One-glance verdict
Undervalued
$98.11 our estimate vs market $52.98
Wall Street consensus: $65.08 (-33.7% lower than our fair-value estimate)
46% below our estimate, below the bear case
Fundamentals snapshot
Tyson Foods, Inc.
TSN · NYQ · Consumer Defensive · Farm Products
Current price
$52.98
52-week range
$50.56 - $69.48
Market cap
$18.64B
Balance sheet
Stretched
3.21x Stretched
Net debt $7.27B. Interest coverage shows how many times profit covers the interest bill.
What stands out
3 Rewards
3 Risks
3 rewards · 3 risks
- Reward Revenue grew 2.3% last year.
- Reward Returns 3.3% on equity, ahead of 20% of its peers.
- Risk Insider ownership is only 2.6% (peer median: 37.6%).
- Risk Stock trades 31.4% above its 5-year average P/E.
What this company does
Tyson Foods, Inc.
Tyson Foods is one of the world's largest food companies, selling beef, pork, chicken, and prepared meals under familiar brands like Jimmy Dean, Hillshire Farm, and Ball Park. The company primarily makes money by processing livestock and selling the finished products to grocery stores and restaurants. Because its business relies on turning animals into food, its financial health is closely tied to the costs within its supply chain (the entire process of getting food from the farm to your table), such as the price of animal feed.
How the company got here
Tyson Foods began in 1935 when its founder, John W. Tyson, started delivering chickens from his truck in Arkansas. The business grew significantly during World War II because chicken wasn't rationed by the government like other foods. Over several decades and through generations of family leadership, the company expanded by acquiring other businesses, including major brands like Hillshire Farm. This growth transformed it from a simple chicken hauler into one of the world's largest food companies, processing not just chicken but also beef and pork.
What it actually does
Tyson is a major food producer that you'll find in almost any grocery store. The company sells beef, pork, chicken, and a variety of prepared foods to grocery stores, restaurant chains, and even school cafeterias. You probably recognize their brand names like Tyson chicken nuggets, Jimmy Dean sausages, Hillshire Farm lunch meat, and Ball Park hot dogs. Essentially, they are involved in nearly every step of the process, from raising animals to processing the meat and packaging it for sale.
Beef
This is Tyson's largest business segment, making up nearly 40% of the company's sales. In this part of the business, Tyson processes live cattle and cuts the beef into various products you see at the butcher counter, like steaks and roasts. They sell these products to grocery stores, meat distributors, and others who then sell to consumers. The profitability of this segment often depends on the fluctuating price of cattle.
Chicken
The chicken business is a huge part of Tyson, representing about a third of its total revenue. This segment is involved in the entire lifecycle of the chicken, from breeding and raising the birds to processing them into products like fresh chicken parts and frozen items like nuggets and patties. They sell these chicken products under the well-known Tyson brand name to grocery stores and major restaurant chains.
Prepared Foods
This segment takes beef, pork, and chicken and turns them into ready-to-eat or easy-to-prepare products, making up a significant slice of the company's business. This is where you'll find popular brands like Jimmy Dean breakfast sandwiches, Hillshire Farm deli meats, and Ball Park hot dogs. These items are sold in the refrigerated and frozen sections of grocery stores and offer higher profit margins (the amount of profit made on each sale) than fresh meat because the branding and convenience add value.
Pork
While smaller than the beef and chicken segments, the pork division is still a key part of the company. Similar to its beef operations, Tyson processes live hogs and transforms them into various pork products. These products range from fresh pork chops and roasts to ingredients for other foods, which are sold to retailers and food service distributors across the country.
What management is betting on now
The company's leadership is focused on strengthening its core businesses of beef, pork, and chicken by becoming more efficient. They are also working to grow their well-known brands, like Jimmy Dean and Hillshire Farm, by creating new products and finding new places to sell them. Another key part of their strategy is to expand their business in other countries, aiming to sell more value-added food products in international markets that are growing quickly.
Price history
How the share price has moved
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Earnings history
Last 8 quarters — what happened
Click any quarter to read the call summary and what the numbers say.
