At a glance
Darling Ingredients Inc is worth $8.75B, about 142 times its fiscal 2025 earnings. Revenue grew 7.4% to $6.14B in fiscal 2025, with 1.0% kept as profit; over 5 years it has grown 11.4% a year. It pays no dividend; it spent $415.1M buying back its shares over FY2021–FY2025. The stock returned +64.0% over the past year with dividends reinvested and −8.0% a year over five years, against +11.5% and +11.7% for the S&P 500. At its worst it fell 51.0% in the 2020 crash (S&P 500: 33.7%) and 34.8% in the 2022 bear market (S&P 500: 24.5%).
The business in plain English
Darling Ingredients, founded in 1882 and based in Irving, Texas, turns food-industry waste into ingredients. Its trucks collect fat, bones, feathers, blood and other animal by-products from slaughterhouses, grocery stores and butcher shops. They also pick up used cooking oil from restaurants and leftover bakery goods. Plants cook, separate and dry this material, a process called rendering, to make fats and protein meals. Other plants make collagen from bones and skins, and natural sausage casings from intestines. Customers include makers of animal feed, pet food, fertilizer, soaps, medicines and biofuels.
The company reports three segments. Feed Ingredients, mostly fats and proteins for feed, pet food and biofuel producers, brought in 65% of the $6.1 billion revenue for the fiscal year ended January 3, 2026. Food Ingredients, led by the Rousselot and Gelnex collagen brands and CTH casings, made up 25.2%. Fuel Ingredients, at 9.8%, covers biogas and other waste-to-energy operations in Europe. It also holds Darling's share of results from Diamond Green Diesel, a joint venture with Valero Energy that makes renewable diesel and sustainable aviation fuel.
North America produced 56.3% of revenue, Europe 29.1%, South America 9.3% and China 4.3%. Darling runs over 150 processing and transfer sites in the US. Its international arm runs 81 production plants on five continents.
Price history
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DAR +64.0% over the year to Oct 28, 2026, total return with dividends reinvested.
How it makes money
By product or service
| Fats | $1.78B | 29% |
| Proteins | $1.41B | 23% |
| Food Ingredients, Products and Services | $1.25B | 20.4% |
| Bioenergy | $600.8M | 9.8% |
| Used Cooking Oil | $445.5M | 7.3% |
| Other Rendering | $295.7M | 4.8% |
| Bakery | $195.4M | 3.2% |
| Other, Products And Services | $155.6M | 2.5% |
By business segment
| Feed Ingredients | $3.99B | 65% |
| Food Ingredients | $1.55B | 25.2% |
| Fuel Ingredients | $600.8M | 9.8% |
By geography
| North America | $3.46B | 56.3% |
| Europe | $1.79B | 29.1% |
| South America | $570.9M | 9.3% |
| China | $261.4M | 4.3% |
| Other Geographical Areas | $61.4M | 1% |
Latest results
- In Q2 FY2026 (ended Jul 4, 2026), revenue was $1.72B, up 16.4% from a year earlier, and net income was $387.3M (+2959.1%).
- For fiscal 2025, revenue was $6.14B (+7.4% year over year; +11.4% a year from FY2020 to FY2025) with a 1% net margin.
Financial health check
| Revenue growth a year (FY2020–FY2025) | +11.4% good |
|---|---|
| Operating margin | 4.5% weak |
| Free cash flow margin | 11.1% good |
| Return on equity (FY2025) | 1.3% weak |
| Return on assets (FY2025) | 0.6% weak |
| Net cash (cash minus debt) | $-3.79B weak |
| Fiscal year | Revenue | Net income | Free cash flow |
|---|---|---|---|
| FY2020 | $3.57B | $296.8M | $344.5M |
| FY2021 | $4.74B | $650.9M | $430.3M |
| FY2022 | $6.53B | $737.7M | $422.4M |
| FY2023 | $6.79B | $647.7M | $343.8M |
| FY2024 | $5.72B | $278.9M | $506.8M |
| FY2025 | $6.14B | $62.8M | $679.2M |
Valuation snapshot
| Market value | $8.75B |
|---|---|
| P/E ratio | 142.2 |
| Dividend yield | None |
Rank among 1514 US companies
Market value at each year end
Darling Ingredients’s market value went from $2.13B at the end of 2016 to $8.75B on Oct 28, 2026, about 4.1 times as much; since the end of 2025 it is up 54%.
