ADF Foods Share Price Analysis: Targets 2026 to 2030 and Fundamentals

ADF Foods share price today

Anyone checking the ADF Foods share price is looking at one of the older names on the Indian exchanges. The company was founded in 1932, traded as American Dryfruits Ltd for most of its life, and only became ADF Foods in March 2000. What it does now is narrower and more interesting than that history suggests: it manufactures Indian pickles, chutneys, pastes, sauces, ready-to-eat meals, frozen snacks and canned goods, and sells them mainly to Indian households living in Europe, the United States, Australia and the Gulf.

At the 10 September 2026 cut-off, Yahoo Finance showed a completed-session price of ₹274.70, while Screener showed ₹272 and a market capitalisation of about ₹2,984 crore. Screener’s trailing twelve-month EPS was ₹8.37, which puts the share on roughly 32.8 times trailing earnings; Screener’s own reported P/E was 30.8. Book value per share was ₹52.10, so price to book was 5.23. The 52-week range on Yahoo’s series was ₹157.89 to ₹320.40, leaving the stock about 14.3% below its high and roughly 74% above its low. Screener’s page shows a wider band of ₹153 to ₹347, a reminder that the two feeds calculate the window slightly differently. The quote above moves after publication; every ratio and scenario input below stays fixed to the stated cut-off.

The tension is easy to state. This is a business earning a 21.8% return on capital with almost no net debt, which has compounded sales at 13% for a decade and has quietly grown into a real branded exporter. It is also a micro-cap food company being asked to carry a multiple in the low thirties, in a category where volume, freight and currency all move outside management’s control.

What ADF Foods actually sells

The reported structure has two segments: Process and Preserved Food, which is the manufacturing and branded export business, and a Distribution Business run through ADF Foods UK and ADF Holding USA, which moves FMCG products in those two markets. The company describes more than 400 SKUs across eight brands; the ones named in public material are Ashoka, Camel, Aeroplane, Truly Indian, ADF Soul and Khansaama. Headcount is small for the revenue base at 394 employees, which is normal for a company that manufactures a concentrated set of lines and pushes them through third-party retail and distribution.

Product line	What it covers	Who buys it	Economic character
Food accompaniments	Pickles, chutneys, dips, cooking and condiment pastes, dipping and cooking sauces, spices	Diaspora households restocking a pantry staple	Repeat purchase, brand-led, low ticket size
Ready-to-eat meals	Shelf-stable curries and meal packs	Households wanting a familiar meal without cooking	Convenience premium, competitive shelf
Frozen foods	Snacks, parathas, samosas, Indian breads, kathi rolls, wraps, curries, sweets	Ethnic stores, supermarkets, quick-commerce	Cold-chain cost, higher realisation
Canned and preserved	Canned products, pulp, murabba, tamarind powder and slabs	Retail and wholesale channels	Commodity-adjacent, input-price sensitive
Staples and organic	Rice, pulses, flours, organic and plant-based lines	Value-conscious repeat buyers	Thin margin, volume-driven
Distribution business	Third-party FMCG moved through ADF Foods UK and ADF Holding USA	Supermarkets and ethnic retail in the UK and US	Lower margin, builds shelf relationships

The strategic logic is that the accompaniments and ready-to-eat lines carry the brand, while distribution buys presence and relationships in the two markets that matter most. The risk in that design is that the distribution arm dilutes the group margin, and that the brands compete against both large multinational food companies and cheap unbranded imports on the same shelf.

FY15 to FY26: a decade split in two halves

The annual record is not a smooth line. From FY15 to FY18 revenue went nowhere, moving between ₹201 crore and ₹210 crore for four straight years, with an operating margin in single digits or low double digits and net profit under ₹20 crore. Something changed around FY19 and FY20. Revenue then compounded through ₹285 crore, ₹370 crore, ₹421 crore, ₹450 crore and ₹520 crore, and the operating margin stepped up from 13% to the high teens and stayed there.

