Cal-Maine Foods Swings to Fiscal First-Quarter Loss Amid Double-Digit Sales Drop

08:58 AM EDT, 09/30/2026 (MT Newswires) -- Cal-Maine Foods (CALM) swung to a fiscal first-quarter loss year over year as sales dropped by double digits amid lower egg prices. The egg producer on Wednesday reported a net loss of $1.26 a share for the quarter ended Aug. 29, compared with earnings of $4.12 the year before. Five analysts polled by FactSet expected a per-share loss of $0.77. Sales fell 42% to $539.6 million, while four FactSet analysts expected $561.6 million. The stock fell 6.4% in the most recent premarket activity. "Our first-quarter results reflect both the current point in the conventional shell egg cycle and the continued evolution of Cal-Maine Foods' earnings model," Chief Executive Sherman Miller said in a statement. "Conventional shell egg pricing remains under pressure from an industry supply imbalance, while underlying demand remains healthy." Sales of conventional shell eggs slumped to $201.7 million from $498.4 million in the prior-year quarter, while specialty shell eggs fell 14% to $236.9 million. Both businesses were affected by lower prices and volume declines, the company said. In the prepared foods segment, revenue decreased to about $63 million from $72.4 million last year. "Specialty shell eggs and prepared foods now represent approximately 54% of our net sales, demonstrating the progress we have made in broadening our business," Miller said. "We remain focused on our foundational conventional shell egg business while scaling specialty and prepared foods and converting the investments we have made into profitable growth." The company has "considerably greater visibility" into when its investments in prepared foods will contribute more to earnings, Miller added. "Current earnings reflect a difficult point in the commodity cycle while we are simultaneously investing ahead of growth, and we do not believe that fully reflects the through-cycle earnings power we are building," the CEO said. Last month, smaller egg producer Vital Farms (VITL) posted a second-quarter adjusted loss of $0.47 per share, compared with earnings of $0.36 a year earlier. Revenue declined 10% to $166 million. Post Holdings (POST), which owns the commercial egg processor brand Michael Foods, reported mixed fiscal third-quarter results in August, with earnings topping market expectations while revenue fell short of estimates.