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Flowers Foods Inc has the ticker symbol FLO and is a mid-cap member of the consumer defensive sector as a packaged foods firm. This is my third report on Flowers Foods for this Vista folio, I previously featured It on December 3, 2020, and it was selected in several of my previous portfolios.

Flowers Foods Inc is an American company producing bakery food for retail and foodservice across the United States. 

The product portfolio includes fresh bread, buns, rolls, snack cakes, and tortillas. The company distributes to supermarkets, convenience stores, and restaurants. 

The operating segments are divided into direct store delivery, which provides fresh bread, tortillas, cakes, and rolls; and the warehouse segment, which distributes fresh snack cakes and frozen bread and rolls. 

The key brands are Nature's Own, Whitewheat, Cobblestone Bread, Wonder, and Tastykake.

The company was formerly known as Flowers Industries and changed its name to Flowers Foods, Inc. in 2001. Flowers Foods, Inc. was founded in 1919 and is headquartered in Thomasville, Georgia.

Three key data points gauge dividend equities or funds like Flowers Foods Inc:

(1) Price

(2) Dividends

(3) Returns

Those three basic keys best tell whether any company has made, is making, and will make money. 

FLO Price

Flowers's price per share closed at $24.11 yesterday. One year ago its price was $22.89. Thus, price per share has grown about 5% as it recovered from last year's Covid market slump. 

Should Flowers's stock trade in the range of $20 to $30.00 this next year, its recent $24.11 price might rise by $2.89 to reach $27.00 by May 26, 2022. My estimate is  $3.20 higher of the median of five price estimates from analysts tracking FLO. 

FLO Dividends

Flowers Foods Inc's most recent quarterly dividend of $0.20 was paid on March 19th and equates to $0.80 annually which will yield 3.32% based on yesterday's $24.11 closing price. Flowers Foods Inc  has paid quarterly dividends increasing annually since 2002 (19 years.)

FLO Returns

Adding the $0.80 annual Flowers Foods Inc forward-looking dividend to my $2.89 price upside estimate shows a $3.69 potential gross gain, per share, to be reduced by any costs to trade the shares. Say we invest a little under  $1000 in FLO at $24.11 per share, we'd buy 41 shares.

A $10 broker fee (if charged) would be paid half at purchase and half at a sale and might cost us about $0.24 per share.

Subtract that maybe $0.24 brokerage cost from my estimated $3.69 gross gain per share results in a net gain of $3.45 X 41 shares = $141.45 for a 14.15% net gain on a $988.51 investment.

So it is that Flowers Foods Inc shows a possible 14.15% net gain including a 3.32% forward estimated dividend yield. 

Over the next year at this time, a $1000 investment in FLO could generate $33.20 in cash dividends. And a single share bought at yesterday's closing price was just $24.11! So, if FLO is your kind of packaged food company investment, Flowers Foods Inc's share price is $9.00 under the expected annual dividend income from $1,000 invested. This suggests now is a good time to add Flowers Foods Inc to your stock holdings. 

All of the estimates above are speculation based on the past history of Flowers Foods Inc. Only time and money invested in this stock will determine its worth.