As quick service restaurant chains Chick-fil-A and Popeyes conduct their feud over who has the best chicken sandwich, the host of CNBC television show “Mad Money” says there should be a clear-cut winner in this battle: Tyson Foods.
Host Jim Cramer, who makes recommendations on what the hot stocks to buy are, addressed the rivalry over what the best sandwich is, and how it would impact investors.
Chick-fil-A is privately held and therefore not an investment option, while Popeyes is part of the publicly traded Restaurant Brands International (RBI).
But stock in RBI, which is also the parent company of Burger King and Tim Hortons, wasn’t what Cramer was advocating. Instead, it was stock in Tyson Foods, a multi-protein company that is the largest poultry company in the United States.
“Maybe the real takeaway here is that people just love chicken, and if that’s the case, you don’t need to invest in the chicken war directly, you need to buy an arms dealer,” Cramer said on his program.
“When you see all these people lined up outside Popeyes waiting for a bit of their terrific new chicken sandwich, you should by the biggest arms dealer in the world – Tyson Foods. Whether Chick-fil-A or Popeyes wins the chicken wars, Tyson will always come out ahead.”
Tyson Foods, according to the WATTAgNet Top Poultry Companies Database, processed 192.33 million pounds of ready-to-cook chicken on a weekly basis in 2018. It’s closest rival in the United States is Pilgrim’s Pride, which processed 156.02 million pounds on a weekly basis in 2018.
Cramer also touted Tyson’s surge in stock value since Noel White took over as the company’s CEO in 2018, as well as the company’s strength as a diversified protein producer. The company is also a major processor of turkey, pork and beef, and is emerging in the plant-based protein space.
