Muyuan Foods 2025 Annual Report: Strengthening a Stable Foundation Amid Cyclical Battles, Full-Chain Layout Opens a New Chapter of Growth

(Source: Nine Number Watch)

Author | Panghu

On the evening of March 27, China’s leading hog-raising company Muyuan Co., Ltd. (002714.SZ) officially released its 2025 annual report.

Amid the complex environment of falling hog prices throughout the year and an industry cycle adjustment, the company, relying on solid cost control, optimized financial structure, and a diversified business layout, delivered a set of results that combine toughness and quality: full-year operating revenue of 144.45 billion yuan, up 4.49%; net profit attributable to shareholders of 15.486 billion yuan. Although net profit was adjusted year over year due to fluctuations in hog prices, core operating indicators continued to improve. Cost control effects were evident, the slaughtering business achieved a historic breakthrough, the financial structure continued to be optimized, overseas expansion accelerated steadily, and this demonstrates the strong capability of the industry leader to navigate the cycle and develop with high quality.

As a benchmark enterprise in China’s hog-raising industry, Muyuan’s annual report performance not only reflects the concentration of its own operating results, but also mirrors the industry’s development logic during the period of cycle adjustment—shifting from scale expansion to quality improvement, from single hog-raising to extending cooperation across the entire industrial chain, and from deep cultivation in China to breakthroughs in global layout.

1

Business resilience stands out: cost control builds a “moat”

The ability to navigate the cycle is continuously strengthened

In 2025, China’s hog market showed a pattern of “falling prices and intensifying competition.” The average hog price fell noticeably year over year, putting significant pressure on the profitability of breeding enterprises. Against this backdrop, Muyuan Co., Ltd. did not pursue scale expansion blindly. Instead, it made “reducing costs and increasing efficiency, and operating steadily” its core strategy. Through technological innovation and refined management, it continued to optimize breeding efficiency, transforming cost advantages into core competitiveness and stabilizing the company’s operating fundamentals amid fluctuations in the industry cycle.

According to the annual report, in 2025 Muyuan Co., Ltd. supplied 77.981 million market hogs to society and provided 7.09 million tons of high-quality pork, successfully meeting pork consumption needs of over 100 million people. While its scale advantage continued to be consolidated, its supply assurance capability became even more prominent. Even more critically, the company’s fully-loaded cost of hog breeding fell significantly; the average cost for the full year dropped to about 12 yuan/kg, down 2 yuan/kg from the same period last year. The decrease reached 14.29%. Its cost control level ranked among the top in the industry, becoming a core support for resisting downward pressure from hog prices.

“Cost reduction is not accidental; it is the result of the company’s sustained long-term investment across every full process, including technology research and development, production management, and disease prevention and control.” Industry insiders analyzed. What is also worth noting is that the potential for cost reduction continues to be released. The annual report discloses that the company’s fully-loaded cost of breeding hogs on its outstanding pig farms can now be controlled below 11 yuan/kg. This data fully verifies the feasibility and replicability of its cost-control model.

Supported by its cost advantages, Muyuan’s profitability demonstrates strong resilience. Although net profit in 2025 declined year over year due to falling hog prices, the net profit scale of 15.812 billion yuan still ranks at the top of the industry, far exceeding the level of most peers. More importantly, the company’s self-breeding and self-raising model with heavy-asset investment results in the share of non-cash costs such as depreciation and amortization being approximately 10%. Even in a low-hog-price cycle, it can still deliver positive operating cash flow inflows by relying on lower cash costs—forming an operating resilience characterized by “pressure on the books but stable cash.” This provides solid assurance for the company to navigate the industry cycle.

2

Business breakthrough and acceleration: first breakthrough in the slaughtering business

Overseas layout opens up new room for growth

If cost control is the “keystone” that helps Muyuan Co., Ltd. stabilize its operating fundamentals, then optimizing its business structure and expanding its overseas layout are the company’s “growth engine” for achieving high-quality development. In 2025, while consolidating its core hog-raising business, Muyuan accelerated the development of full-chain synergies of “breeding + slaughtering + meat food.” Its slaughtering and meat food business achieved a historic breakthrough, and its overseas layout made substantive progress, injecting new momentum into the company’s future growth.

According to the annual report, in 2025 Muyuan’s slaughtering and meat food business reached a milestone breakthrough. Full-year operating revenue was 45.228 billion yuan, up 86.32% from the same period last year. It achieved continuous profitability in the third and fourth quarters, and ultimately successfully realized its first annual profit since its establishment. This marks that the company’s industrial chain extension into downstream segments has achieved substantive results, and the synergy advantages across the full industrial chain have begun to be gradually released.

Behind this breakthrough is the company’s continued investment in the slaughtering business and refined operations. In 2025, the company slaughtered 28.663 million hogs, sold 3.23 million tons of pork products such as fresh and frozen goods, and achieved a slaughtering capacity utilization rate of 98.8%, with scale effects continuing to emerge. In terms of channel expansion, Muyuan continued to build a nationwide pork sales network. By the end of 2025, it had established more than 70 sales branches across 20 provincial-level administrative regions in China, covering multiple channels such as supermarkets, new retail, catering, and food processing enterprises—further improving the market coverage and penetration rate of its products.

