Record Sales and Profits for Cal-Maine Foods, Plus a Prepared Foods Acquisition
Record egg prices meant record sales and profits for Cal-Maine Foods Inc. Despite national egg shortages, the company managed to sell more eggs for staggering third quarter financial results. Just as interesting, Cal-Maine is buying a company that will give the egg company a bigger list of prepared foods.
Cal-Maine reported it has an agreement to acquire Echo Lake Foods Inc. for $258 million. The Burlington, Wis., company, founded in 1941, makes ready-to-eat egg products and breakfast foods, including waffles, pancakes, scrambled eggs, frozen cooked omelets, egg patties, toast and diced eggs. Echo Lake had sales of $240 million in 2024 with a five-year growth rate of approximately 10%.
Kathy Brodhagen, current CEO of Echo Lake Foods, will join Cal-Maine's senior management team as president of Echo Lake Foods.
Cal-Maine does produce hard-cooked eggs for retail, quick service restaurant and other foodservice needs and has a joint venture with Crepini Foods LLC that produces egg wraps, protein pancakes, crepes and wrap-ups.
Back to raw eggs: Cal-Maine reported sales of $1.4 billion – double what it did a year earlier -- and net income of $508.5 million –3.5 times the previous year -- or $10.38 per diluted share, in its third quarter of FY 2025, which ended March 1. Through nine months, sales are nearly $3.2 billion, nearly double the figure in three quarters of FY2024. Net income for nine months is $877.5 million, more than five times the net of last year.
Despite national shortages, Cal-Maine sold more than 331 million dozens of eggs in the quarter, up from nearly 301 million dozens the year before. About two-thirds of those were conventional eggs and one-third were specialty eggs (cage-free and other specialties).
Ironically, the price of specialty eggs ($2.784 per dozen) was lower than that of conventional eggs ($4.060 compared with $2.247 a year ago) because of “lower negotiated-price arrangements for specialty eggs, based on long-standing pricing frameworks with customers that the company has honored throughout the various cycles that characterize the egg industry.”
Cal-Maine also has an agreement to buy out the company’s founding family, which has voting control. If executed, that will result in the company becoming a non-controlled company.
