Bonduelle Writes Down Americas as Fresh Sales Shrink

Bonduelle booked a €35 million ($39.2 million) goodwill charge on its North American business after fresh ready-to-eat sales stalled, and continuing operations slipped to a €16.9 million loss. Group net income still came in at €16.2 million for the year to June 30, 2026, because discontinued operations, led by the sale of packaged salads in France, contributed €33.1 million.

Chief executive Xavier Unkovic blamed Chinese sweet corn, energy costs and a heatwave. Those shocks are real. They are also not the whole P&L. Canned and frozen lines grew. The fresh processed perimeter shrank, and the remaining bowls business in the United States is the asset the auditors marked down.

A €35 Million Americas Charge Turns Continuing Operations Red

The Supervisory Board, chaired by Jean-Pierre Vannier, reviewed the certified accounts on October 2, 2026. Sales were €2,186.2 million, down 0.8 percent as reported and up 0.4 percent like-for-like. Current operating income was €79.6 million, down 5.0 percent, and the current operating margin was 3.6 percent against 3.8 percent a year earlier.

Like-for-like, current operating income was €75.0 million, down 10.5 percent, and the margin was 3.4 percent. The group still generated more cash from operations. Current operating cash flow rose to €98.9 million from €71.4 million, a €27.5 million increase the company tied to lower inventories and tighter capital spending.

THE YEAR IN FOUR FIGURES

• Group sales: €2,186.2 million, against €2,203.8 million in 2024-2025.
• Current operating income: €79.6 million, against €83.8 million, a 16 basis-point margin slip to 3.6 percent.
• Continuing operations: a €16.9 million loss, against a €19.7 million profit a year earlier.
• Group net income: €16.2 million, against an €11.5 million loss, after €33.1 million from discontinued operations.

Challenges in the North American fresh ready-to-eat business led to a 35 million euros impairment charge on Bonduelle Americas goodwill. US logistics optimisation plus restructuring and reorganisation costs took total non-recurring charges to €47.3 million. Reported operating income therefore fell to €32.3 million from €73.0 million.

Finance costs eased. Net financial result improved to a €29.2 million expense from €35.1 million, with interest of €28.8 million as the group’s financing cost fell to 3.15 percent from 3.81 percent. Foreign exchange was flat, against a €2.0 million loss a year earlier. Tax rose to €24.4 million from €20.1 million. After those lines, continuing operations were in the red. The €16.2 million group profit is a different figure, and it exists because of businesses the group has already sold or shut.

Bagged Salads Leave the Books in France and Germany

The impairment sits at the end of a longer retreat from bagged salad. Unkovic’s Transform to Win plan, set out on August 29, 2024, named those units as structurally weak. The group then sold them, booked the French gain in discontinued operations, and kept a smaller fresh platform that still had to be tested for impairment.

THE FRESH EXITS ON THE CALENDAR

1. August 29, 2024: Transform to Win names the French and German packaged salad sales as part of the turnaround.
2. March 31, 2025: Assets of the packaged salad business in Germany pass to Taylor Farms. The unit had €60 million of sales and was described as structurally loss-making. A brand licence keeps the Bonduelle name on bags.
3. July 17, 2025: The French packaged salad business transfers to LSDH Group, a deal first announced on August 29, 2024. The scope was about 3.5 percent of group turnover, or €80 million, in 2024-2025. LSDH keeps the brand under licence. The capital gain sits inside the €33.1 million discontinued line, with the closed BF Agricola operations in Spain.
4. November 2025: Bonduelle agrees to sell its Cristalina factory in Goiás, Brazil, to Stella d’Oro Alimentos. Terms were not disclosed. The 2024-2025 annual report listed 201 staff in Brazil. The group said it intends to keep a commercial presence.
5. June 30, 2026: The remaining North American fresh ready-to-eat business triggers the €35 million goodwill write-down on Bonduelle Americas.

Taylor Farms, with Foodiverse, said it had taken two production plants in Germany that make ready-to-eat salads, with Foodiverse running the combined sites. Bonduelle still sells canned and frozen vegetables in Germany. The brand stays on salad bags only as a licence. That is the pattern of the year: the name remains on the shelf, the factories and the losses do not.

