Darling Ingredients Inc. (NYSE: DAR) — A Low-Cost Waste-to-Value Survivor Whose Earnings Belong to Washington

An independent fundamental research note Report date: 2026-07-11 · Fiscal year-end: early January (52/53-week) · CIK: 0000916540 · Price (7/10/26): $60.83 · Diluted shares: ~160M · Market cap: ~$9.5B · Net debt: ~$3.85B · Enterprise value: ~$13.3B · Sector: Consumer Defensive / Rendering, Specialty Ingredients & Renewable Diesel

⚡ Claude’s Take

This block is the author’s own subjective opinion and general information only. It is not investment advice and is not a recommendation to buy or sell any security. The analysis that follows deliberately carries no recommendation and no price target; do your own research.

Verdict: HOLD — constructive on the asset, late to the trade. Accumulate-on-weakness below ~$45; not a short. Medium-low conviction. Darling is the lowest-cost survivor in a genuinely hard-to-replicate business — someone must collect the world’s slaughter fat, and DAR collects more of it, more cheaply, from more places (~260 locations, ~158,000 used-cooking-oil accounts) than anyone else, then routes each molecule to whichever of feed, food or fuel pays most. That “optionality of the molecule,” plus a 50% stake in Diamond Green Diesel (DGD), the #1 renewable-diesel producer in North America, is a real and underappreciated structural edge. But the edge shows up as survival and consolidation power, not as premium returns — through the cycle DAR earns a ~2–9% ROIC, and its economics are set by fat/oil/energy spreads and by U.S. biofuel policy, neither of which it controls. This is a deep cyclical dressed, via ~$3.85B of net debt and ~$3.3B of acquired goodwill/intangibles, as a compounder.

The problem at $60.83 is timing, not quality. The cycle already turned: GAAP EPS collapsed to $0.39 in FY2025 (DGD swung to an equity loss), the stock bottomed at $27.63 in April 2025, and then — as the March 2026 EPA Renewable Volume Obligation (RVO) finalized at record biomass-diesel volumes — Q1’26 EPS rebounded to $0.83, DGD printed +$151M in a single quarter, and the shares ran +120% off the low to ~$61, now only ~30% below their 2022 peak. A quantitative factor model still classifies DAR as a negative-momentum, deep-value, oil-price-levered, low-quality name (Value +0.5, OilPrice +0.6, Quality −0.2) — i.e., the tape treats this as mean-reversion, not a durable trend, and the 6-month annualized Sharpe of ~5 is the mathematical signature of a violent bounce that does not repeat. The falling knife has been caught; the easy money is made. On its own decade of history the stock sits at the ~75th percentile of valuation (P/S 72nd, P/B 66th; the 86th-percentile P/E is a trough-EPS artifact — ignore it), and at ~8x mid-cycle combined EBITDA against ~$3.85B of net debt, you are paying a fair-to-full price for the up-cycle to keep cooperating. Insiders agree with their feet: zero open-market buys and steady selling into the $51–64 rally. Flips bullish (raise to accumulate): a pullback into the low-$40s, or two more quarters of DGD sustaining >$1.00/gal with net debt through $3B. Flips bearish: any sign the 45Z credit lapses at its 2027 sunset or the RVO is walked back, which would re-hollow DGD’s margin. Tag: caught the knife, now paying for the rebound.

📈 Stock Price Action — Five-Year Event Map

Factual price history. Price moves are FACT; attributed drivers are INTERPRETATION. No recommendation or price target here — that lives only in Claude’s Take above.

Darling round-tripped a full biofuel cycle. From ~$67 in mid-2021 it ran to an all-time high of $87.18 on June 7, 2022 on renewable-diesel euphoria and the DGD build-out, then ground down ~68% over nearly three years to a trough of $27.63 on April 8, 2025 as RD margins collapsed, the Blenders Tax Credit lapsed into an uncertain 45Z regime, and ~$4.3B of acquisition debt weighed on a shrinking earnings base. It has since rebounded +120% to $60.83 (July 10, 2026) as policy clarity returned. The stock sits ~30% below its 2022 high, in a 52-week range of $29.74–$64.84, having decisively reclaimed its 200-day EMA (~$50).

Cycle narrative. (1–2) The 2021–22 top fused a genuine spread boom with strategic empire-building: DAR spent ~$3.2B on rendering and collagen acquisitions at peak multiples just as the renewable-diesel industry began building far more capacity than demand. (3–4) 2023–2025 was the payback — an industry-wide RD margin bust (DGD swung to a $79M operating loss in Q2’25; Neste posted its first negative renewables profit since 2014), compounded by the messy expiry of the $1/gal Blenders Tax Credit and its replacement by the untested, domestic-only 45Z Clean Fuel Production Credit on Jan 1, 2025, all sitting on $4.3B of net debt. (5–6) The recovery is real and supply-driven: subscale biodiesel plants shut (~5 of Iowa’s 10 idled), 45Z collapsed imports to a decade low, and the March 2026 RVO mandated record volumes — tightening a market whose marginal producers had already exited. Q1’26 confirmed the turn. (7) The pullback since May is ordinary digestion of a near-doubling. Every move is a fact; every attributed cause is interpretation cross-checked against earnings prints, 8-K events, EPA rulemakings, and the news feed.

1. Executive Summary

Darling Ingredients is the world’s largest publicly traded rendering and organic-byproduct recycling company, and — through its 50/50 Diamond Green Diesel joint venture with Valero — the largest renewable-diesel producer in North America. It converts ~15% of the world’s animal by-product streams (fat, bone, offal, used cooking oil, bakery residue) into three things: animal-feed fats and proteins (Feed, 65% of FY2025 sales), collagen/gelatin and specialty food ingredients (Food, 25%), and renewable diesel, SAF and green energy (Fuel, 10% of consolidated sales but a far larger share of profit swings, because DGD is equity-method and mostly off the consolidated income statement).

The investment question is not whether this is a real business — it plainly is, with genuine barriers to entry — but whether its economics justify the price after a violent recovery. FY2025 was a cyclical trough: revenue of $6.14B but GAAP net income of just $62.8M ($0.39 diluted EPS, down from $4.58 in 2022), ROE of 1.6%, and a DGD equity loss of $48.8M. Q1’26 then inflected hard — combined adjusted EBITDA of $406.8M (vs. $196M a year earlier), $0.83 EPS, DGD contributing $151M — as the March 2026 RVO finalization restored biofuel-margin visibility. The market has front-run the recovery: the stock is up ~120% off its April 2025 low and trades at roughly the 75th percentile of its own decade-long valuation range.