FY2024 Q4
$369.00M
FY2025 Q1
$760.00M
FY2025 Q2
$-378.00M
FY2025 Q3
$547.00M
FY2025 Q4
$248.00M
FY2026 Q1
$690.00M
FY2026 Q2
$-258.00M
FY2026 Q3
$481.00M
Revenue
$13.87B
Net income
$182.00M
Diluted EPS
0.52
Operating cash flow
$640.00M
Free cash flow
$481.00M
Fetching…
Sources
Revenue
$13.65B
Net income
$260.00M
Diluted EPS
0.73
Operating cash flow
$-113.00M
Free cash flow
$-258.00M
Fetching…
Sources
Revenue
$14.31B
Net income
$85.00M
Diluted EPS
0.24
Operating cash flow
$942.00M
Free cash flow
$690.00M
Fetching…
Sources
Revenue
$13.86B
Net income
$47.00M
Diluted EPS
0.13
Operating cash flow
$535.00M
Free cash flow
$248.00M
Fetching…
Sources
Revenue
$13.88B
Net income
$61.00M
Diluted EPS
0.17
Operating cash flow
$774.00M
Free cash flow
$547.00M
Fetching…
Sources
Revenue
$13.07B
Net income
$7.00M
Diluted EPS
0.02
Operating cash flow
$-185.00M
Free cash flow
$-378.00M
Fetching…
Sources
Revenue
$13.62B
Net income
$359.00M
Diluted EPS
1.01
Operating cash flow
$1.03B
Free cash flow
$760.00M
Fetching…
Sources
Revenue
$13.56B
Net income
$357.00M
Diluted EPS
1.00
Operating cash flow
$617.00M
Free cash flow
$369.00M
Fetching…
Sources
Is it cheap or expensive?
Fair value $98.11 vs current price $52.98
Wall Street consensus is the average analyst price target: $65.08 (-33.7% lower than our fair-value estimate).
Our most-likely fair value is $98.11 a share — about 85.2% above today's price of $52.98, so the stock currently looks cheap (undervalued).
Is it drowning in debt?
Stretched
Net debt $7.3B. Interest coverage 3.2x.
Net debt
$7.27B
Interest coverage
3.21x
Tyson Foods, Inc.'s profit covers its interest bill about 3.2 times over. which is weaker than most peers shown here.
Stretched
Worse cushion
Baseline
Better cushion
TSN
BASELINE
Tyson Foods, Inc.
Total debt $8.01B Interest coverage 3.21x This is the baseline the peer rows are being compared against.
Total debt $250.00M Interest coverage 11.47x +257% vs TSN Carries about 3.6x more debt cushion than TSN.
Total debt $3.11B Interest coverage 10.19x +218% vs TSN Carries about 3.2x more debt cushion than TSN.
Total debt $7.48B Interest coverage 3.23x +1% vs TSN Has roughly the same debt cushion as TSN.
Total debt $1.97B Interest coverage 3.41x +6% vs TSN Has roughly the same debt cushion as TSN.
What you should know
The case for and against TSN
3 Rewards
3 Risks
Rewards
-
Revenue grew 2.3% last year.
-
Returns 3.3% on equity, ahead of 20% of its peers.
-
Free cash flow was positive in 9/10 years.
Risks
-
Insider ownership is only 2.6% (peer median: 37.6%).
-
Stock trades 31.4% above its 5-year average P/E.
-
Operating margin compressed from 8.3% to 2.7% over 3 years.
The numbers
All the key metrics, grouped by purpose
Tap any ? icon to learn what it means.
Valuation
How expensive the stock looks
P/E (TTM)
32.70x
Forward P/E
12.69x
P/B
1.03x
P/S
0.33x
EV/EBITDA
9.38x
PEG ratio
1.04x
Profitability
How much profit each dollar creates
Gross margin
6.6%
Operating margin
2.7%
Net margin
1.0%
ROE
3.3%
ROA
2.6%
Health
Liquidity and balance-sheet strength
Debt / equity
0.44x
Current ratio
1.43x
Quick ratio
0.48x
Total debt
$8.01B
Total cash
$740.00M
Growth
How the business has been compounding
Revenue TTM
$55.69B
Revenue 5Y CAGR
3.7%
EPS TTM
1.62
EPS 5Y CAGR
-47.0%
Cash flow
How much cash the business throws off
Operating CF TTM
$2.00B
Free CF TTM
$1.18B
FCF margin
2.1%
Dividend
Shareholder payout
Yield
3.9%
Payout ratio
125.3%
Last ex-div date
2026-12-01