In 2026, Muyuan’s slaughtering and meat food business will continue to push forward. The company stated it will continue to improve slaughtering capacity utilization, steadily advance the deployment of slaughtering capacity that has been planned but not yet built, and expects full-year slaughter volume to maintain an upward growth trend. At the same time, it will further optimize product and customer structures, expand channels for large customers, focus on the development of higher value-added products, increase the proportion of portioned products, and drive continuous enhancement of profitability.

While deeply cultivating the domestic market, Muyuan also proactively seized development opportunities in the global hog-raising industry and steadily advanced its overseas layout. In 2025, it achieved multiple substantive progress points, opening up a long-term growth space for the company.

In 2025, the company formally established Muyuan Vietnam Co., Ltd., and entered into strategic cooperation with Vietnam’s BAF Company and Thailand’s CP Group. Focusing on the Southeast Asian market, and leveraging its advantages in breeding technology, cost control, environmental governance, and related areas, it enables the local hog-raising industry and explores overseas business development models.

More importantly, in February 2026, Muyuan Co., Ltd. was officially listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, becoming the first domestic hog-raising enterprise listed in both “A+H” locations. This marks a solid step forward in the company’s internationalization layout. Relevant company executives said that, going forward, the company will use the opportunity of the H-share listing to continuously advance its overseas layout, focusing particularly on potential markets such as Southeast Asia. Through exporting equipment and technology, and cooperating to build factories, it will gradually expand the scale of overseas business. At the same time, it will replicate mature domestic breeding models and management experience overseas, achieving a dual-wheel drive of “deep domestic cultivation + overseas expansion,” and promote further growth in the company’s business.

3

Financial quality improvement and efficiency gains: reducing leverage shows results

Double advantages from cash flow and dividends reinforce the foundation of market trust

In 2025, Muyuan regarded “optimizing the financial structure and enhancing risk-resistance capacity” as key priorities. By continuously reducing leverage, strengthening cash flow management, and increasing shareholder returns, it achieved a comprehensive improvement in financial quality. This has laid a solid financial foundation for the company’s long-term steady development, and also transmitted strong development confidence to the market.

In recent years, Muyuan has continuously promoted cost reduction and efficiency improvement as well as deleveraging. By the end of 2025, the company’s asset-liability ratio was 54.15%, down 4.53 percentage points from the beginning of the year. Total liabilities decreased by 17.1 billion yuan from the beginning of the year, exceeding the full-year deleveraging target. The financial structure was further optimized, and risk-resistance capacity was significantly enhanced.

“Behind deleveraging is the continuous improvement of the company’s profitability and its cash flow generation capacity.” Financial professionals noted. With the end of the company’s large-scale construction investment period, its capital expenditures gradually declined, and its cash flow generation capacity continued to strengthen, providing solid support for deleveraging efforts. In 2025, the net cash flow from operating activities reached 30.056 billion yuan. Ample cash flow not only supports the company’s day-to-day operations and debt repayment needs, but also provides funding support for the company’s subsequent technology investments and business expansion.

More importantly, Muyuan has passed the stage of large-scale capital investment, and as capital expenditures gradually decline, its cash flow generation capacity continues to strengthen, officially entering the “harvesting period” of cash flow. Based on calculations, the company’s annual depreciation of fixed assets is about 14.0–15.0 billion yuan. This stable non-cash inflow further ensures the safety and stability of the company’s cash flow. Even during industry cycle fluctuations, it can still maintain positive operating cash flow continuously, laying a solid safety baseline for the company’s long-term development.

In addition, it is also worth mentioning that on January 7, 2026, Muyuan’s controlling shareholder, Muyuan Industrial Group, completed all procedures for equity pledge releases. The Qin Yinglin family’s combined shareholding of 55.11% of the company’s shares has officially entered a zero-pledge status. This release of equity pledges not only completely eliminated risks of equity liquidation and hidden concerns of control-right fluctuations, but also strengthened the stability of the company’s equity structure. It also sent a positive signal to the market that both the company and its shareholders have abundant cash flow and strong financial resilience. Together with 2025’s reduction of over 10 billion yuan in liabilities and the continued optimization of the asset-liability ratio, it created a resonance, jointly demonstrating the company’s steady underlying tone as it navigates the cycle.

While the company’s financial condition continues to improve, Muyuan places high importance on investor returns. Through high-proportion cash dividends, it shares the company’s development results with all shareholders, showing the company’s firm confidence in future development.

According to the annual report, in the first half of 2025, the company had already implemented a cash dividend of 5.002 billion yuan (including tax), accounting for 47.5% of the company’s net profit attributable to shareholders for the period. Together with the profit distribution proposal in the annual report, the company plans to pay cash dividends of 4.27 yuan per 10 shares to all shareholders (including tax). The total dividend amount is 2.435 billion yuan (including tax). If the proposal is approved at the shareholders’ meeting, the company’s total cash dividends for 2025 will reach 7.438 billion yuan (including tax), accounting for 48.03% of this year’s net profit attributable to shareholders—close to the 50% dividend ratio, and also far above the industry average.

“(All data and information in this article come from the company’s financial reports, listed company announcements, and public information such as Eastmoney Finance and Tonghuashun Finance. If any data or information is missing, please feel free to correct it. Without authorization, this article is prohibited from reprinting, copying, or rewriting.)”

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