Canned and Frozen Grow While Fresh Processed Shrinks

Europe, 62.8 percent of sales, rose 1.3 percent to €1,372.1 million, the same rate like-for-like. Non-Europe, 37.2 percent, fell 4.1 percent as reported to €814.0 million and 1.0 percent like-for-like. North America fell 5.6 percent like-for-like and 12.4 percent as reported after a year of growth in 2024-2025. Foodservice in the region rose 9.4 percent. Eurasia, export and Mercosur rose 8.7 percent like-for-like and 13.6 percent as reported.

The product mix is clearer than the map. Canned food is still more than half the group. Frozen grew. Fresh processed, the bucket that holds prepared salads and ready-to-eat meals, took the volume out.

SALES BY PRODUCT LINE

In Europe, canned rose 1.5 percent, helped by branded tins, including Cassegrain, and by a slow repair in private-label volumes after tariffs on Chinese sweet corn. Frozen rose 2.1 percent on branded retail launches and foodservice. Fresh prepared salads fell 0.4 percent on competition and lost listings, then rose 4.4 percent in the fourth quarter on weather and new branded products in France and Italy. Fourth-quarter group sales were €548.0 million, down 0.5 percent like-for-like.

Europe’s current operating profit still fell. The group cited private-label price pressure and high stocks, especially sweet corn. Outside Europe, current operating profit improved a little on Eurasian price rises. Bonduelle Americas’ profitability was “broadly stable,” the results said, even before the goodwill charge. Overhead cuts and efficiency programmes helped, then underused plants, after a deliberate stock drawdown, took some of that back.

Duties on Chinese Sweet Corn Came After the Hit

Unkovic’s letter puts three external shocks in one sentence, and canned corn is the first of them. The European Commission opened an anti-dumping case on prepared or preserved sweetcorn kernels from China on December 9, 2024. Inspectors visited Bonduelle Europe Long Life in France and Bonduelle Central Europe in Hungary as Union producers. Provisional duties landed on August 8, 2025. A definitive anti-dumping duty on sweetcorn was imposed on February 5, 2026 and applied from February 7, 2026, at rates of up to 54.3 percent of the net free-at-Union-frontier price.

By then the fiscal year was more than half gone. The group said private-label volumes in Europe only began to normalise after the tariffs. It also said large Chinese shipments had already pressed volumes and selling prices, and that leftover corn stocks still weighed on European margins. The duty arrived as a correction, not as a full-year shield.

THE THREE SHOCKS UNKOVIC NAMED

• Chinese sweet corn: Unregulated imports, the company said, pressed both volumes and selling prices before Union tariffs took hold.
• Energy costs: The letter ties the rise to international geopolitical tensions.
• The 2026 harvest: An exceptional heatwave, Unkovic said, hit agricultural yields. He has separately put pea and carrot yield losses at 23 to 24 percent and maize losses at 10 to 15 percent.

The French argument around those results has been about the harvest and the next round of retailer talks, not about Irwindale. That split is in the accounts too. Canned food, the line most exposed to Chinese corn, still grew 3.5 percent like-for-like. Fresh processed, the line that holds the Americas bowls, fell 4.1 percent like-for-like and 8.8 percent as reported. The write-down attached to the second story.

The past fiscal year unfolded in a particularly challenging environment, marked by the accumulation of major external shocks. In particular, our group faced the impact of unregulated imports of Chinese sweet corn, which put pressure on both volumes and selling prices, rising energy costs driven by international geopolitical tensions, and an exceptional heatwave that significantly affected agricultural yields for the 2026 harvest.

Xavier Unkovic, Chief Executive Officer, Bonduelle 2025-2026 annual results

He added that the shocks slowed the profitability path and “temporarily weighed the delivery of our roadmap,” and that they “do not call into question the fundamentals of our strategy.” Current operating margin moved 16 basis points. Continuing operations still lost €16.9 million. Both of those sentences are in the same report.

What the North American Bowls Business Still Is

Bonduelle Americas is the US ready-to-eat business built on Ready Pac Foods, bought in 2017, and run from Irwindale, California, under chief executive Bobby Chacko. For years the bags and bowls carried the Ready Pac and Bistro names. In 2024 and 2025 the group put the Bonduelle brand on US packaging for the first time and said it was transitioning Ready Pac products to Bonduelle by July 2025.

