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# Quantum Foods expects earnings up by as much as 29%, and cheaper feed did a lot of the work
- URL: https://www.businessbagel.com/quantum-foods-expects-earnings-up-by-as-much-as-29-and-cheaper-feed-did-a-lot-of-the-work/
- Published: 2026-10-29T03:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-29T02:59:59.000Z
- Description: Quantum Foods says its earnings per share will rise by 17% to 29% for the year to September, even though two of its businesses, broilers and eggs, earned less.
- Author: Christian Maidman
- Tags: Companies, Business Bagel News

Quantum Foods works at nearly every step between a bag of chicken feed and a tray of eggs: it mills the feed, breeds and hatches chicks, rears young hens for egg farmers, and sells eggs. On Tuesday it told the JSE that its earnings for the year to September will be clearly higher.

The announcement is a trading statement, the early warning a listed company gives once it is reasonably certain its earnings will move by a wide margin, with the full results following later. Headline earnings per share, the profit figure with one-off items stripped out, will be between 17% and 29% higher than last year's 134.4 cents. None of it has been reviewed by the company's auditors yet.

## A year that mostly went Quantum's way

Most of the big things broke in its favour. Demand for poultry rose, the rand was stronger against the dollar, feed ingredients cost less, no serious disease outbreak hit its farms, and load-shedding barely featured.

The second half took some of that back. Fuel got dearer as instability in the Middle East dragged on, which raised the cost of moving everything around, while higher inflation and interest rates left shoppers with less to spend.

## Where the gains landed, and where they did not

Two businesses carried the year. Feed sold the same amount to outside customers but ran its mills more efficiently, and the expanded Malmesbury mill, finished in the first half, helped. Layer farming, which supplies young hens to egg producers, earned significantly more, thanks to better breeding, more day-old pullets sold and insurance money for last year's losses.

Two went backwards. Broiler farming, which supplies chicks and live birds for meat, earned less, because thinner margins on contracted live-bird sales and higher running costs ate the gains from selling more. The egg business sold slightly more eggs and still earned less, after average selling prices fell 5%.

Outside South Africa the news was better. Earnings from the other African businesses were significantly higher: Zambia gained from cheaper feed, fewer power cuts and more demand for chicks and feed, Uganda's profitability improved, and Mozambique edged up despite lower egg prices.

The full results are due on SENS on or about 27 November, and they will turn the range into a single number.