Three findings frame the thesis. First, the moat is real but narrow. Local route density in rendering, a unique low-carbon-intensity feedstock position feeding DGD, and the ability to route each molecule to its highest-value end market are genuine, hard-to-replicate advantages — but they manifest as survival and consolidation power, not pricing power. Through-cycle ROIC of ~2–9% is the tell. Second, the earnings are policy-hostage. DGD’s entire margin is a stack of RINs, the California LCFS credit, and the 45Z production credit; those swung DGD from $100M+ quarterly profits to quarterly losses and back within eighteen months, and 45Z is legislated to sunset after 2027. Third, capital allocation is mixed. Management bought ~$3.2B of assets at the top of the last cycle, tripled net debt to a $4.3B peak, and now must delever (target: below $3B) before the balance sheet is comfortable again. The thesis today rests on the 2026 policy up-cycle rescuing capital already deployed — not on demonstrated per-share compounding. This report takes no position and sets no price target; the valuation discussion is framed strictly as embedded expectations and scenarios.

2. Business Overview

Darling is a vertically integrated waste-to-value platform. Its foundational activity — rendering — is the collection and thermal processing of inedible animal by-products from slaughterhouses, meat processors, grocers and restaurants, plus used cooking oil (UCO) and residual bakery product, into fats/oils (tallow, yellow grease, UCO), protein meals (meat-and-bone meal, poultry meal, blood and feather meal) and specialty ingredients. The business dates to 1882, operates more than 260 locations including 186 production facilities across five continents, employs ~15,000 people, and processes an estimated ~15% of the world’s animal by-products. It reports in three segments.

Feed Ingredients (FY2025 net sales $3,990.1M, 65.0% of total). The largest and most cash-generative segment: North American and international rendering (U.S. fats/proteins and UCO collection; the Canadian business; and the Darling Ingredients International operations under the Sonac and FASA names), plus the bakery-residuals business. Outputs feed livestock, poultry, aquaculture, and — critically — the pet-food and biofuel supply chains. This segment is the collection backbone: its ~158,300 UCO accounts and animal-fat output are the low-carbon-intensity feedstock that DGD needs. Revenue is largely commodity price × volume; the segment is a global price-taker on finished products.

Food Ingredients (FY2025 net sales $1,545.0M, 25.2%). The highest-margin segment (~27% gross margin), built on Rousselot (gelatin and collagen peptides; 16 plants, sales into 80+ countries), Gelnex (collagen, acquired 2023), Sonac specialty proteins, and CTH natural casings. Products span pharmaceutical- and food-grade gelatin, collagen peptides for health/nutrition/beauty (Peptan brand), and the newer Nextida GC glucose-control peptide. A pending joint venture combines Rousselot with Tessenderlo’s PB Leiner into a ~$1.5B-revenue collagen NewCo (Darling 85% / Tessenderlo 15%), subject to antitrust clearance.

Fuel Ingredients (FY2025 net sales $600.8M consolidated, 9.8%). The consolidated figure understates the segment’s importance because DGD is a 50%-owned, equity-method joint venture whose revenue and EBITDA do not consolidate — only Darling’s share of DGD’s net income flows through, as a single line. The consolidated Fuel line captures DAR’s non-DGD green energy (European biogas, Ecoson, Rendac). DGD itself operates two renewable-diesel plants (Norco, LA and Port Arthur, TX) totaling ~1.2 billion gallons/year, plus a large sustainable-aviation-fuel (SAF) unit at Port Arthur. Because DGD’s profit is a policy-levered commodity spread, it is the single largest driver of Darling’s earnings volatility despite being the smallest slice of consolidated revenue.

How it makes money. DAR earns a spread — it is frequently paid to collect raw material (a disposal service) and then sells the processed output into feed, food or fuel markets. The genius and the curse of the model is that its inputs and outputs are both commodities, so reported profit is the difference between two volatile series (raw-material cost and finished-product price), amplified in Fuel by biofuel credit values. Revenue is roughly 90% non-recurring/commodity in character; the recurring element is the essential, non-discretionary nature of the collection service and the multi-year supplier contracts that underpin it.

3. Industry Dynamics

Rendering: a structurally good, economically volatile industry. Rendering has genuine, high barriers to entry. New greenfield plants are effectively un-permittable in developed markets because of odor and wastewater — NIMBY resistance plus Title V air and water permitting foreclose new independent capacity. The business is capital-intensive (cook lines, hydrolyzers, UCO fleets), and incumbency is protected by multi-year “formula” and “non-formula” raw-material contracts with well-capitalized meatpackers. Decisively, the economics are dominated by local collection logistics: fat and offal are heavy, low-value-per-ton, and spoil quickly, so whoever runs the densest route network in a basin collects more tons per truck-mile, amortizes high fixed plant costs over more volume, and can therefore pay suppliers the most (or charge the least to collect) — winning the marginal supplier and reinforcing its density. This is a textbook local economies-of-scale advantage in Greenwald’s taxonomy.

The critical qualification, straight from the 10-K, is that “the most competitive aspect of our business is the procurement of raw materials rather than the sale of finished products,” and competition for raw material is “based primarily on price and proximity.” The barrier protects the right to collect cheaply, not the right to price the output. Finished tallow, meal and UCO are globally traded commodities tied to soybean oil, energy and protein markets. So the industry is defensible and consolidating — attractive relative to a no-barrier commodity — but its profitability is spread-driven and cyclical, not a stable franchise margin.

Two structural cross-currents matter. Packer consolidation into large plants with captive (in-house) rendering is shrinking the pool of third-party raw material available to independents, a slow headwind to DAR’s supply base. Simultaneously, biofuel demand has drawn new bidders (waste-management firms, biofuel producers, anaerobic digesters) into competing for the same fats and UCO — raising the price of what DAR collects (good for DAR-as-seller, bad for DGD-as-buyer) and even spawning UCO theft.

