Glanbia has upgraded its earnings guidance for the year on the back of stronger-than-expected sales volumes across its performance nutrition business.
In a trading update, the Kilkenny-headquartered food group said revenue for the first nine months of the year increased by 1.7 per cent.
The group’s performance nutrition division, which makes a suite of protein powders including top selling brand Optimum Nutrition, saw like-for-like revenue increase by 2.5 per cent over the h period excluding recently offloaded brands SlimFast and Body & Fit.
Optimum Nutrition revenue grew by 4.6 per cent in the period and by 14.3 per cent in the third quarter “showing sequential improvement driven by strong volume growth”, the company said.
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As a result, Glanbia said it was upgrading its full year like-for-like revenue guidance for performance nutrition to 3-4 per cent (it was previously 2-3 per cent).
Full-year adjusted earnings per share (EPS) is now also expected to be at the upper end of the previous guidance range of 130–133 cent, it said.
Shares in Glanbia rose by 5 per cent to €15.15 on the back of the update.
The company endured a difficult few months at the start of the year on the back of a spike in the cost of whey proteins, a key input, and a loss in investor confidence, which triggered a slide in the share price and culminated in the sale of its underperforming brands, Slimfast and Body & Fit.
Shares in Glanbia also dipped briefly last month after its largest shareholder, Tirlán Co-op, sold a 6.8 per cent stake in the business to institutional investors to help repurchase €250 million of bonds issued in 2022.
Glanbia’s other two divisions health and nutrition, and dairy, also recorded like-for-like revenue growth of 6.1 per cent in the third quarter, driven by “strong volume growth”.
Chief executive Hugh McGuire said: “Our performance nutrition segment delivered a very strong performance in the third quarter, with our Optimum Nutrition and Isopure brands delivering double digit volume growth.
“Our health and nutrition and dairy nutrition segments also continued to perform well, with health and nutrition volumes showing strong growth in its priority end-use markets,” he said.
We continue to progress our group-wide transformation programme and completed the sale of non-core brands, SlimFast and Body and Fit, as well as the acquisition of Sweetmix in Brazil within our H&N division," he said.
Goodbody analyst Patrick Higgins said: “Glanbia’s Q3 2025 call confirmed management’s confidence in top-line momentum across the group for the balance of 2025 and into 2026, ahead of a London CMD [capital markers day] on November 19th, which will set out the refreshed mid-term growth priorities and targets for the group.”
