Astral Foods, South Africa’s largest poultry producer, expects first-half earnings to jump more than five-fold as strong demand resulted in higher sales. Rainbow, the country’s second-largest poultry producer, also delivered very good results for the first half of its financial year.
Astral Foods said in its voluntary trading update on Wednesday that it is experiencing strong demand for poultry products, which has allowed it to increase broiler production volumes.
Its headline earnings per share (HEPS) for the six months ending March, is expected to increase by at least 435% to at least R21.88.
“The group is expected to deliver robust results, notwithstanding the backdrop of a consumer environment where households continue to face pressure on essential costs, and constrained disposable income,” it said.
Meanwhile, Rainbow’s revenue increased 11.3% to R8.8 billion in the six months to end December 2025. Headline earnings more than doubled to R669.6 million, operating profit (EBITDA) was up 81.4% to R1.1 billion and earnings per share rose 110.2%. The company declared an interim dividend of 15 cents per share.
The company said a recent report showing the South African poultry industry was now more efficient than the United States, and second only to Brazil, would mean the country was increasingly competitive in global export markets. Exports would be the key to enhanced growth.
While progress had been made under the poultry master plan to expand the market and grow consumption there was “still much and urgent work to be done to enable and support meaningful exports”.
Rainbow noted that avian influenza (bird flu) was a continuing threat to the industry but that government conditions made vaccination too expensive.
“The overall cost and conditions of the Government-introduced Avian Influenza vaccination drive remains prohibitive for both the table egg and chicken industries and discussions are underway with the authorities in an attempt to remedy the current situation. The recent roll-out of a practical vaccination plan for Foot and Mouth Disease is encouraging in this regard,” it said.
