Darling Ingredients

Darling earned 267 million dollars this quarter, up from just 19 million a year ago. Sales grew about 15% to nearly 1.8 billion dollars, and core profit more than doubled to about 514 million. The feed business alone grew its core profit 42% to about 248 million, thanks to strong demand for protein.

Darling cut its net debt by about 420 million dollars this quarter and bought back about 76 million dollars of its own stock. Its debt now equals about 1.7 years of core profit, down from 2.9 at the start of the year. The fuel partnership also sent home 171 million dollars in cash, and expects to make about 325 million gallons next quarter with strong profits into 2027.

Core profit of about 514 million dollars was well below last quarter's 742 million. Darling's share of the fuel partnership's profit nearly halved, from 389 million to 204 million, after a delayed green jet fuel shipment, a short hydrogen outage, and swings in heating oil prices. Management expects those to reverse next quarter, but that is a promise, not a result yet.

The fuel segment's core profit jumped from about 22 million dollars to about 228 million in a year, largely because government clean fuel requirements got stronger. Rules like that can change with the political mood. Trade policy is already biting too, since U.S. tariffs on Brazilian collagen hurt South American sales and food profit grew only about 3% to roughly 74 million.