Cramer's 'Mad Money' Recap: ConAgra's a Brand-Name Buy

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On Wall Street, "ConAgra" is synonymous with "a joke of a company," but ConAgra Foods (CAG Quote) is a joke no more, Jim Cramer told viewers on his "Mad Money" TV show Thursday.

It's time market players take a second look at the company as its shares near their 52-week high, he said.

"There are two kinds of companies: tragedies and comedies," Cramer said.

A tragic company is one that takes itself all the way to zero, and a comedy is a company that, no matter how badly organized, cannot ruin itself, he explained.

A comedic company "is ConAgra in a nutshell," Cramer said. This company is a house full of "great brands" under one roof that has "failed over and over again."

"The [people] at ConAgra couldn't pull it together and make all these great brands work," he said.

The management thought it was in the food business. But in reality, "ConAgra doesn't sell food, it sells brands," Cramer said. "It lives or dies by its brands."

For a brand to work, it needs to be "carefully managed," he said, and nobody at ConAgra managed brands successfully.

But then last year, the Omaha, Neb., company brought in Gary Rodkin to manage its brands and appointed him as its new CEO.

"He is the reason why the stock's been climbing, and it should continue to climb," Cramer said.

However, despite the fact that the stock has been moving up, analysts don't believe that ConAgra's brands can be turned around, he said.

"ConAgra has always been a good box with bad packaging, and the analysts don't see this," Cramer said. "It is going to make people some mad money and is a turnaround story with a bright future."

ConAgra is a buy, he said.