Renewable diesel: a policy-made market in the recovery phase of a capital cycle. RD/SAF economics equal the commodity diesel price plus a stack of incentives: federal RFS RINs (D4/D5), the California (and Oregon/Washington) Low Carbon Fuel Standard, and — since January 1, 2025 — the 45Z Clean Fuel Production Credit (up to $1.00/gal for road fuel and $1.75/gal for SAF, scaled by carbon intensity, domestic production only). 45Z replaced the $1.00/gal Blenders Tax Credit that expired at end-2024, a regime change that rewards low-CI domestic feedstock (animal fats and UCO score better than soybean oil) and penalizes imports. This is a Marathon-style capital cycle textbook: a 2020–22 wave of RD capacity announcements, a 2022–24 ramp, a 2023–25 bust (US biomass-diesel capacity exceeded RVO demand; RIN/LCFS values and margins collapsed; Neste’s renewables margin fell by more than half; subscale biodiesel plants shut en masse), and now an early recovery as 45Z collapsed imports to a decade low, the shakeout removed marginal supply that will not return, and the March 27, 2026 RVO final rule mandated record biomass-diesel volumes (~8.86–8.95 bn gal for 2026–27, an estimated ~60% increase, plus reallocation of prior small-refinery exemptions). The disciplined, lowest-CI, integrated survivors capture that recovery.

Collagen/gelatin: an oligopoly, two-speed. A handful of global players (GELITA, Rousselot/DAR, PB Leiner/Tessenderlo, Nitta, Nippi, Weishardt) supply a ~$3.4B market growing ~8%/yr. Commodity gelatin (gummies, capsules) is consolidating but under margin pressure from new Chinese and South American capacity; branded collagen peptides and functional ingredients (Peptan, Nextida) carry real differentiation and pricing power. The pending PB Leiner JV tightens the oligopoly further.

Verdict: Rendering is a structurally good but economically volatile industry — high barriers, essential service, consolidating, but no output pricing power. Renewable diesel is a policy-manufactured commodity now emerging from a capital-cycle bust in favor of low-cost survivors. Collagen is structurally attractive but small. On balance, DAR sits in defensible industries whose profits are hostage to spreads and to Washington.

4. Competitive Position

DAR is unambiguously the #1 independent (merchant) renderer in North America and globally. Post-Valley Proteins (~$1.1B, 18 plants, 2022) it has more collection density, more plants, and more UCO accounts than any competitor. Its named independent rivals — Baker Commodities (West Coast, since 1937), Sanimax, West Coast Reduction — are strong regionally but sub-scale nationally; the packers (Tyson, JBS, Cargill, Smithfield) render their own by-product captively and compete for third-party raw material and as sellers of finished fats/meal, but are not merchant collection competitors. A defensible estimate is that DAR holds roughly a third or more of the independent North American rendering segment, though a much smaller share of total rendered tonnage once captive volume is included.

The moat mechanism, precisely named, is local economies of scale plus customer captivity in collection, reinforced by permitting/odor barriers and supplier incumbency — and, uniquely, by molecule optionality: because the same animal fat can flow to feed, to oleochemicals, to food, or (via DGD) to fuel depending on relative spreads, DAR can route each ton to its highest-value end market. That portfolio/logistics advantage is DAR’s most defensible and least-appreciated edge. In renewable diesel, DGD adds a genuine cost-curve advantage: DAR-supplied low-CI feedstock, Valero’s refining/logistics/hydrogen/offtake, owned pretreatment (letting DGD run cheaper, dirtier, lower-CI waste fats that also earn richer credits), and scale as the largest US producer. In collagen, Rousselot/Gelnex is a top-two global player with a differentiated peptide franchise.

The skeptical test the framework demands — can the moat be tied to a financial outcome that would deteriorate without it? — is passed only partly. The advantage keeps DAR at the bottom of the cost curve and lets it survive and consolidate where subscale renderers and biodiesel plants cannot; that is a real, monetizable outcome. But it does not convert into a high, stable return on capital: DAR’s invested-capital ROIC has ranged ~2–9% and never sustained above ~9%, even in the 2021–22 biofuel boom. The consolidated 25–32% ROE of the peak years was leverage- and goodwill-driven, not franchise economics. Verdict: a durable but narrow advantage — genuine low-cost scale leadership in an essential service, whose payoff is survival and share gains, not pricing power or premium returns. The strongest moat sits in Feed/rendering density (but lowest margin); the best business quality sits in Food/collagen (but smallest); the biggest swing sits in Fuel/DGD (but no moat, pure policy spread).

5. Growth History and Forward Opportunities

Darling’s reported growth is a cyclical wave riding on an acquisitive ramp, not organic compounding. Revenue climbed from $3.57B (2020) to $4.74B (2021) to $6.53B (2022) and $6.79B (2023) — but the bulk of that step-up was acquired (Valley Proteins, FASA, Gelnex) plus a once-in-a-decade fat/oil/RD price spike, not unit growth. Revenue then fell to $5.72B (2024) as commodity prices deflated, before recovering to $6.14B (2025). Over five years the top line grew, but earnings per share round-tripped violently: $1.83 (2020) → $4.01/$4.58/$3.99 (2021–23) → $1.73 (2024) → $0.39 (2025) → an annualized ~$3+ run-rate implied by Q1’26’s $0.83. This is the earnings signature of a commodity processor, not a grower.

Underlying volume growth is modest and structurally constrained. Raw-material volumes were roughly flat year-over-year in Q1’26 (~3.8M metric tons), and management flagged a structural headwind: the U.S. cattle herd is at a 75-year low, and because poultry (growing) yields far less fat than beef (shrinking), the fat available to collect per unit of throughput is declining even as poultry volumes rise. Growth, therefore, comes from three deliberate levers rather than from the base business compounding:

1. DGD ramp and SAF mix-up. Norco’s expansion lifted capacity to ~1.2 bn gal in 2025, and the Port Arthur SAF unit lets DGD upgrade ~50% of that plant’s output to higher-margin sustainable aviation fuel — a genuine, policy-supported volume and mix opportunity if credit economics hold.
2. Collagen / health-and-wellness. The Food segment is the secular grower — collagen peptides riding “food-as-medicine,” protein and beauty-from-within demand (~8% market CAGR), with the Nextida glucose-control launch and the PB Leiner JV adding capacity and reach without heavy new capital.
3. Bolt-on rendering consolidation. DAR continues to buy distressed independent assets at a discount (three Patense/Bovinos plants in Brazil out of bankruptcy, Dec 2025; Miropasz in Poland, 2024) that fit its network and add feedstock.

Verdict: low-quality, cyclical, largely acquired growth in the base, with two higher-quality secular threads (collagen and SAF). The forward opportunity is real but concentrated in the two smallest, most policy- or demand-dependent pieces; the 65%-of-sales rendering core is a share-consolidator in a low-growth, price-taking market, not a compounder.

