** Shares of egg producer Cal-Maine Foods CALM.O up ~1% at $80 premarket

** CALM beat quarterly profit estimates on diversifying sales and product mix to higher-margin businesses such as specialty eggs and prepared foods, banking on consumer demand for protein-rich meals

** A diversified product portfolio helped CALM offset impact on its sales and profit from lower egg prices

** CALM reports Q2 EPS of $2.13 vs. average estimate of $1.94 - as per LSEG data

** Specialty eggs and prepared foods combined accounted for 46.4% of net sales, up 1,520 basis points from a year ago

** Co last month announced investments in prepared foods to increase production capacity by more than 30% over the next two years

** "We are positioning our prepared foods business to deliver sustained double-digit volume growth" - CEO Sherman Miller

** * However, CALM's Q2 sales plunge 19.4% to $769.5 million, sales in shell egg, co's biggest segment, fall 12.5%

** CALM fell ~23% in 2025

(Reporting by Neil J Kanatt and Sanskriti Shekhar in Bengaluru)

((Sanskriti.Shekhar@thomsonreuters.com))