Summary
- Kerry enters a new phase of its strategy following a major structural shift.
- The company is sharpening its focus on capabilities that support innovation and market adaptation.
- Growth momentum is emerging across select channels and geographies.
- Operational optimisation remains a core pillar of Kerry’s long‑term plan.
In early 2025, Kerry Group completed one of the biggest operational changes in its history. The Irish company relinquished control over Kerry Dairy Ireland, the group’s consumer dairy arm, to focus on its profitable B2B taste and nutrition portfolio.
A year on, the group is adjusting to a new era: and despite taking a revenue hit due to the disposal of Dairy Ireland, it still delivered solid volume growth and margin expansion as it enters the second phase of its optimisation programme.
Kerry’s strategy is rooted in solutions that drive new product development innovation while also addressing value, trend and regulatory demands across different channels. Below, we look at the key drivers shaping the company’s approach.
Biotechnology
Kerry’s core competencies balance between taste and nutrition and increasingly, biotechnology. The company has invested in its biotech platform, most recently by opening a new hub in Germany, and sees this space as a catalyst for sustainable nutrition, ingredient innovation, and supply chain resilience.
Edmond Scanlon, group CEO and executive director, described biotechnology and biofermentation as the “unlock” to creating new, scalable, resource-efficient solutions that aren’t limited by traditional agriculture.
“Biotechnology solutions will need to be bigger and bolder, and it is key to solving the industry’s supply challenges and enabling the next generation of sustainable innovations,” he said at the 2026 Consumer Analyst Group of New York (CAGNY) conference.
“We’ve been purposely building out this portfolio for more than a decade now. We have invested heavily in leading science and technology capabilities. And importantly, about 40% of our taste solutions are already enabled by fermentation.
“On top of this, we’ve been layering in a dedicated biotechnology portfolio from enzymes, proactive health solutions to biopharma technologies and fit protection systems.”
These developments include a natural shelf-life extension solution, a clean-label preservation solution; a fermentation-derived sugar and salt reduction tech; a new postbiotic for digestive and skin health, and an enzyme system that delivers more natural sweetness.
Reformulation and renovation
The evolving consumer and regulatory landscape is another key lever for Kerry. The market is increasingly forcing manufacturers to rethink their ingredient choices while meeting expectations around taste and convenience at the same time.
Reformulation is therefore a significant driver of innovation: according to Kerry, over 60% of new food and beverage activity in North America is reformulation as brands strive to improve nutrition, simplify labels, manage costs and address sustainability.
“If we look back to 2015, front-of-pack nutritional labelling, these regulations were relatively new and limited predominantly to Australia, a few countries in Europe, with many of them voluntary,” said Scanlon.
“Fast forward to today, and front-of-pack labelling is truly global, including in Canada, several countries in Latin America, where mandatory labelling is being implemented. And there are further policy updates expected in the US, in India, in China, in Southeast Asia in the coming years.”
Foodservice and emerging markets
Performance in foodservice and emerging markets is also quietly driving growth at Kerry. In recent years, the Irish major achieved average foodservice volume growth of 9% and average emerging markets growth of 7%.
In 2025, foodservice was one of Kerry’s most consistent and structurally strong growth engines, with both top‑line and strategic indicators pointing to continued outperformance. It’s no surprise then that Kerry is gearing up for a strong 2026 in this channel, with the company expecting to outperform the market by a significant margin.
The Irish multinational is also increasingly driving growth in emerging markets, with Southeast Asia and the Middle East and Africa seeing growth in 2025.
China – where volumes remained subdued last year – is expected to improve in 2026. This is driven by export activity and demand for clean label and healthier products driven by government guidelines around sugar, salt and fat reduction.
“We expect to be deploying those types of reformulation technologies in China, similar to what has driven growth in the Americas,” Scanlon said.
Efficiency optimisations
For Kerry, driving growth is as much about innovation as it is about efficiency. Having completed the first stage of its productivity drive, the Irish major is now aiming to deliver around €100 million in recurring annual benefits by 2028 through supply chain and manufacturing optimisations.
This will be achieved through factory consolidation (and its footprint has already shrunk from 124 to 119 plants) as well as digital transformation.
The company is leveraging agentic AI to automate operational decisions including supply chain and new product development; expanding automation to unlock capacity; using digital manufacturing twins to improve output, and using smart predictive tools to reduce maintenance costs.
What this means for the industry
Kerry is confidently pushing through with its strategic priorities: the company is progressing its biotechnology initiatives, supporting reformulation activity across markets, expanding in foodservice and emerging regions, and implementing digital programmes aimed at efficiency and process improvement. Management expects these areas to contribute to ongoing growth and operational development.
For the wider industry, Kerry’s strategy suggests that:
- biotechnology is moving from niche to necessity to curb supply chain risk and provide new innovation levers;
- reformulation is a firm growth engine in an evolving consumer and regulatory landscape;
- foodservice opens avenues for both trend- and value-led innovation for suppliers, and
- digital transformation is becoming essential to unlocking growth.
Today’s suppliers need to solve multiple challenges for food and beverage brands: and taking an integrated approach to innovation is becoming essential to staying competitive.