6. Financial Quality

Margins and earnings power are cyclical and DGD-driven. Consolidated gross margin has ranged ~22–26%; operating margin swung from 11.3% (2021) to 4.9% (2024) to 6.7% (2025). Reported EBITDA (including DGD equity income) fell from ~$1.10B (2022–23) to $786M (2024) and recovered to $922M (2025). But the swing factor is DGD: Darling’s GAAP equity in DGD went from +$149.1M (2024) to a −$48.8M loss (2025), then to +$151.2M in Q1’26 alone — a single line that dwarfs the quarter-to-quarter movement in the entire rest of the company. Any “normalized” earnings view must model DGD’s per-gallon margin (~$0.50–$1.50/gal across the cycle) separately from the steadier core.

Returns on capital are mediocre through the cycle — the central financial fact. ROE was 32.2% (2021) and 27.1% (2022) but is leverage- and goodwill-inflated; it collapsed to 7.2% (2024) and 1.6% (2025). More tellingly, invested-capital ROIC peaked at ~9.3% (2022) and never sustained above it, falling to the low single digits at the trough — below any reasonable ~8–9% cost of capital. In economic terms, DAR destroys value at the trough and only modestly creates it at the peak. This is the number that disciplines the whole thesis: the business survives and consolidates, but it does not compound capital at attractive rates.

Cash generation is genuinely strong — and better than the headline suggests. Operating cash flow was $1.06B in FY2025 even at trough earnings, because non-cash D&A (~$508M) and working-capital release cushion GAAP net income. Against real capex of ~$380M (the 10-K figure is $380M, guided to ~$450M forward), free cash flow was ~$680M in FY2025, or ~7% of the current ~$9.5B market cap even at the bottom. DGD, which self-funds its own capex off-balance-sheet, distributed $371.8M to the two parents in 2025 (up from $168M in 2023). FCF conversion is a real strength that partly offsets the mediocre ROIC.

Balance sheet: stretched, but improving and liquid. As of the Jan 3, 2026 year-end: cash $88.7M, total debt $4.16B, net debt $3.85B, equity $4.81B. Net debt/EBITDA is ~4x on trough EBITDA (bank-covenant leverage 2.9x at year-end on management’s combined definition, ticking to 3.17x in Q1’26 on a ~$190M DGD working-capital contribution). The balance sheet carries $2.46B of goodwill and $0.85B of other intangibles — ~$3.3B, roughly 70% of equity — from the acquisition spree, so tangible book is thin (~$9.6/share, ~$1.5B). A $57.8M impairment landed in 2025 and one of six reporting units is flagged as “not substantially in excess” of carrying value — live impairment risk if the policy tailwind disappoints. Liquidity is adequate: ~$1.1B revolver availability and a laddered maturity profile (senior notes due 2027, 2030, 2032), with the ~$500M 2027 maturity to be retired with cash/revolver, after which nothing is due until 2030.

Verdict: do economics improve with scale? Only weakly. Scale delivers survival, cash flow and consolidation optionality, but not a rising, durable ROIC — the returns are set by exogenous spreads and policy, and the balance sheet was levered up chasing acquired scale that has not yet earned its cost of capital.

7. Capital Allocation

Randall Stuewe has run Darling as Chairman and CEO since 2003 — a competent, long-tenured operator who transformed a domestic renderer into a global platform, but who let the balance sheet get stretched buying growth at the top of the cycle. The record is genuinely mixed.

M&A: strategically logical, poorly timed. Between 2021 and 2023 DAR deployed ~$3.2B on acquisitions — Valley Proteins (~$1.1B, Apr 2022), FASA Group Brazil (~$0.6B, 2022) and Gelnex collagen (~$1.2B, Mar 2023) — struck at the top of the 2021–22 fats/oils/RD euphoria. Goodwill roughly doubled to ~$2.48B; net debt tripled from $1.39B (2021) to a $4.30B peak (2023), almost entirely M&A-funded. Earnings then collapsed (EPS $4.58 → $0.39), so on today’s numbers those deals have not earned their cost of capital, and ~70% of equity now sits in goodwill/intangibles with a $57.8M impairment already taken. The strategy — scale rendering, build a top-two global collagen franchise — was sound; the timing transferred cyclical peak value to the sellers.

DGD capital cycle: mistimed build, low-cost survivor. DAR’s ~$2.2B equity-method stake funded (with Valero) ~1.2 bn gal of RD capacity plus a $315M SAF unit, ramping precisely into the 2024–25 industry oversupply — a textbook capital-cycle down-leg. The offset is that DGD is the low-cost integrated survivor, is now distributing cash to parents, and is a direct beneficiary of the March 2026 RVO. The build was mistimed, but DAR’s feedstock integration makes it a survivable, not fatal, error.

Deleveraging is now the stated priority and is credible-if-cyclical. At the May 11, 2026 Investor Day, management targeted debt below $3B and leverage below 2.5x, guided to ~$500–700M of near-term paydown, and framed ~$2B+ of cumulative cash generation to 2030 (more if conditions favor), to be deployed to debt first, then buybacks/dividends/M&A. FY2025 operating cash flow of ~$1.06B and PTC monetization (~$255M of $285M sold in 2025) are real cash levers — but the target assumes the policy tailwind converts to margin, which is not yet fully in the run-rate.

Buybacks and dividend. DAR pays no dividend and has repurchased only modestly (~$34M in 2024–25, down from a pro-cyclical ~$125–168M/yr in 2021), so recent buyback timing has at least not compounded the M&A mistake.

Incentives: decent alignment, two frictions. Per the 2026 proxy, pay rests on relative Return on Gross Investment (ROGI) and relative TSR (LTI is 60% PSU / 40% RSU, ROGI-relative with a ±30% TSR modifier, 0–225% payout) — a genuine relative-capital-efficiency structure — with 87% of CEO comp at-risk and Stuewe holding ~1.84M shares (1.15%). But (a) the 65% annual-bonus metric is absolute Combined Adjusted EBITDA (including DGD’s share), which structurally rewards acquisitive EBITDA growth, and (b) relative metrics let CEO total comp rise to ~$9.4M in 2025 through an absolute earnings collapse — a pay-for-performance optic problem even if peers fared worse.

Insiders sold into the rally. Across ~40 Form 4s in the sampled window there were zero open-market purchases (code P) — all activity was RSU/PSU vesting, tax withholding, legacy option exercises and discretionary sells into the $51–64 rally (Stuewe sold 20,000 @ $52.12 in March). No insider stepped up at the $30s lows. Stuewe’s retention of most net shares is the mitigant, but the signal is neutral-to-mildly-bearish.

