Whey prices spike 50%; pea processor pivots

News Provided by USA News Group on behalf of Eat Well Investment Group Inc.

A CEO letter to shareholders released August 5, 2026 lays out the numbers behind a three-year turnaround: fiscal 2025 revenue of $53.2 million, gross profit up roughly 16% to $6.9 million, a cease trade order fully revoked after three years, and pulse-processing plants running at only about 42% of installed capacity — just as dry whey prices climb more than 50% since January and food formulators across North America go looking for an alternative protein source.

VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Aug. 17, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- USA News Group News Commentary - Every processor with idle capacity has heard some version of the same line: that unused plant space is dead weight on the balance sheet. Eat Well Investment Group Inc. (CSE: EWG) (US: EWGFF) (FSE: 6BC0) is making the opposite case. In an August 5, 2026 letter to shareholders, President and CEO Daniel Brody laid out a simple thesis: the Company's Saskatchewan and Montana pulse-processing facilities are running at roughly 42% of what they can physically handle, and the raw material those plants specialize in — pea protein — is sitting directly in the path of a whey protein shortage that has pushed dry whey prices up more than 50% since January 2026. Idle capacity, in that framing, is not a problem to explain away. It is the inventory that gets filled when a competing protein source becomes structurally more expensive. The letter arrives three weeks after the Canadian Securities Exchange reinstated trading in EWG shares on July 29, 2026, following the full revocation of a cease trade order that had halted trading for three years.

Companies mentioned: Eat Well Investment Group Inc. (CSE: EWG) (US: EWGFF) (FSE: 6BC0), BellRing Brands, Inc. (NYSE: BRBR), AGT Food and Ingredients Inc. (TSX: AGTF), Alto Ingredients, Inc. (NASDAQ: ALTO), Archer-Daniels-Midland Company (NYSE: ADM)

Key Takeaways

CEO letter released August 5, 2026, three weeks after the CSE reinstated EWG shares on July 29, 2026, following full revocation of a three-year cease trade order on July 15, 2026.

Fiscal 2025 revenue of $53.2 million and gross profit of $6.9 million, roughly 16% above the prior year, with a narrowed net loss.

Facilities are running at approximately 42% of installed capacity — management frames the unused 58% as the single largest value-creation opportunity available to the Company, ahead of any acquisition.

Dry whey prices are up more than 50% since January 2026 per DCA Market Intelligence, with whey protein concentrate near $13/lb and isolate near $14/lb as of USDA's June 2026 report — a pricing gap that positions pea protein isolate (~80% protein, allergen-friendly, non-dairy) as a formulation substitute.

Refinancing cut the Company's cost of debt from north of 15% on roughly $15 million to 10% on $11 million.

Management says it will be held to four public metrics going forward: throughput against installed capacity, gross margin per tonne, cost of debt, and on-time conversion of value-added capital projects.

From Halt to Reinstatement: What Changed

Eat Well spent three years unable to trade while its underlying operating business kept running. The letter is explicit that the two things were separate problems: “whatever was happening at the holding company level never reached a container,” Brody writes, crediting the plant teams for holding customer specifications and supply through the halt. With three fiscal years of audited financial statements now filed, along with every outstanding quarterly interim and MD&A, the cease trade order was fully revoked on July 15, 2026, and the CSE reinstated the shares on July 29, 2026. Brody is direct about what comes next: price discovery after a halt of that length is “a process, not an event,” and he expects volatility in the shares as the market re-establishes a trading range.

The Whey Squeeze: Why Pea Protein Just Got a Pricing Tailwind

The letter's most quantifiable argument is about raw material substitution economics. Protein demand is rising — the letter cites survey data showing 70% of Americans now say they want more protein in their diet, up from 59% four years ago — while GLP-1 medication use is simultaneously reducing the volume of food people eat, which pushes formulators toward ingredients that pack more protein per gram. That combination has hit whey, the dominant protein ingredient in bars, shakes and powders, especially hard. Dry whey prices are up more than 50% since January 2026 according to DCA Market Intelligence, and USDA's June 2026 report had whey protein concentrate trading near $13 per pound with isolate slightly above $14. BellRing Brands, Inc. (NYSE: BRBR), which owns the Premier Protein and Dymatize brands, told investors in May 2026 that whey pricing had reached historic highs and that most companies in the category would need to reevaluate pricing.

