Despite its 100-plus years of history, Conagra Brands prides itself on maintaining an entrepreneurial mindset—embracing transformation and innovation while honoring its century-old legacy. Conagra fosters pride in delivering quality products and beloved brands with bold innovation, and mediocrity isn’t part of the equation. So it’s no surprise that this leading food manufacturer plans to increase investments to support supply chain resiliency as part of the roughly $450 million it earmarked for capital expenditures in fiscal year 2026, per a July 10 earnings call presentation.
Part of this plan is doing an overhaul of chicken production this fiscal year following the shutdown of a facility due to product quality issues.
The food manufacturer faced several supply challenges in FY25, which ended May 25, including stalled chicken production, a frozen vegetable shortage and tariffs on tinplate steel used to make canned food containers.
Conagra aims to significantly boost chicken production over the next 12 months to meet higher-than-expected demand for new products and reduce the cost of using third-party manufacturers, Marberger and other executives said on the earnings call.
Marberger highlighted near-term market challenges to include inflation and cost pressures, tariffs and trade impacts, and consumer confidence and spending.
With this in mind, Congra is investing to restore growth while maximizing cash and minimizing cost. He says this will come through various initiatives that focus on growth of frozen and snacks and investing margin to drive volume, targeted pricing on canned products, and actively managing for strong productivity and cash flow.
In addition, Conagra will increase investment in supply chain resiliency. This will include chicken facility modernization to resolve constraints on baked chicken and frozen vegetable challenges. Conagra also will continue cash focus, including working capital, on investing in CapEx for supply chain resiliency.
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