HelloFresh Shares Downgraded as Kepler Slashes Price Target

Shares in HelloFresh SE traded at €5.15 on Monday, down 13% year-to-date, after Kepler Cheuvreux downgraded the meal-kit delivery company to Hold from Buy and cut its price target by 47.6% to €5.50 from €10.50.

The dramatic revision reflects mounting concerns over the company's deteriorating financial performance and inability to stabilize revenue across both its core meal-kit business and struggling ready-to-eat segment.

The downgrade follows weak preliminary fiscal 2025 results that showed an 11.8% year-over-year revenue decline to approximately €6.76 billion, falling short of the company's own constant currency guidance range of negative 6% to negative 8%. The fourth quarter proved particularly challenging, with revenues sliding 14% year-over-year, accelerating the pace of decline from earlier quarters and signaling deepening operational difficulties.

Kepler Cheuvreux highlighted significant underperformance in HelloFresh's ready-to-eat segment, particularly the Factor brand in the United States, which recorded a 6% revenue decline in 2025 and posted an adjusted EBITDA loss of €34 million. This marks a sharp reversal from earlier growth expectations for the segment, which had been positioned as a key driver of future expansion beyond the company's traditional meal-kit offerings.

The firm has revised its 2026 revenue estimates substantially downward, now projecting a 6.8% decline to €6.30 billion, contrasting sharply with previous forecasts that anticipated growth. This reassessment reflects both the company's challenged execution and intensifying competition in the meal-kit and prepared meal delivery markets, where customer acquisition costs have risen and retention rates have weakened.

HelloFresh's difficulties have been compounded by operational headwinds, including extreme weather conditions affecting key markets in Europe and the United States during early 2026. In response to mounting pressures, the company announced plans to withdraw from the Italian market and is considering a similar exit from Spain, citing a lack of clear growth prospects in these regions. These strategic retreats represent a significant shift from the company's earlier expansion ambitions and underscore management's focus on profitability over geographic footprint.

The current downgrade from Kepler Cheuvreux follows a similar move by Morgan Stanley in December 2025, when the investment bank downgraded HelloFresh from Equalweight to Underweight and reduced its price target to €5.50 from €8.30. Morgan Stanley had cited deteriorating performance in the ready-to-eat segment, where revenues declined from 8% year-over-year growth in the first quarter to a 5% decline in the third quarter of 2025.

Markets have reacted severely to HelloFresh's challenges, with the stock losing approximately 93% of its value over the past five years. The shares now trade near multi-year lows, reflecting widespread skepticism about the company's ability to reverse revenue declines and restore profitability in an increasingly competitive landscape.