Another excellent half-year release from Lotus Bakeries. We don’t write about this one very often but when we do, it’s likely to report (very) positive news. The stock’s up over 40% in 2026 following a steep drawdown in 2025 due to capacity constraints and what we call the “expectations treadmill”.
As we sit here today and take note of the expansion plans for Biscoff over FY26-FY30, they’re about 15% below our implied expectations but far above consensus. Lotus’ management has historically not over-promised, on the contrary… but we’re somewhat again at risk of investors expecting too much over a short period of time.
While the initial investments have been committed, the programme retains flexibility for scope adjustments in the coming years. The combined Biscoff® investment programme across the three sites amounts to at least EUR 500 million over the five-year period from 2026 to 2030.
Our 2025 write-up was rather brief because we can focus on one thing, and one thing only: the like-for-like (we’ve defined our view on this) ROIICs being 22-24% organically and how much CAPEX we’d see over the next five years. Consensus was simply too conservative about both CAPEX and implied ROIIC. Lotus’ biggest bottleneck isn’t demand; it’s supply.
It’s also worth pointing out that we can’t really break down EBITA/NOPAT generated by the Biscoff line, and the growth CAPEX required to deliver on the mid- and long-term ambitions. As ever, it’s about being roughly right than precisely wrong.
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