Financial year	Sales	Operating margin	Net profit	EPS
FY21	₹370 Cr	18%	₹50 Cr	₹5.00
FY22	₹421 Cr	16%	₹49 Cr	₹4.59
FY23	₹450 Cr	18%	₹56 Cr	₹5.10
FY24	₹520 Cr	20%	₹74 Cr	₹6.85
FY25	₹590 Cr	17%	₹69 Cr	₹6.30
FY26	₹683 Cr	19%	₹90 Cr	₹8.18
TTM	₹718 Cr	19%	₹92 Cr	₹8.37

FY25 is the row worth pausing on. Sales grew 13% that year, and profit still fell, from ₹74 crore to ₹69 crore, because the operating margin gave back three points. Earnings per share went backwards, from ₹6.85 to ₹6.30. FY26 then recovered the ground and more: sales up to ₹683 crore, margin back to 19%, profit at ₹90 crore and EPS at ₹8.18, roughly 30% above the FY25 figure. Over the full stretch, sales are about 3.3 times the FY15 level and net profit is about ten times it.

That pattern is the single most useful thing in the file. This is not a company that grows in a straight line. It is a food exporter whose margin can move several points in a year on input costs, freight, currency and product mix, and whose earnings therefore arrive lumpy even when volume is fine.

Growth rates and the arithmetic behind them

Screener’s growth panel is where a careless reader gets into trouble, because the ten-year and five-year numbers tell opposite stories about the same business.

Measure	10-year	5-year	3-year	Latest
Compounded sales growth	13%	13%	15%	19% (TTM)
Compounded profit growth	30%	14%	20%	38% (TTM)
Compounded price return	27%	9%	3%	19% (1 year)
Return on equity	16%	16%	16%	18%

The 30% ten-year profit CAGR is arithmetic, not evidence. It is measured from a FY15 base of ₹9 crore and a FY16 base of ₹7 crore, and starting a compounding calculation from a depressed year manufactures a large rate. The five-year profit CAGR of 14% and the sales CAGR of 13% are the honest description of what the business has done at scale.

The price row is the more revealing one. Over ten years the share compounded at 27%, well ahead of the underlying business, which means a substantial re-rating happened somewhere in the middle of that period. Over the last three years it compounded at 3% while profit compounded at 20%. In other words the de-rating has already been running for a while: earnings have been climbing into a multiple that stopped expanding. If you want the general method behind reading a series like this, the site’s guide to fundamental analysis of stocks sets out the order in which these panels should be read.

Margins, returns and the ROCE question

Return on capital employed was 21.8% in the latest year against a five-year average of 18.87%, and return on equity was 17.7% against a steady 16% across the three-, five- and ten-year windows. For a food manufacturer with real factories and real inventory, those are respectable numbers, and they are the core of the investment case: the incremental capital that went into capacity between FY20 and FY26 has been earning something worthwhile.

The margin figures need one clarification. Screener’s operating profit margin reads 19.06%, while Yahoo Finance reports an operating margin of 14.31% and a net profit margin of 12.81% on the same trailing revenue of ₹718 crore. Those are definitional differences in how depreciation and other income are handled, not a dispute about the business. Yahoo’s EBITDA figure for the trailing period is ₹128 crore. Whichever basis you use, the direction over five years is the same: margin expanded from single digits to the high teens and has held there through two input-cost cycles.

The reason ROCE matters more than the margin here is that a food exporter can buy revenue with working capital. Growing sales while inventory and receivables grow faster produces a fine income statement and a poor return on capital. So far that has not happened. If you want the underlying formula and its traps, the guide to return on equity covers how these ratios break down and where they mislead.

The balance sheet: net cash and a light debt load

At March 2026 the company carried equity capital of ₹22 crore and reserves of ₹550 crore, so net worth was about ₹572 crore against total assets of ₹741 crore. Borrowings were ₹55 crore, which is where Screener’s debt-to-equity of 0.1 comes from. Yahoo’s balance-sheet feed shows total debt of ₹55 crore against total cash of ₹86 crore, so the company is carrying roughly ₹31 crore of net cash. Promoter pledge is zero.