The remaining fresh bet is meal bowls, not the bagged salads already sold in France and Germany.

WHAT STILL SITS IN NORTH AMERICAN FRESH

• Bistro bowls: Grab-and-go salads with greens, protein and dressing, the line Ready Pac built and Bonduelle still sells in US grocery.
• Loaded bowls: A 2024 extension with more toppings, launched under the Bonduelle Bistro name as the US brand switch began.
• Lunch Bowls: Shelf-stable, plant-based meals launched on February 20, 2025, the group’s first ambient US line, with no fridge required.

Inflation, agricultural crises and tight raw-material supply hit the region, the annual sales notice said, even as the company pointed to “sustained innovation” and the 9.4 percent foodservice rebound. Retail was the drag. The goodwill test is a statement about expected cash from that remaining platform, not about a factory the group has already sold. After Europe’s salad exits, North America is where fresh ready-to-eat still has to earn its keep, and the €35 million charge is the number attached to that test.

Debt, a 25-Cent Dividend and a Narrower Plan

Net debt was €577.4 million on June 30, 2026, against €571.2 million a year earlier and €561.9 million on June 30, 2024. Gearing eased to 0.92 from 0.94. The leverage ratio rose to 3.58 from 3.38. Cash generation improved. The balance sheet did not get lighter.

For the year ahead the group said it will focus on holding profitability, lifting cash flow and cutting debt, in a climate it still calls uncertain on farms and in geopolitics. In August it had already warned that current operating income would come in a little under the revised €80 million target set at the half year. The final figure was €79.6 million.

Shareholders will be asked, at the Annual General Meeting on December 3, 2026, to approve a dividend of €0.25 a share. That meeting will be asked to pay out group net income that is black because packaged salads in France have left the perimeter, while the Americas bowls business has been written down and continuing operations have not yet earned a profit.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why Did Bonduelle Impair Its Americas Goodwill?

The charge is a €35 million write-down of goodwill on Bonduelle Americas, taken because of challenges in North American fresh ready-to-eat, and it is separate from current operating income of €79.6 million. Combined with US logistics work and restructuring, non-recurring items reached €47.3 million, which is why reported operating income was €32.3 million rather than the current operating figure.

Which Packaged Salad Units Has Bonduelle Sold?

Germany went to Taylor Farms on March 31, 2025, with Foodiverse running the Straelen and Reutlingen plants together with its Thurland site under the Greenfresh name, and France went to LSDH Group on July 17, 2025. Both buyers hold a licence to keep the Bonduelle brand on bags; canned and frozen sales in those countries stayed with Bonduelle.

What EU Duties Apply to Chinese Sweet Corn?

The product is sweetcorn kernels prepared or preserved, not frozen, under CN codes ex 2001 90 30 and ex 2005 80 00. After registration of imports in February 2025 and provisional duties in August 2025, the definitive regulation of February 5, 2026 collects those duties from February 7, 2026 at company-specific rates, with a residual rate of 54.3 percent.

How Did Discontinued Operations Flip Group Profit?

Continuing operations lost €16.9 million; discontinued operations contributed €33.1 million, mainly the French salad disposal plus BF Agricola in Spain, so consolidated net income was €16.2 million. Two years earlier the group had reported a consolidated loss of €111 million, which is why the 2025-2026 print is being described as a return to profit even though the kept business did not earn one.

When Do Shareholders Vote on the Dividend?

The Annual General Meeting is on December 3, 2026, and the proposed ordinary dividend is €0.25 a share. Equity-accounted income of €4.3 million, mainly from Nortera Foods, is already inside the continuing-operations result that still showed a loss, so the payout rests on the consolidated figure that includes discontinued gains.

Disclaimer: This article is news reporting and analysis of Bonduelle’s published accounts and related company statements, and it is for information only. It is not investment advice, a recommendation to buy or sell Bonduelle shares or any other security, and it is not a forecast of future earnings, dividends or debt. Readers who are considering any investment decision should consult a qualified financial adviser or other licensed professional who can review their own circumstances. Figures, ratings and corporate statuses reflect the company releases, Commission texts and buyer statements cited above as of the dates on those documents, and they may change with later filings, restatements or market moves.