Utz (UTZ) Q3 earnings: what to expect

Snack food company Utz Brands (NYSE:UTZ) will be reporting earnings this Friday before the bell. Here’s what you need to know.

Utz missed analysts’ revenue expectations last quarter, reporting revenues of $371.8 million, up 1.4% year on year. It was a mixed quarter for the company, with an impressive beat of analysts’ EBITDA estimates but a significant miss of analysts’ gross margin estimates.

Is Utz a buy or sell going into earnings? Read our full analysis here, it’s free for active Edge members.

This quarter, the market is expecting Utz’s revenue to grow 1.8% year on year, slowing from the 3.4% increase it recorded in the same quarter last year.

Analysts covering the company have generally reconfirmed their estimates over the last 30 days, suggesting they anticipate the business will stay the course heading into earnings. Utz has missed Wall Street’s revenue estimates multiple times over the last two years.

Looking at Utz’s peers in the shelf-stable food segment, some have already reported their Q3 results, giving us a hint as to what we can expect. Conagra’s revenues decreased 1.4% year on year, meeting analysts’ expectations, and Hershey reported revenues up 3%, topping estimates by 0.8%. Conagra traded down 6.6% following the results while Hershey was up 1.1%.

Read our full analysis of Conagra’s results here and Hershey’s results here.

There has been positive sentiment among investors in the shelf-stable food segment, with share prices up 11.3% on average over the last month. Utz’s stock price was unchanged during the same time and is heading into earnings with an average analyst price target of $14.31 (compared to the current share price of $14.29).

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