Forensic Analysis · Consumer Staples / Food & Beverage · as of Aug 11, 2026
Freshpet, Inc. (FRPT)
A forensic read on Freshpet, Inc. built from its complete SEC filings — financial-health screens, earnings quality, red flags and a price-aware rating. Reproducible math, not opinion.
D · Weak — demands caution
Forensic grade
Safe
Financial health
7.3
Distress distance
Clean
Earnings quality
4
Forensic signals
16.0
P / E (ttm)
11.5%
ROE
$3.3B
Market cap
13.0%
Revenue growth
This free snapshot doesn't read filing or proxy text, so the auditor-quality and governance checks that can lower a grade were not evaluated (red flags, auditor quality, say on pay, board independence). Those checks only ever lower a grade, so the full analysis can land below the grade above but never above it — treat it as the most favourable reading, not the settled one.
Freshpet, Inc. earns a D (Weak — demands caution) forensic quality grade, and its balance-sheet distress test reads 7.3, placing it in the Safe zone. 4 forensic signals were flagged in its latest SEC filings, led by return on invested capital.
What the filings flag
4.8%
FY2025
Return on invested capital.Return on invested capital is 4.8% in the latest fiscal year and rising from -5% — well below its ~8% cost of capital, so reinvested dollars may be destroying value, not building it.
+6.7%/yr
FY2022–FY2025
Share-count dilution.Diluted share count changed +21% over the last 3 years to FY2025 (+6.7%/yr). The count is growing: more stock was issued than repurchased over this window, so aggregate results grew faster than their per-share equivalents. That's ~6.7% shaved off per-share growth every year — total profit has to grow that much just to keep earnings-per-share flat, and a stake held since FY2022 has been diluted ~18%.
1.3% of rev
FY2025
Stock-based comp load.Stock-based compensation ran 1.3% of revenue and 112% of free cash flow in FY2025 — about $0.25 per diluted share. The cost of it is not in the cash flow — no cash left the business — it is in the count: holders gave up about 6.7% of the company a year, and that rate is not falling. That is the figure to weigh, not the share of free cash flow.
+16.8%
FY2024→FY2025
Accruals ratio (% of NOA).Net operating assets grew +16.8% relative to their own average in FY2025 — scaled by NOA itself, not total assets (see the Forensic Screens card's differently-scaled Sloan Accrual Ratio for that read). Accruals are building faster than is comfortable — part of profit is sitting in the balance sheet rather than turning to cash. The cash-flow cross-check is more mixed: reported earnings ran in line with operating cash by 2% of net operating assets, diverging from the balance-sheet accrual read.
Key fundamentals
Latest Revenue$1.10B
Revenue Growth YoY+13.0%
Revenue CAGR (3yr)+22.8%
Net Margin12.6%
Free Cash Flow$12.4M
Return on Equity11.5%
The forensic grade and screens above are free — no account needed. Want the AI investment read on top — the 0–100 rating, thesis, bull-vs-bear, red flags and the 12-month scenario, written from Freshpet, Inc.'s actual 10-K/10-Q/8-K filings?