Plant-based food and beverage company SunOpta (NASDAQ: STKL) beat Wall Street’s revenue expectations in Q1 CY2025, with sales up 10.3% year on year to $201.6 million. The company’s full-year revenue guidance of $796.5 million at the midpoint came in 0.7% above analysts’ estimates. Its non-GAAP profit of $0.04 per share was $0.02 above analysts’ consensus estimates.
Is now the time to buy SunOpta? Find out by accessing our full research report, it’s free.
SunOpta (STKL) Q1 CY2025 Highlights:
- Revenue: $201.6 million vs analyst estimates of $194.5 million (10.3% year-on-year growth, 3.7% beat)
- Adjusted EPS: $0.04 vs analyst estimates of $0.02 ($0.02 beat)
- Adjusted EBITDA: $22.39 million vs analyst estimates of $21.27 million (11.1% margin, 5.3% beat)
- The company slightly lifted its revenue guidance for the full year to $796.5 million at the midpoint from $790 million
- EBITDA guidance for the full year is $101 million at the midpoint, above analyst estimates of $100.1 million
- Operating Margin: 5.2%, in line with the same quarter last year
- Free Cash Flow was $9.55 million, up from -$2.28 million in the same quarter last year
- Sales Volumes rose 12.2% year on year (23.5% in the same quarter last year)
- Market Capitalization: $556.9 million
"First quarter results exceeded our expectations, and we again delivered double-digit volume growth driven by broad-based gains across segments, products and customers,” said Brian Kocher, Chief Executive Officer of SunOpta.
Company Overview
Committed to clean-label foods, SunOpta (NASDAQ: STKL) is a sustainability-focused food and beverage company specializing in the sourcing, processing, and packaging of organic products.
Sales Growth
A company’s long-term sales performance is one signal of its overall quality. Even a bad business can shine for one or two quarters, but a top-tier one grows for years.
With $742.7 million in revenue over the past 12 months, SunOpta is a small consumer staples company, which sometimes brings disadvantages compared to larger competitors benefiting from economies of scale and negotiating leverage with retailers.
As you can see below, SunOpta’s revenue declined by 4.2% per year over the last three years despite consumers buying more of its products. We’ll explore what this means in the "Volume Growth" section.
This quarter, SunOpta reported year-on-year revenue growth of 10.3%, and its $201.6 million of revenue exceeded Wall Street’s estimates by 3.7%.
Looking ahead, sell-side analysts expect revenue to grow 8.2% over the next 12 months, an acceleration versus the last three years. This projection is noteworthy and implies its newer products will spur better top-line performance.
Here at StockStory, we certainly understand the potential of thematic investing. Diverse winners from Microsoft (MSFT) to Alphabet (GOOG), Coca-Cola (KO) to Monster Beverage (MNST) could all have been identified as promising growth stories with a megatrend driving the growth. So, in that spirit, we’ve identified a relatively under-the-radar profitable growth stock benefiting from the rise of AI, available to you FREE via this link.
Volume Growth
Revenue growth can be broken down into changes in price and volume (the number of units sold). While both are important, volume is the lifeblood of a successful staples business as there’s a ceiling to what consumers will pay for everyday goods; they can always trade down to non-branded products if the branded versions are too expensive.
SunOpta’s average quarterly volume growth of 13.2% over the last two years has beaten the competition by a long shot. This is great because companies with significant volume growth are needles in a haystack in the stable consumer staples sector. 
In SunOpta’s Q1 2025, sales volumes jumped 12.2% year on year. This result was in line with its historical levels.
Key Takeaways from SunOpta’s Q1 Results
We were impressed by how significantly SunOpta blew past analysts’ revenue, EPS, and EBITDA expectations this quarter. We were also glad it raised its full-year revenue guidance. Overall, we think this was a solid quarter with some key metrics above expectations. The stock traded up 7.9% to $4.90 immediately following the results.
SunOpta may have had a good quarter, but does that mean you should invest right now? If you’re making that decision, you should consider the bigger picture of valuation, business qualities, as well as the latest earnings. We cover that in our actionable full research report which you can read here, it’s free.
