Financial Analysis: Edible Garden (NASDAQ:EDBL) and Archer Daniels Midland (NYSE:ADM)

Archer Daniels Midland (NYSE:ADM) and Edible Garden (NASDAQ:EDBL) are both consumer staples companies, but which is the better investment? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their valuation, risk, earnings, analyst recommendations, dividends, institutional ownership and profitability.

Earnings & Valuation

This table compares Archer Daniels Midland and Edible Garden”s top-line revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Archer Daniels Midland	$80.58 billion	0.51	$1.08 billion	$2.23	38.50
Edible Garden	$12.81 million	0.03	-$17.33 million	($4,939.64)	-0.00

Archer Daniels Midland has higher revenue and earnings than Edible Garden. Edible Garden is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Archer Daniels Midland, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Analyst Ratings

This is a breakdown of current ratings and target prices for Archer Daniels Midland and Edible Garden, as provided by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Archer Daniels Midland	2	5	1	0	1.88
Edible Garden	1	0	1	0	2.00

Archer Daniels Midland presently has a consensus price target of $75.33, suggesting a potential downside of 12.26%. Edible Garden has a consensus price target of $45.00, suggesting a potential upside of 1,293.19%. Given Edible Garden’s stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, analysts clearly believe Edible Garden is more favorable than Archer Daniels Midland.

Insider & Institutional Ownership

78.3% of Archer Daniels Midland shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 13.0% of Edible Garden shares are held by institutional investors. 0.6% of Archer Daniels Midland shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 0.8% of Edible Garden 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.

Profitability

This table compares Archer Daniels Midland and Edible Garden’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Archer Daniels Midland	1.34%	7.37%	3.15%
Edible Garden	-131.59%	N/A	-88.36%

Risk and Volatility

Archer Daniels Midland has a beta of 0.62, meaning that its share price is 38% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Edible Garden has a beta of 1.7, meaning that its share price is 70% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Summary

Archer Daniels Midland beats Edible Garden on 9 of the 13 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Archer Daniels Midland

Archer-Daniels-Midland Company engages in the procurement, transportation, storage, processing, and merchandising of agricultural commodities, ingredients, flavors, and solutions in the United States, Switzerland, the Cayman Islands, Brazil, Mexico, Canada, the United Kingdom, and internationally. It operates in three segments: Ag Services and Oilseeds, Carbohydrate Solutions, and Nutrition. The company originates, merchandises, stores, and transports agricultural raw materials, such as oilseeds and soft seeds. It also engages in the agricultural commodity and feed product import, export, and distribution; and various structured trade finance activities. In addition, the company offers soybean meal and oil; vegetable and salad oils and protein meals; ingredients for the food, feed, energy, and industrial customers; margarine, shortening, and other food products; and partially refined oils to produce biodiesel and glycols for use in chemicals, paints, and other industrial products. Further, it provides peanuts, peanut-derived ingredients, and cotton cellulose pulp; sweeteners, corn and wheat starches, syrup, glucose, wheat flour, and dextrose; alcohol, and other food and animal feed ingredients; ethyl alcohol and ethanol; corn gluten feed and meal; distillers' grains; corn germ; and citric acids. Additionally, the company provides proteins, natural flavors, flavor systems, natural colors, emulsifiers, soluble fiber, polyols, hydrocolloids, probiotics, prebiotics, postbiotics, enzymes, and botanical extracts; and other specialty food and feed ingredients; edible beans; formula feeds, and animal health and nutrition products; and contract and private label pet treats and food products. It also offers futures commission merchant; commodity brokerage services; cash margins and securities pledged to commodity exchange clearinghouse; and cash pledged as security under certain insurance arrangements. The company was founded in 1902 and is headquartered in Chicago, Illinois.

About Edible Garden

Edible Garden AG Incorporated, together with its subsidiaries, operate as a controlled environment agriculture farming company. It offers various packaged products, including cilantro, rosemary, mint, thyme, oregano, bay leaves, chives, poultry mix, sage, dill, buttercrunch living lettuce, basil, living butterhead lettuce, basil, parsley, arugula spring mix, baby arugula blend, baby romaine, and crisp ranch and Caesar salad kits. The company sells its products to various regional and national supermarkets. Edible Garden AG Incorporated was founded in 2020 and is based in Belvidere, New Jersey.