Pea protein isolate, which runs at roughly 80% protein content, is high in lysine, allergen-friendly and dairy-free, is not a like-for-like substitute in every application. But at the price gap now opening up between whey and pea protein, Brody's framing is that the alternative “stops being theoretical and starts being a purchase order.”

42% of Capacity: The Value Creator Already on the Balance Sheet

Brody's central capital allocation argument is that the scarcest asset in the plant protein processing industry right now is not land or licences — it is modern processing capacity with room to grow. He draws on language from Premium Brands Holdings Corporation (TSX: PBH) CEO George Paleologou, who has written that acquirers in the space often end up paying for a business twice: once to buy it, and again to modernize or expand facilities that were already running at capacity. Eat Well's plants, built over 50 years of pulse processing in Saskatchewan and Montana, are running at roughly 42% of what they can physically handle. Rather than pursue acquisitions, the Company's capital is going into a CAPEX program aimed at raising throughput at the plants it already owns.

“ I have spent this turnaround listening to our idle capacity being described as a problem. It is not a problem. It is the scarce half of the asset,” Brody writes in the letter.

Price Setter, Not Price Taker

The letter leans heavily on a distinction borrowed from Premium Brands: the difference between a commodity processor that takes whatever price the market sets, and a specialized processor that sets its own price because customers specify it by name. Eat Well positions itself as the latter — a Company that works with farmers on proprietary seed genetics, holds process knowledge built over five decades, and sells into markets that pay a premium for consistency rather than tonnage. “We are not trying to be the biggest pulse processor in Canada,” Brody writes. “We are trying to be the one customers specify by name.”

Where the CEO Sits

Brody joined Eat Well's board in 2021 and became CEO in January 2025. His disclosed compensation since taking over has been one dollar a year, and he was not paid at all during the cease trade order. At what he describes as the hardest point of the turnaround, he put an additional $1 million of his own money into the Company. Eat Well also used proceeds from non-core asset sales to restructure its debt, cutting its cost of debt from north of 15% on roughly $15 million down to 10% on $11 million. Brody states in the letter that he is the Company's largest shareholder and has bought and lent, but never sold.

The Four Metrics Management Says to Watch

Rather than offer broad narrative reassurance, the letter commits to four specific, recurring metrics: throughput against installed capacity, which converts the fixed cost base into operating leverage; gross margin per tonne, a check on whether the Company remains a price setter; cost of debt, which management says it intends to keep moving down; and on-time, on-budget conversion of value-added capital projects. “If they move in the right direction over the next several years, this will have been worth it,” Brody writes. “If they do not, no amount of narrative from me should persuade you otherwise.”

The Protein and Specialty Food Names Investors Are Watching

BellRing Brands, Inc. (NYSE: BRBR)

BellRing, owner of the Premier Protein and Dymatize brands, is the most direct evidence in Eat Well's own letter of the whey pricing pressure driving interest in pea protein alternatives. The Company posted Q2 CY2026 sales up 4.2% year-over-year to $570.4 million, but its stock fell sharply after the report as investors focused on margin compression — adjusted gross margin came in at 27.7% versus 35.1% a year earlier, a roughly 740-basis-point decline that management has linked to elevated dairy-derived input costs. BellRing is a useful bellwether for the cost side of the whey story: it is a large-scale buyer of the same whey inputs that are becoming more expensive industry-wide.

AGT Food and Ingredients Inc. (TSX: AGTF)

AGT is one of the world's largest pulse processors and, following a $625 million initial public offering that returned it to the TSX on March 3, 2026 after six years as a private company, is now Eat Well's most direct publicly traded peer. AGT reported second-quarter 2026 adjusted EBITDA of $45.1 million and adjusted free cash flow up 39% to $23.4 million, with its Packaged Foods & Ingredients segment — Turkish pasta, packaged foods and “Better for You” pasta in the U.S. — posting revenue up 18% to $207 million and adjusted EBITDA up 42% to $27 million, becoming the Company's largest EBITDA contributor for the first half of 2026. AGT's shift toward higher-margin, branded and value-added pulse products, at a considerably larger scale than Eat Well's current footprint, is a direct illustration of the same “price setter” trajectory Eat Well says it is pursuing.

