TacticScaleWhat Archer-Daniels-Midland Does & How It Makes Money (ADM)
Updated October 2026 · reflects Archer-Daniels-Midland's latest reported financials
Global agricultural processor and food ingredient supplier. ADM earns margins by sourcing, trading, transporting and processing agricultural commodities into oils, meals, sweeteners, starches and feed ingredients sold to food, feed, energy and industrial customers.
How Archer-Daniels-Midland makes money
ADM earns margins by sourcing, trading, transporting and processing agricultural commodities into oils, meals, sweeteners, starches and feed ingredients sold to food, feed, energy and industrial customers. Its Nutrition segment adds higher-value specialty ingredients, with extra income from trade finance, commodity clearing and insurance services.
What Archer-Daniels-Midland does
Archer-Daniels-Midland, founded in 1902 and based in Chicago, is one of the world's major agricultural supply-chain and processing companies. Its Ag Services and Oilseeds segment originates, merchandises, stores and ships grains and oilseeds through a global network, and crushes soybeans and soft seeds into vegetable oils and protein meals for food, feed, energy and industrial uses. It also supplies peanuts and makes cotton cellulose pulp. The Carbohydrate Solutions segment runs corn and wheat wet and dry milling, producing feed co-products like distillers' grains and corn gluten, and pursues carbon capture and emissions-reduction work. The Nutrition segment sells higher-value ingredients, including plant-based proteins, natural flavors and colors, emulsifiers, fibers, hydrocolloids, probiotics, enzymes and botanical extracts, for human and animal nutrition. Supporting businesses include structured trade finance, derivatives clearing and captive insurance.
Products & services
- Vegetable oils and oilseed protein meals
- Grain origination, storage and transportation
- Corn and wheat milling products
- Distillers' grains and corn gluten feed
- Plant-based proteins, flavors and colors
- Probiotics, prebiotics and specialty fibers
What is Archer-Daniels-Midland worth?
On an owner-earnings DCF, Archer-Daniels-Midland's most-likely value is about $97 versus a recent price near $80 (22% below fair value). But TacticScale only calls a stock undervalued when the price sits below its conservative no-growth floor (~$59) with a margin of safety — so the honest verdict here is “Fairly priced — no edge.” Fair value earns its keep only at the extremes, not in the wide middle.
Price sits in the normal range — fair value isn't actionable here; it earns its keep only when price drops below the no-growth floor, or runs to roughly double the optimistic case.
Analysis, not advice. Fair value is a margin-of-safety estimate from a deterministic owner-earnings DCF, not a price target or recommendation. See the full breakdown →
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