Origination, Processing and Ingredients

Filed Segments Do Not Follow the Chain

The ag value chain has three stages: origination (buying crops from farmers, storing, shipping and trading them), processing (oilseeds into meal and oil, corn into starch and ethanol) and ingredients made to a customer’s specification. No company’s segment note follows them exactly. Archer-Daniels-Midland (ADM) and Bunge, the two listed ABCD merchants, come close. Ingredion, Darling Ingredients and The Andersons, a US grain handler and ethanol producer, do not. Start from what each company files and lay the three stages over it yourself. Compare multiples before that and you compare unlike businesses.

The Two Merchant Segment Maps

ADM reports three segments and splits the largest, Ag Services & Oilseeds (AS&O), into four lines. FY2025 segment operating profit:

The four AS&O lines sum to $1,614M. The Wilmar line is ADM’s share of the profit of Wilmar International, a Singapore-listed agribusiness group it holds a stake in but does not run.

Bunge reports four segments cut by commodity, on segment EBIT. FY2025 includes Viterra, the grain merchant it bought, from 2 July 2025.

Grouped by hand, which Bunge does not do, the three processing segments total $1,864M, or 80%, and grain merchandising, the origination business, 20%. The $465M includes a one-off $155M gain on selling Bunge’s North American corn milling business, so recurring origination earned about 14% ($310M of $2,174M).

Origination: Earning on the Spread

Origination earns on the gap between what a merchant pays the farmer and what it sells for, less freight and storage. Much of that gap is basis, the difference between the local cash price and the futures price, so origination can earn when the crush margin is flat.

ADM keeps origination inside Ag Services. At $636M, Ag Services was the largest AS&O line in FY2025, four times Crushing’s $159M.

Bunge files origination as Grain Merchandising & Milling, on 67.2M MT of grain sold.

The Andersons has reported two segments since 1 January 2025. Agribusiness had $8.26B of revenue, 75% of the $11.01B total, and $186.7M of adjusted EBITDA, 47.9% of the two segments’ combined figure, with no split between trading, processing and ingredients. A further $(52.5)M of corporate costs sits outside both segments, leaving group adjusted EBITDA of $337.3M. Its 2026 proxy statement puts commodities traded at 33M tonnes.

Processing: Crush, Refining and Ethanol

Processing turns soybeans into meal and oil, softseeds such as rapeseed and sunflower into edible oils, and corn into starch and ethanol.

The benchmark for soybean processing is the board crush, the futures value of the meal and oil in a bushel less the bean price; the crush margins guide builds it. ADM’s Crushing line follows the margins its plants actually lock in, which differ from the board.

Ingredients: Specification, Not Basis

Ingredients earn on what the customer’s recipe needs. Ingredion, which turns corn into starches and sweeteners, reports segment operating income by region and product: Texture & Healthful Solutions, its global texturising-ingredients business, $405M (33.4%); Food & Industrial Ingredients-LATAM $493M (40.7%); and Food & Industrial Ingredients-U.S./Canada $315M (26.0%). The three add to $1,213M. The shares are of the $1,211M total, which also includes a $2M loss in All Other, Ingredion’s smaller businesses.

ADM Nutrition, ADM’s ingredients segment, earned $417M (12.9% of segment operating profit) on $7,512M of revenue (9.4% of the total).

Darling renders animal by-products and used cooking oil into feed, food and fuel ingredients. Its FY2025 Combined Adjusted EBITDA was $1,026M: Feed $614M (59.8%), Food $295M (28.7%) and Fuel $192M (18.7%). The shares add to 107% because the total is struck after a $(74.6)M corporate line. Fuel includes Darling’s $104M share of Diamond Green Diesel (DGD), its 50% renewable diesel venture with Valero, which sold 1,003M gallons in 2025. The segments processed 15.45M MT of raw material, excluding DGD’s own.

Segment Mix Side by Side (FY2025)

Each company’s largest bucket sits in a different stage, on a different profit line.

Three Rules for a Fair Comparison

1. Label your own mappings. Bunge’s 80/20 split is grouped by hand, and The Andersons’ Agribusiness bundles trading, fertiliser and ingredients.
2. Compare like profit lines. ADM reports segment operating profit, Bunge segment EBIT, Darling adjusted EBITDA. Reconcile before blending them.
3. Check what the tonnes count. ADM’s 36.3M MT of oilseeds processed and The Andersons’ 33M tonnes traded measure different activities.

Where Volume Meets Margin

Throughput turns a thin unit margin into large profit; the margin per tonne guide divides each company’s segment profit by its own volume. Darling’s tonnes are of the same order as the merchants’ crush, but its margin follows fat and protein prices. Ingredion files no tonnes, so its analysis rests on margins and returns.

Working capital funds the chain from farmer to customer, and the companies that do most buying and trading carry the most. Read each segment map beside the working capital guide before applying a through-cycle multiple.