Nomad Foods is Europe’s leading frozen food company, owning around 40% of its core categories through brands like Birds Eye, Iglo, and Findus. Founded as a SPAC by Martin Franklin (Jarden) and Noam Gottesman (GLG Partners) in 2014, the company began operations in 2015 with the acquisition of Iglo and Findus. Since then, it has grown through a mix of organic expansion and bolt-on deals, reaching €3.1 billion in sales in 2024.

Yet despite its dominant position and steady cash generation, the stock trades near an all-time low of 6x earnings.

I think it’s interesting today because 1/ it’s a clear category leader with scale-driven advantages, 2/ it benefits from structural tailwinds in frozen food, and 3/ the valuation is exceptionally low.

Let’s unpack what’s behind that.

1/ What does Nomad do ?

What are these categories ? The main one is frozen Fish/Seafood, ⅓ of sales (€1bn) o/w €400m from fish fingers. Then comes Vegetables (25% of sales), Meals (17%), and Poultry (c10%). The rest is made of different categories, like Ice cream, Pizzas or Bakery products. Overall, 90% of Nomad’s products are considered non-high fat, salt, or sugar, and 40%+ are proteins.

Nomad’s brands are #1 in 16 European countries, including the 6 largest frozen foods markets (UK, Germany, Italy, France…) making 75% of the total market, which is growing slightly ahead of chilled food and inflation since pre-Covid (retail sales value of 23bn€ in 2024, vs 18bn€ in 2019 ie CAGR 5% vs inflation in Western Europe of 3.5-4.0% per year).

Longevity and leadership positions give Nomad deep and longstanding relationships with retailers selling their products. All in all, this creates the necessary conditions for keeping their spot : they are the leaders in their categories, recognized by the consumers as such for decades, making them a must-have in the freezer at retailers, all the more reinforced by their leading economic power (harder for newcomers to compete with the leader on A&P when it is 50% bigger than #2 (Dr Oetker) and 2.5x #3 (McCain).

All this makes Nomad the Category Captain, which it defines like this :

→ The leader of the category is the company that invests and advertises on behalf of the category, effectively setting the tone for the market.

In its core categories, Nomad’s main competition comes from private labels : if you consider Nomad has 35-45% market share in volume and private labels usually have 50%+, it’s basically a duopoly. Private labels are tough competitors because of pricing and because they own the freezers Nomad depends on. Nomad’s CEO mentions it’s vain for them to try and compete on price, they’ll never win that battle. However, on the quality/value side their offer is compelling : it complements the offer of private labels by offering a better product at a higher price point, and they are the brands consumers know. For categories where Nomad is not the Captain, competition is more diverse as in prepared meals or pizza but Nomad’s brands enjoy strong brand recognition too.

As of October 2025, Nomad operates 17 manufacturing facilities, in most countries where it sells. 80% of the volume they sell is produced in-house, the rest is done via co-packers. Once packed, frozen food is dispatched to Nomad’s well known customer base. Their customers are the main retailers in each country : Tesco, Asda and Sainsbury’s for the UK ; Conad, Coop… in Italy ; Carrefour, Leclerc, Auchan in France ; Rewe, Edeka in Germany. Top 10 customers represent c30% of sales. Though not mentioned as their main customers, I saw Nomad’s products sold at European discounters like Lidl and Aldi (only a few references though).

I checked the fish fingers and poultry prices across retailers to compare with private labels. With the exception of Lidl where Croustibat’s fish fingers are 10-20% more expensive than private label (excluding promotions) and Auchan in France (not the best retailer in France, cf screenshot below from France’s retail expert Olivier Dauvers on another product) where they are 40-100% more expensive, Nomad’s products are usually sold at 2-3x the price/kg of private labels. Tesco also sells the Young’s brand, which sells at a premium to Nomad’s products.

NB : the area dedicated to freezers in stores tends to be fixed on a store-per-store basis. Therefore, frozen food suffers less than dry products from different category competition.

Foodservice represents only 7% of sales, mostly in the Nordics, Croatia and Spain. This could be a future growth lever (cf veggie nuggets for McDonalds in Sweden).

Regarding procurement, fish come from the US and Russia. Nomad is the world’s largest purchaser of MSC labeled fish. Poultry is from South America mostly, and vegetables from Europe. Prices for annually harvested products are set contractually for a year.. For others, the contract’s length is for a few months. Nomad uses co-pack suppliers for vegetables other than peas and spinach (corn, carrots, mushrooms…).

2/ How was it built ?

Nomad’s founders are Noam Gottesman and Martin Franklin. The first one founded GLG Partners, the hedge fund. Franklin built Jarden, a conglomerate of consumer brands, through multiple acquisitions, from Mapa Spontex to Yankee Candle. It was acquired by Newell Brands in 2014. Both are co-chairmen of Nomad Foods to this day. Franklin is also the chairman of Api Group and Element Solutions.

