The once-unstoppable organic food sector is in a slump, and it’s showing up in stock prices. Whole Foods Market (Nasdaq: WFM), the largest natural and organic foods retailer, surrendered more than a third of its market value in the past few months. Two of the larger players in organic food production and distribution, United Natural Foods (Nasdaq: UNFI) and Hain Celestial Group (Nasdaq: HAIN), have also taken some lumps this year.

But none have been pummeled lately quite like SunOpta (Nasdaq: STKL), one of the organic food industry’s most established small caps. Shares of the Canadian firm dropped by nearly half in the past three months, carving a massive chunk out of their more than 12-fold rise from Great Recession depths.

Plain and simple, shareholders are losing faith in SunOpta because it hasn’t been able to turn impressive top-line gains into consistent profit growth. For example, the company posted back-to-back earnings declines in 2012 and 2013, followed by nearly a 13% increase in 2014. This year, analysts see profits plunging 26% to $0.28 a share. Net margins have become razor thin, averaging less than 1% over the past few years.

Investors may not want to bail on SunOpta just yet, though. Despite suspect profitability metrics, it’s an industry standout with leading organic consumer brands such as Nature’s Finest all-natural juices and Pure Nature frozen organic fruits and vegetables.

SunOpta also supplies raw organic ingredients to numerous retailers such as grocery stores, beverage producers and discount outlets. Starbucks (Nasdaq: SBUX), PepsiCo (NYSE: PEP) and Costco Wholesale (Nasdaq: COST) are among its major customers.

Plus, decisive plans to jumpstart expansion are already underway.

The biggest change: SunOpta has a new CEO, former COO Hendrik Jacobs, who succeeded the prior chief Steven Bromley last month. Yet well before stepping in as top dog, Jacobs was already a strong force in efforts to take SunOpta to the next level, including the recently completed $444-million buyout of frozen organic fruit supplier Sunrise Growers.

Jacobs stressed the importance of the acquisition in a recent press release:

We believe the acquisition of Sunrise Growers is transformative for our company as it provides us with the leading market position in conventional non-GMO and organic IQF [individually quick frozen] fruit in the United States, and is expected to enhance our product mix, increase our revenue growth and margin profile, provide multiple synergy opportunities and leverage our strategic focus on integrated consumer products.

SunOpta shareholders will need to muster up a bit more patience, though, as growth initiatives won’t have an immediate effect. But the company should begin to show dramatic improvement next year, when analysts predict revenue and earnings will jump 26% and 50%, respectively.

Around the Roadrunner Portfolios

Utah Medical Products (Nasdaq: UTMD) is already up about 17% since joining the Roadrunner small-cap value portfolio on August 17. But we don’t see that as a chance just to book a quick profit. We plan to keep this prolific medical device maker around.

Its main draw: a savvy, shareholder-friendly management team that thoroughly understands one of healthcare’s choicest segments—state-of-the-art medical devices for the care of women and infants. Among those in Utah Medical’s extensive lineup of such devices are electronic monitors needed to safely manage difficult infant deliveries, tube-feeding systems for critically ill infants and surgical tools for gynecological procedures.

Consistent growth attests to Utah Medical’s expertise. Since 2010, annual sales have expanded by more than two-thirds to $42 million while earnings nearly doubled to $3.08 a share. The past year’s 27% net profit margin is nearly three times the industry average of 10%.

Roughly a third of sales are invoiced in foreign currencies, so Utah Medical is feeling the negative effects of the strong dollar—namely poor exchange rates when foreign money is converted to greenbacks. Yet the company still managed a robust third quarter, increasing earnings 8% to $0.81 a share. The gross, operating and net margins were all substantially higher, both for the quarter and the first nine months (9M) of the year.

CEO Kevin Cornwell touted third-quarter performance in a October 22nd press release:

Opposite to the previous year, an improvement in our 2015 domestic business is compensating for weaker international performance. Given the leveraged negative effect of the stronger [U.S. dollar] on profits, I believe that achieving 9M profit margins at or better than in the previous year, which is certainly better than we expected, represents excellent operating performance.

Despite the recent pop in price, shares of Utah Medical only sell for 14.7 times next year’s profit estimates. So in our book, the stock is still an attractive value.

Alliance Fiber Optic Products (Nasdaq: AFOP), is on major sale following a surprisingly weak third quarter. Shares of the fiber optic components maker quickly sank by double-digits when the market got wind of its October 28 performance report, which included a $0.23-a-share profit that missed estimates by a whopping 34%. Revenue was flat compared with the third quarter of 2014 and 28% below this year’s second quarter.

But we’re not worried. Alliance remains a favorite of ours for the long haul because it mainly supplies high-performance fiber optic components that large telecommunications companies need to build out data networks and other internet infrastructure. Analysts expect that end of the fiber optics market to balloon to more than $240 billion by 2020 from $40 billion in 2011.

But the fiber optics business is notoriously unpredictable in the short-term, so any supplier can suffer a temporary swoon in demand. That’s just what happened to Alliance in Q3. As CEO Peter Chang explained during the quarterly conference call, the company’s largest customer cutback sharply on orders simply to manage its own inventory. He added:

Despite that, our revenue from other customers grew on a year over year basis to help us achieve a similar level of revenues compared with the year-ago quarter. We believe we adjusted to this temporary shortfall well and continued to deliver strong financial performance within our industry peer group.

Chang and his management team expect a quick turnaround in revenue on rebounding demand from Alliance’s top customer and new accounts cultivated during the year. Analysts agree and predict sequential and year-over-year fourth-quarter growth of 34% and 29%, respectively.

Great news for investors on the prowl for deep value: Thanks to the recent price plunge, Alliance’s stock currently sells for less than 11 times projected 2016 earnings.

Like Utah Medical, momentum portfolio “Best Buy” Gentherm Inc. (Nasdaq: THRM) does a big chunk of its business (nearly 60%) in foreign markets, so it’s facing some pretty lousy currency exchange rates, too. But that didn’t stop the auto components maker from smashing profit estimates when it reported third-quarter results on October 29.

For the quarter, Gentherm earned $0.76 a share, beating consensus forecasts by 31% and the prior year’s third quarter by 58%. The bulk of profits came from sales of the company’s unique thermal management technologies for the automotive sector, which include a range of products such as heated and cooled seats, heated cup holders, thermal storage bins and battery temperature regulation systems.

Gentherm also made large strides with new endeavors, especially Global Power Technologies (GPT), a small but fast-growing thermoelectric technology company acquired last year. Now operating as a Gentherm subsidiary, GPT more than doubled third-quarter sales to $21.1 million, bringing its contribution to 9% of Gentherm’s top line from 4% in last year’s third quarter.

GPT’s rapid advance stems from market leadership in thermoelectric generators that produce power remotely using technology pioneered in the 1970’s for NASA’s Apollo program. Such generators are increasingly popular with offshore drillers, telecommunications providers and other companies that often operate in areas where power isn’t readily accessible.

CEO Daniel Coker’s thoughts on the Gentherm’s Q3, which also included an 8.6% year-over-year improvement in total revenue to nearly $224 million:

We had another solid and productive quarter, particularly in terms of our bottom-line performance. Our top-line revenue growth during the quarter was not quite what we expected, but that was largely due to currency headwinds. Adjusting for the currency impacts, we believe our revenue growth would have been close to 15% over the 2014 third quarter.

Coker and his management team warned that uncertain economic conditions in parts of Western Europe, Eastern Europe and Asia could hold the top line to a 6% increase for all of 2015. However, they believe growth will then rally to 10% in 2016.