South Africa’s largest chicken producer doubles up

Astral Foods expects its earnings and headline earnings per share to double in the 2026 financial year.

This comes on the back of softer feed costs, higher feed sales, increased efficiencies, and volume growth in its poultry division.

In a trading statement released on Thursday, 29 October, Astral outlined its earnings expectations for the year through September 2026.

The group expects the following changes to its earnings compared to the 2025 financial year:

• Earnings per share: increase by between 90% and 100%
• Headline earnings per share: increase by between 95% and 105%

Astral, the biggest integrated poultry producer in South Africa, attributed this growth to various key drivers.

One critical driver was softer maize and soya prices, which resulted in lower poultry feed input costs.

This driver was complemented by increased internal feed sales at Astral, which also benefited from higher broiler production volumes and external feed sales.

The group reported that its poultry farming efficiencies improved over the year and, together with lower feed costs, benefited broiler live production costs.

Astral’s poultry sales realisations also improved, supported by volume growth in higher-margin segments of the sales mix and by the group’s ‘best-cost’ strategy.

This trading update comes after Astral reported a strong first half of the year in May 2026.

In the six months through March 2026, Astral saw its revenue grow by 11.4% to R11.94 billion, while its cost of sales fell 0.6% to R9.11 billion.

Astral’s earnings per share rose 391.7% to 2,321 cents, while headline earnings were up 446.7% to 2,318 cents.

Astral will publish its full 2026 financial results on Monday, 23 November 2026.