Current operating profit in Europe, which excludes one-off items, dropped to €60.1mn ($70.1mn) from €77.2mn, the company's annual report showed, even as sales in the region rose 1.3 per cent to €1.37bn.

Profit outside Europe tripled to €19.5mn, leaving group current operating income down 5 per cent at €79.6mn.

The European decline "was mainly due to increased pricing pressure from private-label products, which drove prices downward, as well as elevated inventory levels in certain categories, particularly sweet corn", Bonduelle said in its results statement on 2 October.

"In particular, our group faced the impact of unregulated imports of Chinese sweet corn, which put pressure on both volumes and selling prices," Chief Executive Xavier Unkovic said. He also cited higher energy costs and a heatwave that hit yields for the 2026 harvest.

European canned sales still rose 1.5 per cent, helped by "the gradual normalization of private-label volumes following the introduction of tariffs on Chinese sweet corn imports", the company said.

[image: cans of Bonduelle sweetcorn on a European supermarket shelf, or sweetcorn harvest at a Bonduelle supply farm in France or Hungary, source: todo]

Bonduelle had started the year targeting €90mn of current operating income, cut the goal to €80mn in February and warned in May that it would come in slightly below that. At constant exchange rates the figure was €75mn.

Non-recurring charges of €47.3mn, including a €35mn goodwill impairment on its North American fresh ready-to-eat business, which is separate from its sweetcorn operations, pushed continuing operations to a €16.9mn loss from a €19.7mn profit a year earlier.

Consolidated net income was €16.2mn after a gain on the sale of its French packaged-salad business to LSDH.

SEVENFOLD RISE

The European Commission's anti-dumping investigation, which covered trade from 2021 to September 2024, found imports of Chinese prepared sweetcorn into the EU rose more than sevenfold between 2021 and 2023 to 46,631 tonnes, lifting China's share of the EU market to 16 per cent from 2 per cent.

Chinese prices undercut those of EU producers by 7.2 to 28.6 per cent, the Commission said.

The China Chamber of Commerce of Import and Export of Foodstuffs, Native Produce and Animal By-Products (CFNA), which represented the exporters, argued the 2022 surge reflected a poor European harvest and a large order from Lidl.

The Commission accepted the poor 2022 harvest had contributed but said its effect was temporary, and found the documents CFNA submitted as Lidl purchase orders were invoices covering both 2022 and 2024. It rejected the claim.

The complaint was brought by the European Association of Sweet Corn Processors (AETMD). Bonduelle's canning units in France and Hungary were one of two EU producers whose accounts the Commission examined.

Closing stocks at the two rose 55 per cent between 2021 and the investigation period, and the Commission's provisional ruling attributed "the substantial surge in inventories" to dumped Chinese imports that left EU producers "not able to sell their products".

Brussels imposed provisional duties in August 2025, the second month of Bonduelle's financial year, and made them definitive in February at 31 to 54.3 per cent under Regulation (EU) 2026/276. The Commission puts the EU sweetcorn market at €642mn and the industry's workforce at about 3,500 people across France, Hungary, Italy, Poland and Spain.

EU imports of prepared sweetcorn from China fell 64 per cent to 7,950 tonnes in January-July 2026 from 21,920 tonnes a year earlier, Eurostat data accessed via Cropli showed.

The decline began before the duties took effect. Brussels made Chinese imports subject to registration in February 2025, a step that allows duties to be collected retroactively, but found the conditions for doing so were not met: monthly volumes in January-July 2025 were already 32 per cent below their level in the investigation period.

LAG IN TENDERS

The damage to processors runs on a lag. About 70 per cent of sweetcorn sold in the EU in 2021-24 was retailer own-brand, all of it through tenders negotiated between May and August for supply over the following September-to-August year, according to the Commission.

On that calendar, contracts struck in the 2024 and 2025 rounds, before definitive duties, covered the whole of Bonduelle's financial year. The effect of Chinese pricing would "continue to develop after the period considered", the Commission wrote.

Bonduelle said in February it had cut production programmes in summer 2025 "to limit inventory levels generated by Chinese corn imports". Own-label canned volumes had risen since the duties, it said, but prices "remained lower due to overstocking across Europe".

Unkovic said at the time the European market would "take another 18 months to recover".

Europe's margin held at 5.4 per cent in the six months to December, against 5.6 per cent a year earlier. Set against the full-year segment accounts, that implies a margin of about 3.4 per cent in the six months to June, down from about 5.8 per cent a year earlier, putting almost all of the region's profit decline in the second half.

Other suppliers have taken part of the space left by China.

EU imports from Thailand more than doubled from a year earlier to 6,120 tonnes in January-July and those from India rose to 3,650 tonnes from 2,090 tonnes, while total imports from outside the bloc fell 31 per cent. Thai sweetcorn has faced EU duties since 2007, renewed in February at 3.1 to 14.3 per cent under Regulation (EU) 2026/347.

Chinese sweetcorn entered at an average €0.89 per kg before duty this year, against €1.03 for Thai product.

In the United States, imports of Chinese prepared sweetcorn rose to 6,450 tonnes in January-July, two and a half times the level a year earlier, lifting China's share of US supply to 35 per cent, US Census Bureau data accessed via Cropli showed.

Arrivals of 1,750 tonnes in June were the largest for any month since November 2022. The data do not show whether the cargoes were redirected from Europe.

Bonduelle's exposure to the US market is indirect. It sold 65 per cent of its North American canned and frozen vegetable business, now Nortera, to two Québec investment funds in 2022 and retains a 35 per cent stake.

Bonduelle reports first-quarter sales on 5 November.