Verdict: mixed, leaning cautious. A capable operator who over-levered into a peak, and whose thesis now depends on a policy up-cycle rescuing capital already deployed rather than on proven per-share value creation over the cycle.

8. Changes and Headwinds — Last Two Years

The last two years contain the whole thesis in compressed form: a boom-to-bust-to-recovery in biofuel economics layered onto a debt-heavy acquisition integration.

• Biofuel margin collapse and policy transition (2024–25). RD/RIN margins compressed industry-wide; DGD swung to quarterly operating losses (a $79M loss in Q2’25) and a full-year 2025 GAAP equity loss. The $1/gal Blenders Tax Credit expired end-2024 and was replaced Jan 1, 2025 by the untested, domestic-only 45Z Clean Fuel Production Credit, creating a prolonged period of credit-value uncertainty that depressed feedstock and fuel pricing. DAR bridged the cash gap by monetizing ~$255M of production tax credits in 2025.
• RVO finalization (March 27, 2026) — the key positive catalyst. The EPA final rule set record biomass-based-diesel volumes for 2026–27 and (from 2028) halves the RIN value of foreign feedstock — a supply/demand tightening that favors integrated domestic-feedstock producers like DGD. This is what turned the stock and the Q1’26 numbers.
• Q1’26 inflection. Combined adjusted EBITDA $406.8M (vs. $196M), $0.83 EPS, DGD $151M (aided by a one-time $97M lower-of-cost-or-market benefit now fully exhausted). Management guided core-ingredients EBITDA of $260–275M for Q2 and DGD volumes near max (320M gal), with Q2 stronger than Q1.
• Collagen roll-up culminates. A December 2025 definitive agreement combines Rousselot with Tessenderlo’s PB Leiner into a ~$1.5B-revenue NewCo (Darling 85%), pending antitrust — the strategic capstone of the Food segment, but with real regulatory-clearance risk given the concentration it creates.
• Portfolio pruning and bolt-ons. Signed to sell grease-trap environmental-services and other non-strategic assets; bought distressed Brazilian rendering plants (Patense/Bovinos) out of bankruptcy.
• Leadership/board. Bob Day is CFO; Carlos Paz (ex-Cargill) promoted to EVP Renewables (Jan 2026); Robert Aspell (ex-Cargill) added to the board (Feb 2026); Lead Director Gary Mize retiring at the 2026 AGM.

Verdict: On balance these developments strengthen the near-term thesis (policy clarity, deleveraging, a coherent collagen/RD focus) while underscoring its fragility — the improvement is real but rests on credit spreads and mandates that a future administration could revise, and on an antitrust approval not yet in hand.

9. Risk Analysis

The dominant risks are two and they compound: the earnings are policy-hostage (45Z + RVO + LCFS), and the balance sheet is levered into that volatility. A catastrophic permanent loss is unlikely — the asset base is essential and hard to replicate, and the low-cost position means DAR survives downturns that kill competitors — but a large drawdown is entirely plausible if biofuel policy is walked back before the balance sheet is repaired.

10. Valuation Discussion (Embedded Expectations)

Because FY2025 GAAP EPS ($0.39) is a cyclical-trough artifact, P/E is useless here (the 86th-percentile own-history P/E reading is a denominator illusion at trough earnings — disregard it). The instructive lenses are enterprise value against normalized/mid-cycle EBITDA, free-cash-flow yield, and a sum-of-the-parts that separates the steady core from the policy-levered DGD option.

The multiple is fair-to-full, not cheap. At ~$60.83, market cap is ~$9.5B and enterprise value ~$13.3B (using the live price plus ~$3.85B net debt). Against reported FY2025 EBITDA of ~$922M that is ~14x trough EBITDA. Against a plausible mid-cycle combined EBITDA of ~$1.5–1.7B (core ingredients ~$1.0–1.1B, annualizing the Q1’26 $255.6M / Q2-guide $260–275M run-rate, plus DGD’s share at ~$0.75–1.00/gal on ~600M gallons ≈ ~$450–600M), EV/EBITDA is ~8–9x — reasonable for a leveraged cyclical with a policy tail, but not a bargain. On its own multi-year valuation history the stock sits at the ~75th percentile (P/S 72nd, P/B 66th) — i.e., richer than three-quarters of its own decade, despite trading ~30% below its 2022 peak, precisely because the recovery is already ~120% priced off the lows.

FCF yield is the more supportive lens. FY2025 free cash flow of ~$680M is a ~7% yield on the market cap at the trough; at mid-cycle, FCF of ~$800M–$1.0B implies ~8.5–10.5%. That is genuinely attractive — but leverage claims a chunk (interest ~$222M), and the yield is only realized if DGD normalizes and deleveraging proceeds.

Sum-of-the-parts. Roughly: the Feed+Food core, at ~$1.0–1.1B EBITDA and a defensible-but-commoditized ~7–8x, is worth ~$7.5–8.5B EV; DGD (DAR’s 50%), a policy-levered call option, is worth anywhere from ~$2B (bearish credit spreads) to ~$5–6B (boom spreads), against a ~$2.2B book stake. Netting ~$3.85B debt, the equity spans a wide band that brackets today’s ~$9.5B market cap — which is the point: the price is a fair weighting of a decent core plus a volatile policy option, with limited margin of safety at current levels.

Embedded expectations. To justify ~$60, the market is underwriting (correctly) that the 2026 policy turn is durable enough to lift DGD back to ~$1/gal-plus margins and that deleveraging proceeds to <$3B — i.e., that Q1’26 is a genuine inflection, not a policy head-fake. What it is arguably mispricing in either direction is the tail: it is not fully discounting a 45Z sunset/RVO reversal (downside), nor is it paying up for a sustained boom-spread scenario (upside). Scenario framing: Bear — 45Z/RVO disappoint, DGD margins re-compress, leverage lingers → the re-rating reverses toward the mid-$30s–low-$40s. Base — policy holds, mid-cycle EBITDA ~$1.5–1.7B, steady deleveraging → ~$55–65. Bull — RVO tightens spreads, SAF mix lifts DGD, debt through $3B unlocks buybacks → ~$75–85. This is a scenario range, not a price target; no recommendation is expressed.