Alto Ingredients, Inc. (NASDAQ: ALTO)

Alto Ingredients is a U.S.-based producer of specialty alcohols, essential ingredients and renewable fuels, operating five processing facilities across its Pekin, Illinois and Western U.S. campuses and serving the food and beverage, health, home and beauty, and renewable fuels markets. The Company reported second-quarter 2026 results on August 5, 2026 and was added to the Russell 2000 and Russell 3000 Indexes in June 2026, with trailing twelve-month revenue of $916 million. Alto is not a protein or pulse processor, but its business rests on a related principle to the one Eat Well's letter emphasizes: converting underutilized processing capacity across multiple end markets into higher-margin, specification-driven output rather than undifferentiated commodity volume.

Archer-Daniels-Midland Company (NYSE: ADM)

ADM is a global agribusiness processor whose scale stands in deliberate contrast to Eat Well's specialized positioning. ADM raised its full-year 2026 adjusted earnings guidance to a range of $5.15 to $5.60 per share, up from a prior range of $4.15 to $4.70, on strength in its biofuels and nutrition segments, with shares up over 30% year-over-year as of early August 2026. ADM illustrates the commodity end of the agricultural processing spectrum — the model Eat Well's letter explicitly says it is not trying to replicate, preferring specification-driven, premium-priced volumes over undifferentiated tonnage.

These companies are referenced to illustrate the protein and specialty food processing sector only and do not imply any partnership, endorsement, affiliation, or comparable financial performance with Eat Well Investment Group Inc.

What to Watch

The most direct near-term test of the letter's thesis is throughput. Management has said its capital program is aimed at moving utilization meaningfully beyond the current ~42% of installed capacity, and the pace of that CAPEX conversion — on time, on budget, and filled with volume once complete — is one of the four metrics management has committed to reporting against. Whey pricing is the second variable worth tracking: if dry whey prices stay elevated or climb further, the substitution case for pea protein strengthens; if whey prices retrace, the pricing tailwind softens. Cost of debt is a third: management has already moved it from north of 15% to 10% and says it intends to keep moving it lower. And with the shares only recently reinstated after a three-year halt, near-term share price volatility should be expected as the market works through price discovery on comparatively thin, reinstated liquidity.

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Article Sources

[1] Eat Well Investment Group Inc. — CEO Letter to Shareholders (August 5, 2026; fiscal 2025 revenue $53.2M, gross profit $6.9M, up ~16% YoY; cease trade order revoked July 15, 2026; CSE reinstatement July 29, 2026; capacity utilization ~42%; cost of debt reduced from >15% on ~$15M to 10% on $11M; CSE: EWG, US: EWGFF, FSE: 6BC0).

[2] DCA Market Intelligence and USDA (June 2026 report) — dry whey pricing up more than 50% since January 2026; whey protein concentrate ~$13/lb, isolate ~$14/lb, as cited in Eat Well's CEO letter.

[3] BellRing Brands, Inc. — Q2 CY2026 results (sales $570.4M, up 4.2% YoY; adjusted gross margin 27.7% vs. 35.1% prior year); May 2026 investor commentary on historic whey pricing; NYSE: BRBR.

[4] AGT Food and Ingredients Inc. — Q2 2026 results (adjusted EBITDA $45.1M; adjusted free cash flow $23.4M, up 39%; Packaged Foods & Ingredients segment revenue $207M, up 18%, adjusted EBITDA $27M, up 42%); TSX IPO completed March 9, 2026 ($625M gross proceeds); TSX: AGTF.

[5] Alto Ingredients, Inc. — Q2 2026 results (August 5, 2026); added to Russell 2000 and Russell 3000 Indexes (June 2026); trailing twelve-month revenue $916M; NASDAQ: ALTO.

[6] Archer-Daniels-Midland Company — Q2 2026 results; FY2026 adjusted EPS guidance raised to $5.15-$5.60; NYSE: ADM.

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August 17, 2026 - 6:14 AM PDT

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