Jefferies' Top Picks In Food: Hain, WhiteWave, Ingredion, Snyder's-Lance

Jefferies said Hain Celestial Group Inc

continues to be its top pick in food space, followed by WhiteWave Foods Co

, Ingredion Inc

and Snyder's-Lance Inc

. Akshay Jagdale noted that Tyson Foods, Inc.

was one of his top picks but he sees the risk/reward as being more balanced now given its significant outperformance. The analyst has raised the price target of Tyson Foods to $78 from $70 and WhiteWave Foods to $48 from $44. Following is a brief take of Jefferies on its top picks: HAIN (Buy; $50 PT): "We continue to believe HAIN represents very attractive value at the current valuation. The company's growth profile continues to rank among the highest in our coverage universe - we estimate ~10% EBITDA CAGR over the next 3 years (compared to an average of ~6% for our coverage space)," Jagdale wrote in a note. The analyst noted that the company's total addressable market (TAM) could at least double over the next 5 years. WWAV (Buy; $48 PT): "Of our 17-company coverage universe, WWAV's expected 3-year EBITDA growth of 15% is second only to BETR, which is a much smaller and less mature company," Jagdale wrote. The analyst said the company's organic growth will be driven by plant-based nutritional supplements (Vega) and plant-based foods & beverages. INGR (Buy; $130 PT): "Our long-term positive thesis is driven mainly by the Specialty business (~25% of sales, ~40% of EBIT) which remains undervalued despite the stock's strong outperformance in recent months," Jagdale noted. The analyst said the company's near-term guidance on its core (corn starch) business is conservative and he expects 11 percent base business EBIT growth in North America for the remainder of the year. LNCE (Buy; $40 PT): Jagdale expects LNCE's earnings growth to comfortably exceed his broader packaged food group due to accretion from the recently completed Diamond Foods acquisition. The analyst noted that the acquisition adds scale, geographical presence and relevance with retailers to LNCE's chips business. In addition, Diamond Foods walnut business is expected to benefit from expected drop in walnut costs to about 50 percent this year.