Greenyard NV

Greenyard NV is a Belgian fruit and vegetable group and one of the largest fresh produce supply chain businesses in Europe. It employed around 8,600 people on average in AY 24/25, the year ended 31 March 2025, reported sales of EUR 5,363.1 million, and sources more than 2,600,000 tonnes a year from over 80 countries. It was delisted from Euronext Brussels on 4 September 2025 and is now wholly owned by Garden S.a r.l. It ranks fifth in this category.

Industry Position

Greenyard sits between European growers and European retail, with a Fresh division of EUR 4,356.2 million of AY 24/25 sales and a Long Fresh division of frozen and prepared products that passed EUR 1 billion for the first time. Position in this trade is measured in service level, cold-chain reliability and category management rather than consumer brand awareness, and Greenyard's scale in that business-to-business layer is unusual in Europe.

The group operates 35 sites, 12 of them production plants and 23 Fresh service centres for distribution, ripening, packing and logistics, and works with Integrated Customer Relationship customers that account for 80% of the Fresh segment. It is not a Fortune Global 500 company and never has been, its roughly EUR 5.36 billion of sales being far below the entry threshold, and neither Garden S.a r.l. nor the Deprez family and Solum Partners behind it are members either.

Competitive Advantages

The competitive advantage is infrastructure and scale rather than brand. Twelve production sites in frozen and prepared vegetables, 23 fresh service centres, sourcing across more than 80 countries and a volume above 2.6 million tonnes give Greenyard the ability to hold year-round supply and absorb harvest variability for large retail customers.

The weakness is margin and disclosure. Adjusted EBITDA of EUR 183.0 million on EUR 5,363.1 million of reported sales is a 3.4% margin, down 1.9%, and the year ended in a net loss of EUR 2.9 million after a EUR 15.2 million profit the year before. After the September 2025 delisting the group no longer publishes investor news, so guidance of EUR 5.40 billion of sales and EUR 190-200 million of adjusted EBITDA for the year to March 2026 cannot be checked against reported results.

Strategic Expansion

Three strands are visible. In production, Greenyard agreed in March 2025 to combine its Brittany frozen vegetable activities with Gelagri Bretagne, a Eureden cooperative subsidiary, in a venture in which Greenyard would be majority shareholder. In portfolio, it acquired Crème de la Crème in April 2024 for its Frozen division. In capacity, it added a Tetra Pak line at Greenyard Prepared, spinach lines at Comines, an automated packing line at Lipno in Poland and a mango sorting line at Bakker's Ridderkerk site.

Ownership is now private and concentrated: the EUR 7.40 per share offer through Garden S.a r.l. brought 100% control to a vehicle jointly controlled by the founders' Deprez family and Solum Partners LP, with automatic delisting on 4 September 2025 and completion on 5 September 2025. The former ticker GREEN and ISIN BE0003765790 no longer trade, so the operating business continues as a private Belgian NV with the same registered office but far less public reporting.

Risks & Outlook

The risks are European retail concentration, energy and labour costs in refrigerated processing, harvest variability in the countries it sources from, and leverage of 1.86x with net financial debt of EUR 256.5 million excluding leases. A sales base that is almost entirely European is also a ceiling: the prospectus stated that exposure to sales outside Europe, including the United Kingdom, was less than 5% of sales.

Guidance issued with the AY 24/25 results pointed to EUR 5.40 billion of sales and EUR 190-200 million of adjusted EBITDA for the year to March 2026, but no AY 25/26 results are public and the group's news module has published nothing since the delisting. On the evidence available, Greenyard remains a genuinely large European fresh supply chain with structurally modest margins. VerityRank Score of 87/100.