Forensic Analysis · Consumer Staples / Food & Beverage · as of Sep 25, 2026
Marzetti Co (MZTI)
A forensic read on Marzetti Co built from its complete SEC filings — financial-health screens, earnings quality, red flags and a price-aware rating. Reproducible math, not opinion.
C · Mixed — selective
Forensic grade
Safe
Financial health
10.3
Distress distance
Clean
Earnings quality
2
Forensic signals
14.2
P / E (ttm)
18.2%
ROE
$2.8B
Market cap
3.99%
Dividend yield
1.1%
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, going concern, valuation). 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.
Marzetti Co earns a C (Mixed — selective) forensic quality grade, and its balance-sheet distress test reads 10.3, placing it in the Safe zone. 2 forensic signals were flagged in its latest SEC filings, led by accruals ratio (% of noa).
What the filings flag
+37.8%
FY2025→FY2026
Accruals ratio (% of NOA).Net operating assets grew +37.8% relative to their own average in FY2026 — scaled by NOA itself, not by total assets, which is what the Forensic Screens card's own accrual row divides by. Accruals are building sharply — a large slice of profit sits in operating assets, not cash. An accrual is a claim that still has to be collected or written down, so the gap resolves in a later period whichever way it goes. The build is led by inventory up +21% against 0% in cost of sales and receivables up +10% against revenue +1%. A cash-flow measure on the same base disagrees: reported earnings ran behind operating cash by 9% of net operating assets, against an accruals ratio of 37.8%. The two are computed differently: the accruals ratio is the change in net operating assets over average net operating assets, while the cash-flow figure is net income less operating cash flow over that same average. Read them as two results, not one.
-0.1%/yr
FY2024–FY2026
Share count.Diluted share count changed 0% over the last 2 years to FY2026 (-0.1%/yr). Roughly flat — buybacks ($36M) are about offsetting stock comp ($10M), not shrinking the count. Per-share value isn't being meaningfully helped or hurt by the count.
Key fundamentals
Latest Revenue$1.93B
Revenue Growth YoY+1.1%
Revenue CAGR (2yr)+1.5%
Net Margin9.9%
Free Cash Flow$206.1M
Return on Equity18.2%
Debt / Equity0.19x
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 Marzetti Co's actual 10-K/10-Q/8-K filings?