Danone’s CEO has hailed the success of the company’s Renew Danone strategy, as it delivered another strong set of results for Q2 2025.
The French food giant achieved 4.1% like-for-like sales growth in the second quarter, including a 3.2% rise in volumes and 1% increase in prices. It helped power overall like-for-like sales growth of 4.2% to €13.7bn in the six months to 30 June.
Underlying operating profits at the group rose by 3.7% in the half to €1.8bn as margins expanded.
Antoine de Saint-Affrique, the company’s chief executive, said the results have proved a “strong” start for chapter two of the Renew Danone strategy – a turnaround plan implemented shortly after he took up post in 2020.
“In a volatile and uncertain environment, we are consistently doubling down on our fundamentals, further fuelling our winning platforms such as high protein, medical nutrition, Alpro and Aptamil, while moving forward with this next chapter of our strategy,” he added
“We started actively complementing our portfolio, further investing in medical nutrition, acquiring Kate Farms in the US, and in next-generation biotics through The Akkermansia Company.”
In an investor presentation, Danone had identified further organic growth opportunities in dairy – where it would pivot from “back in the game” to becoming a “category shaper”, as well as bringing lessons from Europe over to the US to “reignite plant-based” drinks.
The results have beaten market expectations, after investors worried over weaker US sales data, according to Bernstein analyst Callum Elliott.
Overall growth beat market expectations by 30 basis points, driven by a “big beat” of 80 basis points ahead of volume/mix expectations.
“Danone stock is off nearly 15% from peak over the past three months driven by fears over a slowdown in volume growth following weaker US scanner data, but this solid Q2 performance belies any such fears, and we would expect the stock to rebound nicely today as a result,” Elliott said.
The company recorded positive momentum worldwide, with China, North Asia and Oceania rocketing ahead with 12.4% in like-for-like growth.
Europe – worth around a third (35%) of Danone’s total sales in 2024 – recorded its seventh consecutive quarter of positive volume/mix growth, with a more modest 2.2% overall like-for-like sales growth.
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