Balance-sheet line	FY22	FY24	FY26
Equity capital	₹21 Cr	₹22 Cr	₹22 Cr
Reserves	₹322 Cr	₹419 Cr	₹550 Cr
Borrowings	₹70 Cr	₹56 Cr	₹55 Cr
Total assets	₹468 Cr	₹550 Cr	₹741 Cr

Two things stand out. Reserves have grown steadily while borrowings have drifted down from the FY22 peak of ₹70 crore, so the expansion has been funded from retained earnings rather than leverage. And total assets rose from ₹468 crore to ₹741 crore over four years, broadly in line with sales over the same stretch — but the last two years tilt the other way: assets up 35% from FY24 to FY26 against sales up 31%, which is what you expect from a company adding capacity but is also the thing to keep watching. Assets that grow faster than sales for several years in a row are the early signature of a falling return on capital.

The dividend is not the reason to hold this. The yield is 0.43% and the payout ratio has been erratic: nil in FY16, FY18 and FY19, 77% in FY24, then 19% and 15%. Face value is ₹2. Treat the distribution as a residual, not a policy.

Ownership and one figure worth checking yourself

Screener records promoter holding at 36.14% with no shares pledged. That is low for an Indian family-founded food company, where promoters more usually retain a controlling majority, and the company’s own description acknowledges it. Low promoter holding is not a defect by itself, but it changes two things: control is less concentrated, and a larger free float means the register can turn over faster when sentiment shifts.

One inconsistency deserves flagging rather than smoothing over. Yahoo Finance’s data feed reports promoter holding at 56.57% for the same company, twenty points above Screener’s figure. The two cannot both be describing the same shareholding pattern. Before relying on either number, read the latest quarterly shareholding pattern filed with the exchange, which is linked in the sources below. This article uses Screener’s 36.14% because that is the figure the rest of the Screener panel is internally consistent with, but the discrepancy is unresolved.

Valuation at the research cut-off

Valuation measure	10 September 2026 reading	Interpretation
Completed-session price	₹274.70	Fixed research input, not a live quote
Market capitalisation	About ₹2,984 Cr	Micro-cap; liquidity and impact cost matter
Trailing EPS	₹8.37	Screener TTM at the cut-off
Recalculated P/E	About 32.8×	Price divided by trailing EPS
Reported P/E	30.8×	Screener’s own figure, on its ₹272 price and a slightly higher earnings base — ₹272 ÷ ₹8.37 would be 32.5×, so the gap is the denominator, not the price
Book value per share	₹52.10	Implies price to book of 5.23×
EV / EBITDA	19.2×	Screener’s reported figure; on Yahoo’s ₹128 Cr trailing EBITDA the same enterprise value works out nearer 23×, so the two feeds define EBITDA differently
PEG	1.51	Multiple against a trailing growth rate
ROCE / ROE	21.8% / 17.7%	Better than the return profile of a commodity processor
Dividend yield	0.43%	The case rests on reinvestment, not income

Thirty-three times trailing earnings for a business compounding profit in the mid-teens is a full price, but it is not an absurd one for a branded consumer company with a 21.8% ROCE and net cash. The PEG of 1.51 says the same thing in one number: the multiple is ahead of the growth rate, though not by a frightening margin. If the mechanics of that ratio are unfamiliar, the P/E ratio formula guide works through what a trailing multiple does and does not contain.

The comparison that actually matters is against larger packaged-consumer names, where scale, distribution depth and pricing power support their own multiples; the same method is applied to Hindustan Unilever, Varun Beverages and P&G Hygiene and Health if you want the contrast.

Valuation framework

The scenario model starts with TTM EPS of ₹8.37. For each year it applies EPS_TTM × (1 + growth)^(year − 2026 + 112/365) × exit P/E, then rounds the result to the nearest ₹5. The 112/365 factor represents the fraction of the first forecast year remaining from 10 September to 31 December. Dividends are excluded and no change in the share count is assumed.

