASDAQ:MNST) and Westrock Coffee (NASDAQ:WEST) are both consumer staples companies, but which is the better business? We will compare the two companies based on the strength of their analyst recommendations, institutional ownership, profitability, valuation, risk, dividends and earnings.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a breakdown of recent recommendations for Monster Beverage and Westrock Coffee, as reported by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Monster Beverage	2	9	13	2	2.58
Westrock Coffee	1	0	3	0	2.50

Monster Beverage presently has a consensus target price of $71.45, indicating a potential downside of 3.10%. Westrock Coffee has a consensus target price of $9.00, indicating a potential upside of 123.33%. Given Westrock Coffee’s higher probable upside, analysts clearly believe Westrock Coffee is more favorable than Monster Beverage.

Institutional and Insider Ownership

72.4% of Monster Beverage shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 45.1% of Westrock Coffee shares are owned by institutional investors. 7.8% of Monster Beverage shares are owned by company insiders. Comparatively, 27.7% of Westrock Coffee shares are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, large money managers and hedge funds believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Risk and Volatility

Monster Beverage has a beta of 0.48, indicating that its stock price is 52% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Westrock Coffee has a beta of 0.47, indicating that its stock price is 53% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Profitability

This table compares Monster Beverage and Westrock Coffee’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Monster Beverage	21.65%	27.76%	22.20%
Westrock Coffee	-8.58%	-98.07%	-4.26%

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares Monster Beverage and Westrock Coffee”s revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Monster Beverage	$7.49 billion	9.62	$1.51 billion	$1.76	41.90
Westrock Coffee	$850.73 million	0.46	-$80.30 million	($0.98)	-4.11

Monster Beverage has higher revenue and earnings than Westrock Coffee. Westrock Coffee is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Monster Beverage, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Summary

Monster Beverage beats Westrock Coffee on 13 of the 15 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Monster Beverage

Monster Beverage Corporation, through its subsidiaries, engages in development, marketing, sale, and distribution of energy drink beverages and concentrates in the United States and internationally. The company operates through three segments: Monster Energy Drinks, Strategic Brands, Alcohol Brands, and Other. It offers carbonated non-carbonated energy drinks, ready-to-drink iced teas, lemonades, juice cocktails, single-serve juices and fruit beverages, ready-to-drink dairy and coffee drinks, energy drinks, sports drinks and single-serve still waters, and sodas that are considered natural, sparkling juices, and flavored sparkling beverages. The company sells its products to full service beverage bottlers/distributors, retail grocery and specialty chains, wholesalers, club stores, mass merchandisers, convenience chains, food service customers, value stores, e-commerce retailers, and the military; and concentrates and/or beverage bases to authorized bottling and canning operations. It provides its products under the Monster Energy, Monster Energy Ultra, Monster Rehab, Monster Energy Nitro, Java Monster, Punch Monster, Juice Monster, Muscle Monster, Espresso Monster, Monster Tour Water, Fury, Monster MAXX, Caffe Monster, Monster Hydro, Monster HydroSport Super Fuel, Monster Dragon Tea, Reign Total Body Fuel, and Reign Inferno Thermogenic Fuel, Reign Storm, Bang Energy, NOS, Full Throttle, Burn, Mother, Nalu, Ultra Energy, Play and Power Play (stylized), Relentless, BPM, BU, Gladiator, Samurai, Live+, Predator, and Fury brands. The company was formerly known as Hansen Natural Corporation and changed its name to Monster Beverage Corporation in January 2012. Monster Beverage Corporation was founded in 1985 and is headquartered in Corona, California.

About Westrock Coffee

Westrock Coffee Company, LLC operates as an integrated coffee, tea, flavors, extracts, and ingredients solutions provider in the United States and internationally. It operates through two segments, Beverage Solutions, and Sustainable Sourcing & Traceability (SS&T). The Beverage Solutions segment provides various packaging, including branded and private label coffee in bags, fractional packs, and single serve cups, as well as extract solutions for applications in cold brew and ready-to-drink offerings. The SS&T segment engages in delivery and settlement of forward sales contracts for green coffee. The company offers coffee sourcing, supply chain management, product development, roasting, packaging, and distribution services to the retail, food service and restaurant, convenience store and travel center, non-commercial account, CPG, and hospitality industries. Westrock Coffee Company, LLC was founded in 2009 and is headquartered in Little Rock, Arkansas.