11. Variant Perception

Consensus. The sell-side is split but broadly constructive-neutral after the run: Barclays Equal-Weight ($62), TD Cowen Buy ($70, lowered), BofA bullish. The prevailing narrative is “cyclical bottom is in; the March RVO restored biofuel visibility; DGD and rendering margins are inflecting; deleveraging is on track.” That is largely correct — and largely priced.

Strongest bull case. DAR is the low-cost survivor of a brutal capital-cycle shakeout, emerging into a policy regime (record RVO volumes, import penalties, SAF demand) explicitly designed to reward integrated domestic-feedstock producers. Combined EBITDA can climb from a ~$1.0B trough toward ~$1.8–2.0B, ~$680M+ of trough FCF becomes ~$1B, net debt falls through $3B and unlocks capital return, and the whole thing re-rates as a cash-compounding “circular-economy” platform rather than a commodity processor. The molecule optionality and DGD’s cost-curve position are structural, not cyclical.

Strongest bear case. DAR is a leveraged commodity processor whose 25–32% peak ROEs were leverage and goodwill, whose true through-cycle ROIC is ~2–9% (below its cost of capital), and whose single most important profit line is a government subsidy legislated to expire after 2027. The 2021–23 M&A destroyed per-share value (EPS $4.58 → $0.39; net debt tripled), ~70% of equity is goodwill with impairment already underway, insiders have not bought a share on the open market through the entire drawdown and are selling into the rally, and the stock is up ~120% off the lows to the 75th percentile of its own valuation — pricing a sustained up-cycle that policy could revoke overnight.

The 3–5 assumptions that matter most, and what would falsify each:

1. 45Z persists (or is extended) past 2027 and the RVO is not walked back. Falsified by legislative sunset or an administrative RVO cut → DGD margin re-hollows.
2. DGD sustains a mid-cycle margin ~$1/gal-plus. Falsified by two+ quarters back below ~$0.50/gal ex one-time items.
3. Deleveraging reaches <$3B without a fresh acquisition. Falsified by a large debt-funded deal or leverage stalling >3.5x.
4. Core rendering/collagen EBITDA holds ~$1B+. Falsified by feedstock-spread compression or gelatin over-supply pulling core margins down.
5. The recovery is an inflection, not a head-fake. Falsified by Q2–Q3’26 EBITDA failing to build as guided.

The factor-positioning read cuts against chasing here. A quantitative factor model classifies DAR as negative-momentum, deep-value, small-size, oil-price-levered, low-quality (Value +0.5, OilPrice +0.6, SmallSize +0.5, Quality −0.2, Momentum −0.1) — the model treats the stock as a mean-reverting value/commodity name, not a durable trend, even after the rally. Its factor peers are chemicals (WLK, OLN, LYB), ethanol (REX) and cash-cow/shareholder-yield ETFs — a deep-cyclical commodity cohort, not a compounder cohort. The 6-month annualized Sharpe of ~5 and +152% is the arithmetic of a violent bounce that does not repeat; the y3/y5 returns remain negative and the lifetime max drawdown is ~83%. Where consensus may be offsides is in extrapolating the Q1’26 inflection into a smooth compounding story; the tape and the factor model both say this remains a volatile, policy-levered cyclical that has already made most of its recovery move.

12. Fact vs. Interpretation

13. Open Questions

1. Durability of 45Z past its 2027 statutory sunset, and the RVO trajectory under a future administration — the single biggest swing factor for DGD and thus for the whole valuation.
2. Normalized mid-cycle DGD margin ($/gal) and the true underlying (ex-LCM, ex-timing) run-rate — Q1’26’s $1.11/gal was flattered by a one-time $97M LCM benefit now exhausted.
3. How much of DGD’s feedstock DAR actually supplies internally vs. buys on the open market — determines how real the “feedstock integration” cost advantage is.
4. Antitrust clearance and timing for the PB Leiner (NewCo Collagen) JV, and whether the peptide mix can outrun gelatin commoditization.
5. Credibility of the <$3B deleveraging path if the policy tailwind under-delivers, and whether management resists a fresh debt-funded acquisition before the balance sheet is repaired.
6. Cumulative cash invested in DGD since 2011 vs. cumulative distributions received — needed to judge the JV’s lifetime return (the ~$2.2B carrying value is book, not cash-in).

14. What Must Be True

For the bull case to be right: the 2026 policy turn must be durable, not a head-fake — 45Z (or a successor) persists, the RVO holds at elevated volumes, and DGD sustains a mid-cycle margin around $1/gal or better, lifting combined EBITDA toward ~$1.8–2.0B and FCF toward ~$1B, while net debt falls through $3B and unlocks capital return. Falsification test: if, over the next two-to-three quarters, DGD’s ex-one-time margin drops back below ~$0.50/gal or the EPA/Congress signals an RVO cut or an early 45Z lapse, the earnings-inflection thesis is broken and the re-rating reverses.

For the bear case to be right: DAR is a leveraged commodity processor whose returns never clear its cost of capital and whose key profit line is a revocable subsidy, such that the ~120% rally has priced a durable recovery that policy and spreads will not deliver, and further impairment plus lingering leverage caps per-share value creation. Falsification test: if combined EBITDA builds sequentially through 2026 as guided, net debt crosses below $3B on schedule, and DGD holds ~$1/gal for three-plus quarters, the “value-destroying cyclical” framing is wrong and DAR re-rates as a de-levering, cash-compounding platform.

The evidence base for both is now in place; the next three quarters of DGD margin and the debt trajectory will decide it.

15. Source Appendix

See the accompanying Appendix B — Source Appendix (in the combined report) for the full, categorized source list with URLs and access dates. Primary sources include Darling’s FY2025 Form 10-K (filed 2026-03-03), the FY2021–2024 10-Ks and interim 10-Qs, the 2026 DEF 14A proxy, the Q1’26 earnings-call transcript (2026-04-30), SEC Form 4 filings (CIK 0000916540), the EPA final RVO rule (2026), and quantitative data from public financial-data providers, valuation-percentile and price-history datasets, and a quantitative factor model — each accessed 2026-07-11 and reconciled to filings where material.

APPENDIX A — Standard Diligence Questionnaire

Darling Ingredients Inc. (NYSE: DAR) · Report date 2026-07-11 · A supplemental diligence questionnaire. Answers are grounded in the analysis above; Fact / Interpretation / Assumption labels applied where it matters.

