Greencore Group – Ahead of next week’s Finals this unique food group’s shares still look great value despite the 73% rise in the last seven months

Next Tuesday morning will see the announcement of the final results for the year to end-September by the Greencore Group (LON:GNC), the world’s biggest sandwich maker.

And I am not talking about the size of its sandwiches, but instead the number that they produce for retailers of all sorts across the UK and Ireland.

The figures will be good, as we have been promoting over the last year, and should show that the group’s shares are well worth taking a bite, that is if you have not already nibbled.

The Business

As one of the leading manufacturers of convenience foods in the UK, it supplies all of the major supermarkets in the UK, as well as supplying convenience and travel retail outlets, discounters, coffee shops, food service and other retailers.

Principal customers include: Aldi, ASDA, BP, Boots, Caffe Nero, CoOp, Lidl, M&S, Morrisons, Poundland, Sainsburys, Shell, Tesco and Waitrose.

The Dublin-based Greencore Group has strong market positions in a range of categories including sandwiches, salads, sushi, chilled snacking, chilled ready meals, chilled soups and sauces, chilled quiche, ambient sauces and pickles, and frozen Yorkshire Puddings.

It operates 16 world-class manufacturing sites, comprising eight sandwich units, five chilled ready meal units, three salad units, one chilled quiche unit, one ambient cooking sauce and pickles unit and a single Yorkshire pudding unit.

Also, the group operates 17 distribution centres in the UK, with industry-leading technology and supply chain capabilities.

The group has leading market positions in attractive food categories, deep relationships and long-term partnerships with leading UK retailers and well-invested facilities, which combined with a robust balance sheet, create an excellent platform for growth.

Some Interesting Numbers

Operating from a total of 35 locations, it has 13,600 employees.

The group supplies around 1,600 products across 20 categories.

The company handles some 10,400 ‘direct to store’ daily deliveries.

It makes 779m sandwiches and other ‘food to go’ items each year.

Annually Greencore produces 245m bottles of cooking sauces, pickles and condiments.

The business prepares around 132m chilled meals and 45 chilled soups and sauces per year.

It makes 155m salads and 28m quiche each year.

Each year Greencore prepares 439m Yorkshire puddings.

The Equity

There are some 446.6m shares in issue.

The larger holders include Polaris Capital Management (10.15%), Rubric Capital Management (6.11%), Brandes Investment Partners (5.02%), Black Creek Investment Management (3.53%), and the Utah Retirement Systems (3.45%).

Analyst Views

Some seven analysts follow the group, two of whom call the shares a Buy, while five view as a Hold.

The consensus average is for a 197p Price Objective, the highest being 250p, the lowest is 165p.

Ahead of next Tuesday’s finals, analysts Clive Black and Darren Shirley, at Shore Capital Markets, estimate that the year to end-September will have seen revenues of £1,799m (£1,914m), while adjusted pre-tax profits will have improved to £74.0m (£55.5m),

generating earnings of 11.6p (8.9p) and easily covering a dividend of 3.9p (nil) per share.

For the year to end-September 2025, the analysts see sales of £1,835m, profits of £78.5m, earnings of 12.6p and a 4.2p per share dividend.

In My View

I really like Greencore Group and consider that its shares at the current 195p should be held on to very strongly, despite the 73% rise in the last seven months, I see them breaking back up above their recent 219p peak and then going further ahead.