Scenario	Annual EPS growth	Exit P/E	Business interpretation
Bear	8%	20×	Export demand flattens, freight and currency squeeze margin back toward FY25 levels, and the multiple compresses toward a processor’s rating
Base	13%	28×	Sales keep compounding near the five-year rate, margin holds in the high teens, and the market pays a modest premium for a 20%-plus ROCE
Bull	18%	36×	Frozen and ready-to-eat lines scale in the US and UK, mix lifts margin, and the market rates the business as a branded consumer franchise rather than an exporter

The growth range is anchored on what the company has actually done. The five-year sales CAGR is 13% and the five-year profit CAGR is 14%; the three-year profit CAGR is 20%. A base case at 13% assumes the five-year rate persists, and the bull case at 18% assumes something close to the recent three-year pace continues, which is a real stretch over five more years. The multiple range runs from clearly below the present rating to modestly above it, on the principle that a scenario assuming both perfect growth and permanent multiple expansion just restates today’s optimism twice. These are scenarios, not probability-weighted forecasts.

ADF Foods share price target 2026 to 2030

The grid above is generated only from the disclosed EPS, growth and exit-multiple inputs. It does not model a share issue, a buyback, an acquisition, an exceptional item, a change in the tax rate, or the currency translation that affects a company earning most of its revenue abroad. It also assumes the trailing EPS of ₹8.37 is a fair starting point, which the FY25 profit dip should make you cautious about. Any of those events would require the inputs to be rebuilt before the framework is used again. The general method behind this kind of exercise is set out in how to value a stock.

What the ADF Foods share price is discounting

Working backwards from the current price is more useful than working forwards. At ₹274.70 and trailing EPS of ₹8.37, the market is paying roughly 33 times for earnings that have compounded at 14% over five years. That combination implies one of two beliefs: either that the recent acceleration is the new run rate rather than a good year, or that the branded portion of the business deserves a consumer multiple regardless of the pace.

The evidence for the first belief is genuine. Trailing sales growth of 19% and trailing profit growth of 38% are the highest readings in the panel, and the FY26 margin recovery to 19% suggests FY25 was a cost year rather than a structural break. The evidence against is the three-year price CAGR of 3% noted earlier, and the four-year revenue plateau between FY15 and FY18 that shows what this business looks like when export demand stalls.

Risks that can break the thesis

The first risk is the one that already showed up in FY25: margin. A three-point swing in operating margin on ₹700 crore of revenue is worth more than a year of volume growth, and the inputs that drive it, agricultural commodity prices, packaging, ocean freight and the rupee, are not under management’s control.

The second is customer and channel concentration. Selling Indian food to Indian households abroad is a defined market with a defined ceiling in each geography, and it is contested by multinational food companies with deeper shelf budgets and by cheaper unbranded imports. Shelf space in a foreign supermarket is rented, not owned.

The third is regulatory and quality risk. Food exporters live with import rejections, pesticide-residue standards, labelling rules and recall exposure in several jurisdictions at once. A single quality incident in a major market damages a brand faster than a bad quarter does.

The fourth is valuation compression on its own. At 32.8 times trailing earnings and 5.23 times book, earnings can grow for several years while the share does nothing. Finally, the unresolved promoter-holding discrepancy between the two data sources is a reason to verify the register directly rather than assume either figure.

What would change the thesis

Most of what would strengthen or weaken this case resolves into readings you can take straight off each set of results, and the scorecard below lists them. Two things that would move the thesis sit outside that table, because neither arrives as a number in a quarterly statement.

The first is segment disclosure. A clearer split between the branded manufacturing business and the lower-margin distribution arm would change how much of the group’s operating margin can honestly be attributed to the brands, because the reported figure currently blends two quite different economics. For as long as the two are reported together, a mix shift toward distribution and a real loss of pricing power in the branded lines look identical from outside, and those two readings call for opposite conclusions.

The second is what the company says about capital allocation. The erratic payout described earlier is immaterial as income at a 0.43% yield, but as a signal it matters more: a distribution set year by year rather than against a stated policy leaves an outsider unable to tell whether the cash thrown off by a 21.8% ROCE is being retained deliberately for capacity or simply left undecided. A stated policy, or an explanation of the FY24 spike, would settle a question the financials alone cannot.

Monitoring scorecard

Question	Constructive evidence	Warning sign
Is margin holding?	Operating margin stays at or above 19%	Drift back toward the FY25 level of 17%
Is capital still earning?	ROCE stays above the 18.87% five-year average	Total assets grow faster than sales while ROCE falls
Is growth real volume?	Sales growth with stable working capital	Receivables and inventory outrunning revenue
Is the balance sheet intact?	Net cash maintained, borrowings near ₹55 Cr or lower	Borrowings rising to fund working capital
Is the brand mix improving?	Branded frozen and ready-to-eat outgrow distribution	Group margin diluted by the distribution segment
Is the register stable?	Shareholding pattern consistent across sources, pledge at nil	Promoter stake falling or any pledge appearing

FAQ

What is the ADF Foods share price target for 2026?