General

What thoughtful questions have other investors asked about this company? The recurring investor questions cluster on: (1) Is DGD’s margin recovery durable or a policy head-fake? — the core debate, hinging on 45Z persistence and RVO volumes; (2) What is the “right” normalized combined EBITDA? — because trough (~$1.0B) and boom (~$1.8–2.0B) are far apart and P/E is meaningless at trough EPS; (3) How much of the Q1’26 DGD result was one-time? (the $97M LCM benefit, now exhausted); (4) Can management delever to <$3B without a fresh acquisition, and what is the real lifetime return on the DGD capital?; (5) Is the core rendering business structurally shrinking as the U.S. cattle herd hits a 75-year low and captive packer rendering grows?

Cyclicality & Earnings Nature

Are earnings at a cyclical high or low? Emphatically a low, now inflecting off the bottom (Fact). FY2025 GAAP EPS of $0.39 was a trough (vs. $4.58 in 2022); DGD posted a full-year equity loss. Q1’26 ($0.83 EPS) marks the inflection.

Driven by the external environment or internal actions? Overwhelmingly external (Interpretation): biofuel credit values (RINs/LCFS/45Z), fat/soybean-oil/energy spreads, and EPA/CARB policy set the margin. Internal actions (operational excellence, integration of Valley Proteins/Gelnex, molecule routing) matter at the margin but do not override the commodity/policy cycle.

How stable are revenues? Unstable — revenue is commodity price × volume, ranging $3.6B–$6.8B over six years. Volume is relatively steady (~3.8M metric tons/quarter); price/spread is the volatile factor.

Outlook for products/services; how big will this market be? Rendering is a low-growth, essential, consolidating market (structurally constrained by declining fat-per-animal as beef→poultry mix shifts). Renewable diesel/SAF is a policy-driven growth market (record 2026–27 RVO volumes) but revocable. Collagen is a ~$3.4B market growing ~8%/yr internationally. Net: mixed — a low-growth core, a policy-levered growth option, and a genuine secular grower (collagen), the last two being the smaller pieces.

Business Quality & Competitive Moat

Is the industry getting more or less competitive? Rendering is consolidating (fewer independents, DAR the acquirer) but raw-material procurement is getting more competitive as biofuel demand draws new bidders for fats/UCO. Renewable diesel just went through a brutal shakeout that reduced competition among producers.

How profitable is the business (ROIC, ROE)? Poor-to-mediocre through the cycle (Fact): ROIC ~2–9% (peaked ~9.3% in 2022, below cost of capital at trough); ROE 1.6% (2025) to 32% (2021, but leverage/goodwill-inflated).

How profitable is the industry — competitors, barriers? High barriers (permitting/odor, capital, local route density, supplier incumbency) but commodity output pricing → volatile, spread-driven industry profitability. Named competitors: Baker Commodities, Sanimax, West Coast Reduction (independents); Tyson/JBS/Cargill (captive); Neste, Valero, Marathon, Phillips 66, ADM (renewable diesel); GELITA, PB Leiner, Nitta (collagen).

Can the business be easily understood? Moderately — the three-segment structure is clear, but DGD’s equity-method accounting, the credit-stack economics, and the difference between GAAP equity income and combined adjusted EBITDA require care.

Can it be undermined by foreign low-cost labor? No — it is a logistics/collection-density business, not a labor-arbitrage business. Foreign feedstock competition (imported UCO/fats) is a factor, but 45Z’s domestic bias and RIN penalties on imports now favor DAR.

Do brands matter? Only in Food/collagen (Peptan, Nextida, Rousselot) and premium pet-food ingredients. In Feed and Fuel, the output is a commodity.

Nature of competition; customers’ switching costs? Competition is for raw-material supply (price + proximity), not for customers. Switching costs are modest — supplier relationships and route density are the stickiness, not customer lock-in.

Financial Condition & Balance Sheet

Assets not fully recognized on the balance sheet? The DGD stake is carried at ~$2.2B equity-method book, which may understate (or overstate) its economic value depending on the credit cycle — a source of hidden value or risk. The collection-network route density is an unrecognized intangible.

Off-balance-sheet liabilities? DGD’s own project debt sits at the JV level (off DAR’s consolidated balance sheet); DAR’s share of JV obligations is a consideration. Operating/finance leases (~$224M) are on-balance-sheet.

How conservative is the accounting? Reasonable but complex. Watch items: $3.3B goodwill/intangibles (~70% of equity) with a $57.8M 2025 impairment and one reporting unit flagged; the gap between GAAP net income and “combined adjusted EBITDA” (which adds back DGD’s D&A and one-time items); and the $97M Q1’26 LCM benefit.

How CapEx-hungry is the business? Moderately — consolidated capex ~$380M (FY2025), guided ~$450M; DGD funds its own ~$300M+ growth projects off DAR’s consolidated statement. Maintenance capex is manageable; FCF ~$680M in FY2025 even at trough.

Capital Allocation & Management

How much FCF, and how is it used? ~$680M FCF (FY2025), plus $371.8M of DGD distributions. Priority is debt paydown (target <$3B / <2.5x), then buybacks/dividends/M&A after deleveraging.

Significant acquisitions recently? Yes — a ~$3.2B 2021–23 spree (Valley Proteins ~$1.1B, FASA ~$0.6B, Gelnex ~$1.2B) at peak multiples, plus recent distressed bolt-ons (Patense/Bovinos Brazil, Miropasz Poland) and the pending PB Leiner collagen JV.

Buying back shares? Modestly (~$34M/yr recently, down from ~$125–168M/yr in 2021 — pro-cyclical timing then).

Issuing large amounts to insiders? No large dilution; SBC ~$22M/yr. Share count is roughly flat-to-down (~160M diluted).

Compensation policy / motivations of management? CEO Stuewe (since 2003) earned ~$9.4M in 2025; 87% at-risk; LTI on relative ROGI + relative TSR (0–225%); annual bonus 65% on absolute Combined Adjusted EBITDA. Decent alignment (large ~1.15% stake, relative metrics) with two frictions: absolute-EBITDA bonus rewards acquisitive growth, and pay rose through an earnings collapse.

Valuation & Market Data

ADR, MLP, or K-1 issuer? No — ordinary NYSE-listed C-corporation common stock; standard 1099 reporting.

Dividend policy? No dividend and none historically. Capital return, if any, would follow deleveraging.

How profitable is the business? At trough, barely (1.6% ROE, $0.39 EPS); mid-cycle, moderately (~$1.5–1.7B EBITDA, high-single-digit ROIC).

