House Foods Group, the Osaka-based maker of Vermont Curry and other curry-roux staples, posted a firmer quarter and cut its outlook on the same day. Operating profit for the three months to June rose 17.1% to ¥4.0bn on sales of ¥75.1bn, down 0.7% year on year. Management nonetheless used the release to lower its full-year operating-profit forecast for the year to March 2027 by ¥1.0bn, to ¥17.5bn, citing cost pressure tied to the Middle East.
The company's investor presentation puts a number on the worry. It now expects Middle East-related procurement costs to add ¥1.5bn to ¥3.0bn to expenses this year, with a gross cost hit of ¥2.4bn only partly offset by ¥1.4bn of pricing and efficiency actions elsewhere in the business. The revision falls entirely on the spice and processed-seasoning segment, whose operating-profit target was cut from ¥12.4bn to ¥11.4bn, an 8.1% reduction from the forecast issued on 11 May; every other segment's guidance is unchanged.
| Metric | Previous Forecast | Revised Forecast | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sales | ¥322.5bn | ¥322.5bn | Unchanged |
| Operating profit | ¥18.5bn | ¥17.5bn | -¥1.0bn (-5.4%) |
| Ordinary profit | ¥19.7bn | ¥18.7bn | -¥1.0bn (-5.1%) |
| Net profit (parent) | ¥17.0bn | ¥17.0bn | Unchanged |
House Foods is also closing a plant in Parsippany, New Jersey, that made veggie-burger patties and other plant-based meat products, with production ending in September 2026. The company said sales of the meat-alternative line had not recovered enough to justify keeping the factory open, and it will instead concentrate its US resources on restructuring the profitability of its tofu business. The US segment as a whole had a rough quarter regardless: sales fell and operating profit dropped sharply as domestic demand stayed soft even after cost cuts.
One number in the release deserves a caveat. Net profit attributable to shareholders nearly tripled to ¥5.1bn, but ¥3.5bn of that came from a one-off gain on the sale of cross-shareholdings, not from selling more curry or spices. Strip that out and the underlying improvement is the ¥583mn rise in operating profit, driven mainly by the spice business and overseas food operations recovering sales volumes lost to earlier price increases. Full-year sales and net-profit guidance were left unchanged, at ¥322.5bn and ¥17.0bn respectively, so the company is betting the spice segment alone absorbs the geopolitical cost shock without dragging down the rest of the group.