3 Reasons to Avoid UTZ and 1 Stock to Buy Instead

Utz has gotten torched over the last six months - since October 2025, its stock price has dropped 38.9% to $7.62 per share. This might have investors contemplating their next move.

Is now the time to buy Utz, or should you be careful about including it in your portfolio? Get the full stock story straight from our expert analysts, it’s free.

Why Do We Think Utz Will Underperform?

Even though the stock has become cheaper, we're sitting this one out for now. Here are three reasons there are better opportunities than UTZ and a stock we'd rather own.

1. Slow Organic Growth Suggests Waning Demand In Core Business

When analyzing revenue growth, we care most about organic revenue growth. This metric captures a business’s performance excluding one-time events such as mergers, acquisitions, and divestitures as well as foreign currency fluctuations.

The demand for Utz’s products has been stable over the last eight quarters but fell behind the broader sector. On average, the company has posted feeble year-on-year organic revenue growth of 1.8%.

2. Fewer Distribution Channels Limit its Ceiling

With $1.44 billion in revenue over the past 12 months, Utz is a small consumer staples company, which sometimes brings disadvantages compared to larger competitors benefiting from economies of scale and negotiating leverage with retailers.

3. Previous Growth Initiatives Haven’t Paid Off Yet

Growth gives us insight into a company’s long-term potential, but how capital-efficient was that growth? A company’s ROIC explains this by showing how much operating profit it makes compared to the money it has raised (debt and equity).

Utz historically did a mediocre job investing in profitable growth initiatives. Its five-year average ROIC was 0.2%, lower than the typical cost of capital (how much it costs to raise money) for consumer staples companies.

Final Judgment

We see the value of companies helping consumers, but in the case of Utz, we’re out. After the recent drawdown, the stock trades at 9.8× forward P/E (or $7.62 per share). While this valuation is optically cheap, the potential downside is huge given its shaky fundamentals. There are better stocks to buy right now. We’d suggest looking at an all-weather company that owns household favorite Taco Bell.

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