Is net income diverging from cash from operations? Yes, favorably — FY2025 CFO of $1.06B vastly exceeded GAAP net income of $62.8M, because D&A (~$508M), the DGD equity loss (non-cash to DAR beyond distributions), and working-capital release cushion the trough. This is a positive quality signal, not a red flag.

Risks & Downside

What would cause the stock to decline? A 45Z sunset/RVO reversal (re-hollowing DGD margin), commodity-spread compression, a debt-funded acquisition or stalled deleveraging, goodwill impairment, or simply mean-reversion of a stock up ~120% off its lows.

Risk of a catastrophic loss? Low. The asset base is essential and hard to replicate; the low-cost position means DAR survives downturns that kill competitors. Leverage (~4x trough EBITDA) is the vulnerability, but liquidity (~$1.1B revolver, laddered maturities to 2030) is adequate.

Chance of a total loss? Very low — this is a real, cash-generative, essential-service business, not a going-concern story.

Recent News & Events

Has the business environment changed recently? Yes, materially and positively in the near term: the March 27, 2026 EPA RVO final rule restored biofuel-margin visibility and drove the Q1’26 inflection and the stock’s re-rating. The environment remains policy-fragile (45Z sunsets 2027).

Significant acquisitions / accounting changes / new markets? The pending ~$1.5B PB Leiner collagen JV (Darling 85%); the 45Z-for-Blenders-credit transition (2025); Norco DGD expansion (~1.2 bn gal); SAF start-up at Port Arthur; portfolio pruning (grease-trap sale). Leadership refresh (Carlos Paz EVP Renewables; Robert Aspell to board).

APPENDIX B — Source Appendix

Darling Ingredients Inc. (NYSE: DAR) · Report date 2026-07-11. All sources accessed 2026-07-11 unless noted. Primary (filings, transcripts, regulatory) prioritized over secondary; quantitative aggregator data reconciled to filings where material.

1. Company SEC Filings (primary)

• FY2025 Form 10-K (fiscal year ended January 3, 2026), filed 2026-03-03 — SEC EDGAR, CIK 0000916540 (accession dar-20260103). Segment net sales/operating income, DGD equity income/(loss), competition and raw-material sourcing disclosure, risk factors, capex ($380M), interest ($222.3M), impairment ($57.8M), goodwill/intangibles, facilities counts, DGD capacity (~1.2 bn gal), tax-credit (45Z/CFPC) discussion.
• FY2021–FY2024 Form 10-Ks (2022–2025 annual filings). Multi-year segment, M&A (Valley Proteins/FASA/Gelnex), net-debt and goodwill history.
• Form 10-Q, Q1 FY2026 (quarter ended April 4, 2026), filed 2026-05-08.
• 2026 DEF 14A proxy statement, filed 2026-03-19. CEO/CFO compensation, ROGI/TSR incentive design, Combined Adjusted EBITDA bonus metric, beneficial ownership, board changes, bank leverage (2.90x).
• SEC Form 4 filings, CIK 0000916540, Jan–May 2026 — insider-transaction sweep (codes A/F/M/S/G; zero code-P open-market purchases); Stuewe, Day, van der Velden, Kemphaus, Dudley, Manzi and directors.
• 8-K material-event filings (earnings releases, guidance, M&A, buyback authorizations) (trailing 60 months).

2. Earnings Call Transcript (primary)

• Q1 2026 earnings call transcript, held 2026-04-30 — combined adjusted EBITDA $406.8M; DGD $151.2M / $1.11/gal incl. $97M one-time LCM benefit; segment detail; Q2 core-EBITDA guide $260–275M; DGD 320M gal near-max; leverage 3.17x; deleveraging target <$3B; RVO commentary; Investor Day (May 11, 2026) preview.

3. Regulatory & Policy (primary/secondary)

• U.S. EPA — Final Renewable Fuel Standards for 2026 and 2027 (final rule announced 2026-03-27; Federal Register 2026), epa.gov/renewable-fuel-standard — record biomass-based-diesel volumes; foreign-feedstock RIN value halved from 2028.
• IRS/Treasury §45Z Clean Fuel Production Credit guidance and 45ZCF-GREET model (effective 2025–2027) — as described in the 10-K and industry coverage (Fastmarkets, farmdoc “Rewriting the RFS Playbook,” Holland & Knight).
• U.S. EIA Today in Energy — RD/biodiesel production and capacity notes; “biofuel imports fell sharply in 2025 after the tax-credit change.”

4. Quantitative Data Sources (aggregator; reconciled to filings)

• Public financial-data providers — income statement, balance sheet, cash flow, profitability/credit/liquidity ratios, enterprise value, valuation multiples and per-share data (DAR, FY2020–2025), reconciled to the filings (reported capex taken from the 10-K; current EV computed from the live share price).
• Own-history valuation percentiles — composite ~75th percentile of DAR’s own multi-year range (P/E 86th — a trough-EPS artifact; P/B 66th; P/S 72nd).
• Quantitative factor model — factor loadings (Value +0.5, OilPrice +0.6, SmallSize +0.5, Quality −0.2, Momentum −0.1), risk-adjusted return/drawdown history by horizon, factor-similar peers (WLK, OLN, LYB, REX), beta ~0.85.

5. Industry & Competitive (secondary)

• Diamond Green Diesel (diamondgreendiesel.com) — plant capacity (Norco ~982 mgy + Port Arthur ~470 mgy), UOP Ecofining process, SAF.
• Neste interim reports (Q1/Q2 2025) — renewables-margin compression (first negative renewables profit since 2014).
• Rendering industry — 10-K competition disclosure; trade sources on independents (Baker Commodities, Sanimax, West Coast Reduction) and captive renderers (Tyson, JBS, Cargill).
• Collagen/gelatin market — SkyQuest / MarketsandMarkets sizing (~$3.4B, ~8% CAGR); players GELITA, Rousselot, PB Leiner, Nitta, Weishardt.
• Biodiesel shutdown wave 2024–25 — DTN, Argus, Biofuels International (subscale plant idling; ~5 of Iowa’s 10 plants).
• Investor Day (May 11, 2026) coverage — Businesswire / Globe & Mail / StreetInsider (<$3B debt / <2.5x leverage; ~$2B+ cumulative cash to 2030).
• Tessenderlo / PB Leiner collagen JV — Businesswire (Dec 2025), Food Dive (“Darling forms ~$1.5B collagen ingredients venture”).
• Sell-side actions — Barclays Equal-Weight $62 (init 2026-06-22); TD Cowen Buy $70 (2026-06-23); BofA bullish (2026-05-28).