Show as a table
| Year end | Market value | Change |
|---|---|---|
| Oct 28, 2026 | $8.75B | +53.7% |
| 2025 | $5.69B | +6.3% |
| 2024 | $5.36B | -32.6% |
| 2023 | $7.95B | -20.7% |
| 2022 | $10.03B | -10.5% |
| 2021 | $11.21B | +19.9% |
| 2020 | $9.35B | +103.4% |
| 2019 | $4.60B | +45.1% |
| 2018 | $3.17B | +6.1% |
| 2017 | $2.99B | +40.5% |
| 2016 | $2.13B |
Price behavior
| YTD | 1 yr | 3 yr | 5 yr | 10 yr | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DAR price data to Oct 28, 2026 | +54.1% | +64.0% | +9.0% | -8.0% | +15.2% |
Show as a table
| Year | Price data |
|---|---|
| 2026 (to date) | +54.1% |
| 2025 | +6.9% |
| 2024 | -32.4% |
| 2023 | -20.4% |
| 2022 | -9.7% |
| 2021 | +20.1% |
| 2020 | +105.4% |
| 2019 | +46.0% |
| 2018 | +6.1% |
| 2017 | +40.4% |
| 2016 | +22.7% |
| 2015 | -42.1% |
| 2014 | -13.0% |
| 2013 | +30.2% |
| 2012 | +20.7% |
| 2011 | +0.1% |
| 2010 | +58.5% |
| 2009 | +52.6% |
| 2008 | -52.5% |
| 2007 | +109.8% |
| 2006 | +38.8% |
| 2008 financial crisis stocks fell Oct 9, 2007 – Mar 9, 2009 | Lost 70.2% over that stretch · deepest drop along the way 83%, back to its old high 26.2 months after the low |
|---|---|
| 2020 COVID crash stocks fell Feb 19, 2020 – Mar 23, 2020 | Lost 42.7% over that stretch · deepest drop along the way 51%, back to its old high 4.6 months after the low |
| 2022 bear market stocks fell Jan 3, 2022 – Oct 12, 2022 | Gained 6.6% over that stretch · deepest drop along the way 34.8%, not recovered by the end of the data |
Insider activity
Form 4 filings from 2025-10-29 to 2026-10-29 (25 read): 2 open-market purchases ($61K) and 9 sales ($2.3M).
| Date | Insider | Type | Value |
|---|---|---|---|
| Aug 14, 2026 | Patrick McNutt EVP Chief Admin Officer | sell | $537K |
| Sep 2, 2026 | Randall C Stuewe Chairman and CEO, Director | sell | $341K |
| Aug 13, 2026 | Randall C Stuewe Chairman and CEO, Director | sell | $324K |
| Aug 12, 2026 | Randall C Stuewe Chairman and CEO, Director | sell | $316K |
| Aug 17, 2026 | Sandra Dudley EVP Chief Strategy Officer | sell | $263K |
Who owns it
Large shareholders (13G filings)
| Vanguard Portfolio Management | 5.28% | Jun 30, 2026 |
| Vanguard Capital Management | 5.24% | Mar 31, 2026 |
| Dimensional Fund Advisors LP | 5.1% | Dec 31, 2025 |
| Gates Capital Management, L.P. | 4.4% | Jun 30, 2025 |
ETFs with the most weight in DAR
| ACES ALPS Clean Energy ETF | 5.01% |
| EVX VanEck Environmental Services ETF | 4.29% |
| FXG First Trust Consumer Staples AlphaDEX Fund | 4.01% |
| PBW Invesco WilderHill Clean Energy ETF | 1.97% |
| MOTO SmartETFs Smart Transportation & Technology ETF | 1.64% |
| MOO VanEck Agribusiness ETF | 1.63% |
| WDNA WisdomTree BioRevolution Fund | 1.17% |
| PBD Invesco Global Clean Energy ETF | 0.79% |
What could go wrong
- Commodity prices drive its earnings. Prices for many of Darling's fats and proteins move with commodity markets, which can swing sharply. Net income has ranged from $737.7 million in FY2022 to $62.8 million in FY2025.
- Heavy reliance on the Valero joint venture. Darling shares Diamond Green Diesel with Valero, so it does not control the venture alone. Weak renewable fuel results there feed straight into Darling's Fuel Ingredients segment and overall profit.
