Ex-CEO of Dean Foods Bought More Shares

WhiteWave is possibly the closest peer for Dean Foods; the stock is trading at a forward P/E of 23, though some premium is to be expected as its organic/healthy foods should see higher growth going forward. We can also compare Dean to diversified food companies, including H.J. Heinz Company (NYSE:HNZ), The J.M. Smucker Company (NYSE:SJM), and Lancaster Colony Corp. (NASDAQ:LANC). These stocks’ forward P/E multiples all fall between the range set by Dean and WhiteWave; in fact, they all trade between 15 and 19 times forward earnings estimates. The range is even narrower when we look at these three peers’ trailing P/Es, which cluster between 19 and 20. Heinz and Smucker reported strong earnings growth in their most recent quarter compared to the same period in the previous year, and also made our list of the most popular packaged food stocks among hedge funds for the third quarter of the year. While Dean looks cheaper in terms of its expected earnings for next year, it seems that the company has to improve its operations quite a bit in order to meet those targets and these two larger diversified food companies might be better buys.