The 2026 line in the scenario grid is only the remaining 112 days of the calendar year applied to trailing EPS of ₹8.37 at each scenario’s exit multiple. Over that short a stretch the multiple assumption dominates and the growth assumption barely registers. It is a range of outcomes under stated inputs, not a forecast or a recommendation.

What is the ADF Foods share price target for 2030?

The 2030 line compounds the same trailing EPS forward at 8%, 13% or 18% a year and applies an exit P/E of 20×, 28× or 36×. Small changes in either input produce large changes in the answer over four years, which is why the output is presented as a spread rather than a single number. Read it as a sensitivity exercise, not a price prediction.

What does ADF Foods do?

It manufactures and exports traditional Indian foods: pickles, chutneys, cooking and condiment pastes, sauces, spices, ready-to-eat meals, frozen snacks and breads, and canned and preserved products. These sell under brands including Ashoka, Camel, Aeroplane, Truly Indian, ADF Soul and Khansaama, mainly to Indian households in Europe, the United States, Australia and the Gulf. A separate distribution business moves FMCG products through ADF Foods UK and ADF Holding USA.

Is ADF Foods listed on NSE and BSE?

The figures and the quote in this article come from the NSE line, symbol ADFFOODS, and Yahoo’s ADFFOODS.NS feed. Nothing here is sourced from BSE, so the BSE scrip code and its quote should be checked on the exchange’s own site rather than assumed from this page. The NSE quote and filings page is linked in the sources below.

What is the ROCE of ADF Foods?

Return on capital employed was 21.8% in the most recent reported year, against a five-year average of 18.87%. Return on equity was 17.7%, and ROE has held near 16% across the three-, five- and ten-year windows. Those returns, combined with a net cash balance sheet, are the strongest part of the fundamental picture.

Who are the promoters of ADF Foods?

Screener records promoter holding at 36.14% of equity with no shares pledged, which is low for an Indian family-founded food company. Yahoo Finance’s feed reports a materially different 56.57% for the same period, and this article does not attempt to resolve which is correct. Check the latest shareholding pattern filed with the exchange before relying on either figure or on any statement about who controls the company.

Related research

• Hindustan Unilever share price target
• Varun Beverages share price target
• P&G Hygiene and Health share price target
• P/E ratio formula: meaning and calculation
• Return on equity: formula and stock analysis
• How to value a stock: the method behind these targets
• Fundamental analysis of stocks: a practical Indian guide

Sources and methodology

• ADF Foods consolidated financials on Screener.in
• ADF Foods quote and filings on NSE
• ADF Foods company website

All figures in this article were captured on 10 September 2026, after a completed session. The annual sales, operating margin, net profit, EPS, payout, balance-sheet and growth-CAGR series, along with the market capitalisation, trailing EPS, reported P/E, book value, ROCE, ROE, PEG, EV/EBITDA, dividend yield, debt-to-equity and promoter-holding figures, come from Screener.in’s consolidated page. The closing price, 52-week range, total debt and cash, EBITDA, operating and net margin, share count, employee count and the business description come from Yahoo Finance’s feed for ADFFOODS.NS. Where the two sources disagree, both readings are printed rather than averaged.

Analytical judgment begins after that. The reading of FY25 as a cost year rather than a structural break, the treatment of the ten-year profit CAGR as an artefact of a depressed base, the interpretation of the three-year price CAGR as evidence of de-rating already under way, the three scenario growth rates and exit multiples, and the risk list are all interpretation, not reported fact. They should be re-tested against the next set of results.

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This article is research and education, not personalised investment advice or a recommendation to transact. Gale is not a SEBI-registered investment adviser. The scenarios are illustrations, not guarantees. Verify current exchange filings, liquidity, corporate actions and suitability, and consult a registered adviser before acting.