Listen to the episode: Spotify | YouTube
The company behind Goldi and Festive chicken is about to roughly double its earnings. And the star of the show isn’t the chicken. It’s the mielie.
Here’s the thing nobody says out loud while the flatties are on the grid: a chicken is basically a mielie with legs. Maize and soya go in, drumsticks come out. Make the mielie cheaper and every bird costs less to grow.
Astral Foods, JSE code ARL, released a trading statement on SENS on Thursday 29 October for its year to 30 September 2026. In the six months to March 2025, the chicken side of this business ran at an operating loss. So is this a proper comeback, or a good harvest with a good press office?
Let’s follow the mielie.
What Astral actually sells
Astral isn’t just a chicken brand. It’s the whole farmyard under one roof.
The feed. Meadow Feeds mixes animal feed for Astral’s own birds, and sells it to outside farmers too, including egg farms and dairies.
The birds. Astral breeds the parent stock, hatches the day-old chicks and grows them on its farms. About 6.1 million broilers a week, a broiler being a chicken raised for meat rather than eggs.
The plate. Its abattoirs process the birds, and brands like Goldi, Festive and County Fair land in the freezer at your local shop.
That’s what “integrated poultry producer” means. Picture a bakery that grows its own wheat, mills its own flour, drives its own delivery van, and still sells flour to the bakery down the road.
The headline numbers, plain English
A trading statement is the JSE’s early warning system: companies must publish one when they’re reasonably sure earnings will move by 20% or more. Astral cleared that bar with room to spare.
Headline earnings per share are expected to rise between 95% and 105%. That’s from 2,193 cents last year to between 4,277 and 4,496 cents. Call it about R22 a share last year and about R43 to R45 this year. Roughly double.
Basic earnings per share are expected up 90% to 100%, to between 4,324 and 4,552 cents.
Two things to keep in mind. These figures haven’t been reviewed by the auditors yet. And full results are due on SENS on Monday, 23 November. Right now we’re reading the menu. The meal arrives later.
None of this was a bolt from the blue, either. At the half-year in May, Astral’s operating profit had already jumped to R1,214 million from R271 million. Astral itself said that came “off a low base”. Fair. When last year’s mark was that low, almost any improvement looks like a miracle on paper.
Follow the mielie
So where did the money come from? Feed is the biggest cost of growing a chicken, and feed is mostly maize and soya.
In the six months to March, the average yellow maize price on SAFEX, the JSE’s grain market, was R3,470 a ton. A year earlier it was R5,004. That’s about 30% cheaper on the single biggest ingredient.
Then Astral filled the sheds. Broiler production ran at full capacity and on-farm performance hit what the company called an all-time high. More birds, each one cheaper to grow, spreading the fixed costs of farms and abattoirs over more chicken.
Selling prices helped too. They’d been squeezed the year before, then recovered, with more of the sales mix going into higher margin products.
Put it together and the group operating margin went from 2.5% to 10.2%. Out of every R100 of sales, about R10 stayed behind as operating profit, up from R2.50. That’s the difference between change for a single sweet and enough for a proper chocolate bar.
The Poultry Division alone swung from an operating loss of R26 million to an operating profit of R848 million. Same chickens. Much happier mielie.
The 29 October statement lists the same drivers for the full year: softer maize and soya prices, higher feed sales inside and outside the group, better farming efficiency, better selling prices and a richer sales mix.
The bull case
- Chicken is the protein people fall back on. In Astral’s words, chicken is “an affordable and preferred source of protein”. When budgets tighten, the steak gets rarer and the drumstick gets regular.
- The harvest. South Africa was set for a record grain and oilseed harvest, which Astral said supports stable feed costs in the short term.
- Cash and dividends. Astral had R1,152 million in cash at 31 March and declared an interim dividend of R11.60 a share at two times cover. Dividend cover of two means earnings were twice the payout, so half the profit stayed in the business.
- Bird flu protection. About 30% of Astral’s breeding stock was set to be vaccinated against bird flu this winter. Not the whole flock, but a start.
Everyday version: cheap feed in, full sheds, money in the bank and some left over for the shareholders.
The bear case
- Chicken runs in cycles. The Poultry Division made an operating loss in the six months to March 2025. The mielie that helped this year can hurt next year.
- The second half was slower. Take the full-year headline earnings range and subtract the first half’s 2,318 cents, and the second half comes out at roughly 1,959 to 2,178 cents. Still strong, but below the first half.
- Weather and costs. Astral flagged a developing El Niño and a strong likelihood of drought for the 2026-27 summer crop, a global fertiliser shortage, and higher fuel prices linked to the Middle East conflict. Drought hits maize first, and maize is the chicken’s dinner.
- Imports. Poultry imports averaged 43,521 tons a month in the first half, up 39.7%, mostly from Brazil. That’s a lot of competition parked right next to your stall.
- Bird flu. About 30% protected also means about 70% not.
Everyday version: a business whose biggest cost grows in a field will always care a lot about the weather report.
What to watch
Monday, 23 November is the main event. Full-year results, the final dividend, whether the two times cover holds, and what management says about feed costs and the coming summer crop.
After that, watch the rain. If El Niño delivers a drought, maize prices usually feel it first, and the mielie with legs gets expensive to feed again.
And keep half an eye on imports and bird flu. Neither sends a calendar invite.
None of this is a signal to do anything. It just tells you whether the feed bill stays friendly.
The short version
Astral expects headline earnings per share to roughly double for the year to September. Cheaper maize and soya did the heavy lifting, full sheds and better selling prices did the rest. The risks are the same things that helped: weather, feed prices, imports and bird flu, plus a second half that was slower than the first.
In chicken, the profit is grown in the mielie field long before it reaches the plate.
Listen to the full Maze Dive on Spotify: Spotify. Watch it on YouTube: YouTube.
This is not financial advice. While my jokes may be more battered than a Friday chicken piece, please do your own research and speak to a licensed advisor. Free Maze Mail list:
Sources: Astral Foods Trading Statement and Operational Update, SENS 29 Oct 2026 07:05 (https://www.moneyweb.co.za/mny_sens/astral-foods-limited-trading-statement-and-operational-update/); Astral Foods Interim Results Press Release, six months ended 31 Mar 2026 (https://www.astralfoods.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/Astral-Interim-Results-Press-Release-for-the-six-months-ended-31-March-2026.pdf); Astral unaudited condensed interim results (https://senspdf.jse.co.za/documents/2026/jse/isse/arl/ie2026.PDF).