Cargill’s annual revenue falls for the first time in years

Cargill’s revenue dropped nearly 10% to $160 billion through the past year, a rare decline following years of explosive growth.

The Minnetonka-based crop trader and food maker is facing low commodity prices amid a global glut of agricultural production — a stark reversal from the tight supplies and high prices caused by wars and pandemic-era supply chain slowdowns.

“The marketplace our people navigated this year was extremely challenging,” CEO Brian Sikes wrote in the company’s annual report released Tuesday.

Fiscal year 2024, which ended in May, marked the first annual revenue decline since 2019 and the largest in a decade.

Cargill, the country’s largest privately held company, stopped providing full financial reports several years ago. But according to an internal memo, the company informed employees last week that it had missed profit goals for more than two-thirds of its businesses.

As a result, Cargill is reorganizing from five business divisions to three, beginning next month.

“While we faced challenging market conditions, we delivered earnings growth in several of our businesses and are confident in our go-forward strategy,” the company said in a statement.

Grain and beef margins remained healthy, and soybean oil stayed competitive last year.

Cargill’s new long-term strategy is meant to transform the way the 159-year-old company runs while making key investments to return to growth.

Sikes wrote that 2030 is Cargill’s “first horizon” as the agribusiness searches for “urgently needed solutions that will nourish the future.”

“By then, the world will gain 500 million people — roughly the current population of North America,” he wrote. “To feed them, the food system has to produce another 45 to 50 million metric tons of agricultural commodities per year. And we need to do it with less land and water, in a world increasingly challenged by climate change.”