- Biofuel profits hinge on government policy. Darling's renewable energy businesses, including Diamond Green Diesel, depend heavily on government programs and incentives. If those rules change or shrink, fuel profits and demand for its fats as biofuel raw material could fall.
- Competition for raw materials. Darling has to win supplies of animal by-products, used cooking oil and bakery waste. Rivals compete for the same material, and some of its plants depend on just one or a few suppliers.
- Animal disease and food safety scares. Outbreaks such as BSE (mad cow disease), or illnesses even wrongly linked to animals, could disrupt raw material supply, hurt demand for its products or bring costly new rules.
- A large debt load. Total debt was about $3.95 billion, against $161 million of cash, as of July 4, 2026. Interest and repayments use up cash and leave less room to absorb a bad stretch.
Recent events
- Quarterly results released; Investor presentation or announcement
- Quarterly results released
- Investor presentation or announcement
- Quarterly results released; Investor presentation or announcement
- Investor presentation or announcement
- Shareholder vote results
- Quarterly results released; Investor presentation or announcement
- Executive or board change
- Quarterly results released
- Quarterly results released
For income and retirement investors
Darling Ingredients pays no dividend. It paid none from FY2021 through FY2025, and its annual report warns its ability to pay dividends may be limited, so shareholder returns depend on the share price rising. An investor who needs regular income would have to cash in shares. Instead, the company spent $415 million on share repurchases over those five years, and the share count fell 2.6% between August 2021 and August 2026. Free cash flow, the cash left after running the business and investing in plants, was $679 million in FY2025. The stock has fallen hard in downturns. It dropped 83% from June 2008 to March 2009 and took about 26 months from the low to recover. It lost 51% in the early 2020 COVID crash but recovered by August 2020. After a 34.8% slide in mid-2022, it had not regained that peak as of October 28, 2026. A single stock carries more risk than a diversified fund.
Questions investors ask
How does Darling Ingredients make money?
Darling makes money by collecting food-industry waste and turning it into ingredients. It gathers animal by-products, used cooking oil and bakery leftovers, then processes them into fats, protein meals, collagen and other products for makers of animal feed, pet food, food, medicines, fertilizer and biofuels. In the fiscal year ended January 3, 2026, fats brought in 29% of its $6.1 billion revenue, proteins 23% and food ingredients such as collagen and casings 20.4%. It also books its share of results from Diamond Green Diesel, a renewable fuel venture.
Does Darling Ingredients pay a dividend?
No. Darling paid no dividends from FY2021 through FY2025. Its annual report warns that its ability to pay dividends may be limited, so shareholder returns depend on the share price rising. The company has returned cash through share repurchases instead. It spent $415 million over those five years, and its share count fell 2.6% between August 2021 and August 2026. Investors who need steady income may find dividend-paying stocks or funds worth comparing.
What is Diamond Green Diesel?
Diamond Green Diesel is Darling's renewable fuel joint venture with Valero Energy. It converts animal fats, used cooking oil, inedible corn oil, soybean oil and other raw materials into renewable diesel and sustainable aviation fuel, which is jet fuel made from renewable or waste materials. Darling reports its share of the venture's results in its Fuel Ingredients segment. Separately, many of Darling's own fats are used to make biofuels. The venture's profits depend heavily on government programs and incentives, which can change.
Is Darling Ingredients profitable?
Yes, but only thinly in its latest full year. In the fiscal year ended January 3, 2026, Darling earned $62.8 million, down 77.5% from the prior year, on $6.1 billion of revenue. That is a net margin of about 1%. Earnings per share were $0.39, against $4.49 in FY2022. That put the price-to-earnings ratio (share price divided by a year's earnings per share) at about 142 as of October 28, 2026. Net income in the quarter ended July 4, 2026, was much higher, at $387.3 million.
How has Darling Ingredients stock performed?
Strongly over 10 years but poorly over five. As of October 28, 2026, the share price had gained 311% over 10 years, about 15.2% a year. Over five years it was down 34%, after falls of 9.7% in 2022, 20.4% in 2023 and 32.4% in 2024. It was up 54.1% year to date and 64% over one year as of the same date. The swings are large: the shares fell 83% from June 2008 to March 2009.