In 2015, the company acquired Iglo in April for 2.6bn€ (1.7x Sales, 8.5x Ebitda), then Findus Group for £500m (1.2x Sales, 10.5x Ebitda). They were both acquired from PE Groups, Permira and Lion Capital respectively, though the story of their brands started decades ago.

The Iglo Group traces its roots back to the 1920s when Clarence Birdseye patented the Birds Eye Plate Froster for freezing fish. After the acquisition of the Birds Eye patents by General Foods in the 1930s, the Birds Eye brand was launched. In the 1940s, Unilever acquired the rights to the Birds Eye brand throughout the world, except for the United States, and in the 1950s Birds Eye became 100% Unilever owned. The Iglo brand was launched in Belgium in 1956 and was introduced by Unilever in Germany in 1961. In the 1960s, Unilever acquired the Findus brand in Italy and San Marino. In 2006, the Permira Funds acquired the Birds Eye and Iglo brands and frozen foods businesses from Unilever, which, at the time, retained the Italian frozen food business under the Findus brand. Following the buyout, the Iglo Group refocused its business on its main product categories, initiated improvements in its supply chain and implemented cost savings. In October 2010, the Iglo Group acquired C.S.I. Compagnia Surgelati Italiana S.p.A., the owner of the Findus brand in Italy and San Marino, from Unilever.

 

On August 13, 2015, we entered into an Option Agreement pursuant to which, on November 2, 2015, we purchased the Findus Group which comprises the continental European businesses of the Findus Parent in Sweden, Norway, Finland, Denmark, France, Spain and Belgium relating to the Findus, Lutosa and La Cocinera brands for approximately £500 million. Findus is a leading frozen food company in continental Europe with approximately 1,500 employees and revenues for the fiscal year ended September 30, 2014 of approximately £520 million. We believe this transaction will enable us to move forward with a well-known, unified Findus brand, and together with the strong Iglo platform, will further our efforts to drive innovation, introduce new meal options, and conduct marketing initiatives aimed at bringing more consumers across Europe to the frozen foods aisles. In addition, the geographic footprint of the operations included in the Findus Acquisition complements and extends our footprint throughout Europe.

Overnight Nomad Foods became the 800-pound gorilla of the category with €2.0bn of sales. It was decided to change the listing place in early 2016, leaving London and going to New York, looking for more liquidity and a stronger shareholder base. The acquisition strategy continued over the years with 4 more deals between 2018 and 2024 :

• 2018 : Goodfella’s Pizza for £200m (1.5x Sales), based in Ireland, specialised in pizzas, broadening the product range.

• 2018 : Aunt Bessie’s for €240m (2x Sales), #1 and #2 in the UK within frozen Yorkshire puddings and frozen potatoes, respectively.

• 2020 : Findus Switzerland for €110m, extending the geographic reach of the brand.

• 2021 : Fortenova’s Frozen Foods Business Group (FFBG) for €615m (2.2x Sales). It brought two leading brands, Ledo and Frikom, #1 in many geographies like Croatia, Serbia, Bosnia etc, through a broad range of products : ice cream (50% of FFBG sales, and new to Nomad), fish, fruits, vegetables, meals…

Since 2015 and the foundation of Nomad, sales have grown from 2.0bn€ to 3.1bn€, an extra billion of sales coming mostly from acquisitions (€600m). The other €500m coming from price increases exclusively as volumes haven’t recovered from their inflation hit (cf below). Despite owning the category leaders, Nomad’s topline growth has been far from satisfying.

Though Franklin and Gottesman mentioned the possibility for Nomad to look beyond frozen foods in 2015 (cf screenshot below from FT), their strategy has changed over time and shows some reassuring consistency.

We find the same consistency at the helm of the group. The same CEO has been at the helm almost since the beginning. The Franklin-Gottesman pair hired Stéfan Descheemaeker to lead their newly formed leader in June 2015. Stéfan Descheemaeker is an experienced executive, having spent 3 years as Delhaize CFO and 3 years as CEO Europe. Before he was in charge of M&A and strategy at Interbrew (ABInbev), notably during their merger with Ambev.

It was announced a few weeks ago that Stéfan Descheemaeker was going to retire at the beginning of 2026. He’ll be replaced by Dominic Brisby whose main goal will be to take back market share lost during the recent inflation episodes. In his last positions, he served as President North America and Europe for Flora Food Group, where he grew market share and “transformed the P&L”. Previously at Imperial Brands, he reversed market share declines and reduced costs, driving record profit growth. Let’s see what he can do at Nomad.

3/ Short term troubles, long term opportunities

This situation partly reversed in 2024 once private labels had fully passed through inflation and Nomad’s prices stabilized. Market share of Nomad increased a bit and volume went slightly up (+1%). You can clearly see the evolution when splitting organic growth components: rebased at 100 in 2016, Volume/Mix are at 93 in 2024, while Price is at 132.

