Oppenheimer’s Favorite Stocks For Next 12 Months: Top 32 Stock Picks

20. Freshpet, Inc. (NASDAQ:FRPT)

Share Price Upside: 6%

Number of Hedge Fund Investors In Q2 2024: 39

Average Analyst Share Price Target: $146.81

Freshpet, Inc. (NASDAQ:FRPT) is a mid sized American company that sells meals and other food items for pets. It is one of the few companies of its kind that operates in the fresh pet meal industry. This provides Freshpet, Inc. (NASDAQ:FRPT) with a competitive advantage in its niche, particularly given the growth in US pet ownership over the past couple of decades. Data shows that while 56% of American households owned a pet in 1988 this jumped by ten percentage points to sit at 66% in 2024. At the same time, since it’s a pure play pet food provider, Freshpet, Inc. (NASDAQ:FRPT) is highly vulnerable to cyclical downtrends. This was evidenced by data from the American Pet Products Association’s (APPA) survey which showed that 19% of pet owners planned to spend less on their companies, a notable uptick over the 9% figure for 2020. Oppenheimer is quite bullish though as it shares that it looks “very favorably upon [its] global growth prospects and see multiple sales drivers for the company.”

Artisan Partners mentioned Freshpet, Inc. (NASDAQ:FRPT) in its Q4 2023 investor letter. Here is what the firm said:

“Freshpet sells refrigerated, fresh pet food. Our thesis is predicated on the company sitting at the intersection of two significant, long- duration trends: health and wellness, and the humanization of pets. It also has a sticky customer base, high barriers to entry and a unique distribution model. However, given a challenging backdrop of consumers trading down and increased promotional activity, we decided to move on as the stock approached our estimate of private market value.”