Conagra Brands reported operating profit of $268.4 million for the quarter ended August 30, 2026, down from $347.4 million a year earlier, in a first quarter when unit volumes across the company slipped 2.1%. The numbers come from an earnings release dated September 30 and posted on the SEC’s EDGAR system as an exhibit to a Form 8-K. The portfolio behind them includes Birds Eye, Slim Jim and Marie Callender’s, all Conagra’s own brands.
A 22.7% drop in reported operating profit
The $268.4 million is a reported figure, the one recorded in the company’s financial statements for the completed quarter. It is not a forecast and not a guidance range. Against $347.4 million in the same quarter of the prior year, the release shows a decline of 22.7%, a gap of $79.0 million. Divided by the quarter’s net sales, the reported figure works out to roughly 10.3%, a simple calculation from two numbers in the release.
Net sales for the quarter were $2,595.9 million, down 1.4% from $2,632.6 million. The release also reports organic net sales separately, and that figure fell 1.1%. The profit decline was therefore far steeper than the sales decline, which is the central arithmetic of the quarter: sales slipped by low single digits while reported operating profit lost more than a fifth.
Adjusted results ran ahead of expectations
Conagra’s own framing of the quarter was upbeat. John Brase, the company’s president and chief executive, said in the release: “We delivered a solid start to fiscal 2027 with top line results largely in line with expectations and profit ahead of expectations.” The profit he refers to is measured on an adjusted basis. Adjusted operating margin came in at 11.5%, and adjusted earnings per share were $0.41, up 5.1% from $0.39 a year earlier.
The two sets of numbers describe the same quarter with different rulers. The 22.7% decline belongs to the reported series. The 11.5% margin and the $0.41 per share belong to the adjusted series, and the two are not interchangeable. Anyone comparing Conagra with a rival, or with analyst estimates that were set on an adjusted basis, needs to check which series a given figure comes from before drawing a conclusion about how the quarter went.
Volume fell 2.1% across the whole portfolio
The release puts a 2.1% decline in volume and a 1.0% gain from price and mix at the company-wide level. Those two moves add up to the 1.1% decline in organic net sales: shoppers bought fewer units overall, and a slightly higher price and mix per unit recovered part of the gap.
That 2.1% is a company-wide average. It is not the volume change at Birds Eye, at Slim Jim or at Marie Callender’s individually, and the headline figures in the release do not state a unit decline for any single brand. The three brands appear in the release in a list describing Conagra’s portfolio, alongside Duncan Hines, Healthy Choice, Reddi-wip and Angie’s BOOMCHICKAPOP. A reader looking for how many fewer bags of frozen vegetables or meat snacks sold would need brand-level data that the summary figures do not provide.
Both big segments shrank
Conagra reports through segments, and the two largest were close to each other in size. Grocery & Snacks recorded net sales of $1,051.1 million, down 2.6%. Refrigerated & Frozen recorded net sales of $1,053.8 million, down 2.1%. Together the pair accounts for about $2,105 million of the $2,595.9 million total, with the remainder coming from the company’s other segments. Both declines fit the weak-volume picture, though each segment’s own profit sits in the release’s segment tables rather than in the summary figures used here.
What management left unchanged
Conagra reaffirmed its fiscal 2027 guidance after the quarter. The company expects organic net sales to change by between negative 3% and negative 1%, adjusted operating margin of 10.0% to 10.5%, and adjusted earnings per share of $1.40 to $1.50. The first quarter’s adjusted operating margin of 11.5% sits above the full-year margin range, and the first-quarter adjusted earnings per share of $0.41 is one building block of the full-year target.
The quarterly dividend stays at $0.35 per share. The balance sheet figures in the release show net debt of $7.4 billion and a net leverage ratio of 3.99 times, against a stated aim of about 4.0 times at the end of the fiscal year. Those two numbers frame how much room the company has to keep paying a dividend while volumes shrink.
The reported operating profit, the 22.7% decline, the 2.1% company-wide volume figure and the reaffirmed fiscal 2027 outlook all trace to one document: Conagra’s earnings exhibit on EDGAR, covering the quarter ended August 30, 2026.
A planner for deciding which retirement account to draw down first
The Retirement Tax & Withdrawal Planner is written for people who are already taking money out of IRAs, 401(k)s and Social Security and want to see how each withdrawal changes their tax bill. It addresses the problem of three rules pulling in different directions: required distributions, Medicare premium surcharges and tax on benefits.
The Retirement Tax & Withdrawal Planner is a 12-page planner with four calculators, covering provisional income, the IRMAA tier, the RMD schedule and Roth bracket fill, plus a page on the account withdrawal order.
Work out a withdrawal order and an RMD schedule on paper before the next distribution →
This article was produced with AI assistance and checked against the SEC filing linked above. The Financial Wire does not provide investment advice.
Warren Cohen is a finance writer based in Phoenix, Arizona, covering personal finance topics including credit, banking, and beginner investing. He earned his degree in business administration from Arizona State University and began his career working in consumer finance, where he gained direct experience with lending and credit systems. He now writes for personal finance websites and fintech platforms, focusing on clear, practical content that helps readers make informed financial decisions.
