Hilton Food Group, the parent company of seafood businesses like Foppen and Seachill, has seen its share price drop over 23 percent in two days after a pessimistic Q3 2025 update.
In a brief trading update posted to the London Stock Exchange, Hilton Food Group announced it is expecting its pre-tax profit for FY 2025 to be in the range of GBP 72 million to GBP 75 million (USD 94 million to USD 98 million, EUR 81 million to EUR 85 million). That total is down from the GBP 76.8 million to GBP 81 million (USD 100 million to USD 106 million, EUR 87 million to EUR 91 million) that the company had predicted just two months ago.
The company said inflationary pressures have continued to put pressure on the company, as has operational disruptions at Foppen, its smoked salmon company.
Hilton announced its purchase of Foppen in 2021 for EUR 90 million (USD 104 million) and finalized the purchase after authorities cleared it in 2022.
Prior to the purchase, Foppen was a part of a merger between it an shrimp specialist Klaas Puul, which merged to form the Dutch Seafood Company in 2018. At the time, Foppen boasted sales of EUR 150 million (USD 173 million) in 2017.
Then, Dutch Seafood Company’s shrimp activity – essentially the operations of Klaas Puul – were sold to Sykes Seafood in 2019, just over a year after Dutch Seafood Company’s creation. This once again resulted in an independent Foppen, which existed on its own for two years before Hilton Foods' purchase.
Now, Foppen has proven problematic for Hilton Foods' FY 2025 results, as regulatory restrictions in the U.S. have dragged on its business.
Hilton Foods revealed in its H1 2025 results that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) had put regulatory restrictions on salmon shipments from Foppen’s facility in Greece, forcing the company to temporarily transition production to Hilton's facility in the Netherlands.
“We are working closely with the FDA and are taking the necessary corrective actions to resume production in Greece,” Hilton Foods said at the time. “The steps we have taken, while incurring non-underlying costs, are helping protect availability and customer service levels.”
Hilton Foods did not reveal the reasons why the regulatory restrictions were put in place.
Foppen has had to recall products before, at one point recalling one lot of toast slices from Kroger stores in 2024, due to potential contamination with Listeria monocytogenes.
The company said its Europe division’s operating profit was down 10.5 percent due to the operational challenges at Foppen and that it anticipated continued disruptions through H2 2025.
The company also said the timing of the U.S. government shutdown has made it difficult to resolve its issues with the FDA and delayed the approvals it needs to restart its Greek facility.
“As a result, we do not expect that production in Greece will resume in 2025,” Hilton Foods said.
Hilton Foods' seafood division has struggled in the last few years, and it has dragged on the company’s operating profit since at least 2022.
The company’s H1 2025 update said seafood performance continued to be soft during the period as softer demand for whitefish and raw material price inflation caused sales to drop.
The company confirmed in its Q3 2025 update that the situation has remained the same, as cautious consumer spending has run into higher prices commanded by whitefish.
Hilton Foods said, however, that it expects a positive shift in Q4 2025.
“Although underlying demand is subdued, the normal seasonal uplift in Q4 is expected to support overall performance in the near term,” it said.
The company said it is in the midst of a business review assessing its operations and portfolio, “alongside continued focus on strengthening long-term shareholder returns.” That process has already identified opportunities to “optimize the Group’s operations going forward,” Hilton Foods said, though it did not provide details on what those opportunities could be.
The company said it will provide the full conclusions to the business review at its FY 2025 update in January 2026.