Then, multiple self-inflicted wounds (like ERP implementation or inventory mismatches), and successive guidance cuts (ERP implementation, retailers destocking, weather) led the stock price to drop from $20 in March 2025 to a low of $12 today. At $1.8bn of market cap, we’re today at the same level as in 2016, when the group was doing €2.0bn of sales, a third less than today.

But there are many reasons to be optimistic about Nomad I think. First, frozen food has many advantages vs fresh/ambient food :

– Convenience : Quick and easy to prepare (save time) ;

– Reduce waste (only prepare what you need + long expiry date) ;

– Healthy (⅔ of Nomad’s sales are Fish/Seafood/Vegetables/Poultry) ;

– Value for money (cheaper than chilled equivalent products) ;

– Less need for preservatives.

All these advantages will remain even in 10-15 years. There’s no world where people would prefer to pay more for food that takes more time to prepare and that’s just as healthy. Though I doubt Europeans will ever consume as much frozen food as Americans, I think we’re nowhere near saturation.

Second, Nomad can implement self-help measures to reverse self inflicted wounds. Think about having the right inventory at the right time for instance, or rationalizing the number of plants to improve utilization rates.

Third, Nomad recently upped its productivity program to €200m (o/w measures above are part of). All of these savings will be reinvested in A&P, quality etc. This will help the brands and better present the premium vs competition as I estimate that A&P spending as percentage of sales dropped below 4.0% on average during 2021-24 (cf CFO comment in early September) vs 5.6% during 2016-19 (A&P spending up 10% over 2016-24 vs sales up 60%).

I think this increased A&P spending is necessary to reestablish the premium vs competition. It’s hard to sell a product at a higher price point if you don’t convince your customer base that what you’re offering is of much higher quality and/or different. This means that innovations are also necessary to justify that premium and their share of revenue will increase to 6%+ in 2026 and beyond.

4/ What is it worth ?

I assume different scenarios : volumes come back in line with 2015 and prices are up a modest 1% per year over the next 5 years, volume flat and price up 2% annually, volume and price cancel out, margin back to historical average, margin flat, margin lowers to 11% (assuming less volumes ie operational deleveraging).

In the lower bound scenario (Sales €3bn, margin 10%), FCF generation reaches €150m/year ie $170m, giving a yield on today’s market cap of c10%. With Sales reaching €3.5bn (CAGR 2.7% vs average organic growth of 2.9% over 2017-24) and margin is back to the long term average (12.7%), FCF reaches €260m ie $300m, 17% FCF yield (FCF margin of 7.5%, slightly below the 8.0% average since 2016).

As for the management, it expects the FCF generation for 2026-28 to be up +15% vs 2023-25 ie target €700m of FCF over the period, €230m+ ($260m+) per year on average. Assuming 10% IRR, we get an equity value of $2.6-3.0bn$ in the base cases ie $18-20 per share.

All these scenarios don’t take M&A into account. I also assume the share count doesn’t change (148.5m shares post July 2025 repurchases) but I keep in mind that management has been opportunistic about it in the past (bought back $300m of shares in March 2020) and has repurchased >15% of outstanding shares over the last 24 months.

Nomad has started paying a dividend in early 2024. Today, it’s a $0.17 quarterly payment per share i.e. an annual payment of c$100m (<€90m), amply covered by the FCF. It adds 5%+ to your annual return.

What could derail all this ?

1/ Brands becoming irrelevant vs private labels. This isn’t only a problem for Nomad but for every FMCG brand. However I think that Category Captains are a bit immune to that (cf above), plus private labels need brands as a reference point.

2/ Debt level could also impact the group. As of Q2 25, gross and net debt were €2.1bn and €1.8bn respectively, with maturities in 2028 and 2029 (detail below). Nothing fancy for a group generating more than €200m post interests every year, though if brand power erodes over time, that could become a burden.

Debt structure :
1/ 690m$ term loan at SOFR + 2.5% (ie c6.5% today), maturing in 11/2029 (hedged);
2/ 550m€ term loan at EURIBOR + 2.5% (ie c4.5% today), maturing in 06/2028;
3/ 130m€ term loan at EURIBOR + 2.75% (ie c4.75% today), maturing in 11/2029;
4/ 800m€ of Senior Secured Notes at 2.5%, maturing in 06/2028;
5/ RCF of 175m€, undrawn, maturing in 06/2026.

Nomad pays around 100m€ of interest to pay each year (at current interest rates). Last week they mentioned they were refinancing their term loans. We’ll see what happens in the coming weeks.

Overall I think Nomad presents a very favorable risk/reward at today’s price. The upside of 50-70% faces a low proba of a contained downside. I own a position today.