Lotus Bakeries reported consolidated sales of EUR 599.3 million in the first half of 2024. This represents a year-on-year increase of 19.6%, or EUR 98.1 million. The sales growth is primarily driven by a “robust and broad-based volume increase of more than 16% across geographical segments and across the three strategic pillars of Lotus® Biscoff®, Lotus™ Natural Foods and Lotus® Local Heroes,” the company reports.
Biscoff
Lotus® Biscoff®, the Group’s first and largest strategic pillar, saw volume growth of more than 20%. Aside from securing broad distribution and in-store execution, media investments are also key for Lotus Bakeries. The company announced a new and digital-only media plan last year and stepped up its media investments in targeted growth markets in the first half of 2024. The brand continued momentum across its core concepts including Biscoff cookies, Biscoff sandwich cookies and Biscoff spread.
The growth of Lotus Biscoff in the first half of the year was particularly strong in Continental Europe, the UK, the US and Asia-Pacific. In Continental Europe the growth is – amongst others – driven by larger consumer markets like Germany, the Netherlands and Spain. Notable gains were also recorded in Canada and Australia.
Lotus™ Natural Foods
Lotus Natural Foods, the company’s second priority pillar, also continues to outperform the market, with double-digit growth. International Lotus Natural Foods activities outside the UK grew again by almost 30% in the first six months of this year and account for more than one-third of total Lotus Natural Foods sales. Besides the good performance of BEAR® in the US, nākd® and Kiddylicious® also show relevant distribution gains in several European markets.
A recent strategic review confirms the international potential of its healthy snacking portfolio under the brand umbrellas of BEAR, nākd, TREK® and Kiddylicious.
Also in the UK, Lotus Natural Foods saw growth across all core concepts, supported by promising innovations. The nākd Protein Bar and the BEAR Fruit Splits are two new products, launched in 2023. Another interesting innovation in the UK was the TREK Power Biscoff bar, which was launched in 2024 and already became a top-selling bar in the category, the company highlights.
Lotus® Local Heroes
The third pillar of Lotus Bakeries’ strategy is to focus on the ‘local heroes’ in the home markets of Belgium, the Netherlands, France and Sweden. While the sales increase in 2023 was primarily driven by pricing, the local heroes’ portfolio delivered mid-single-digit volume growth in the first half of 2024. Belgium and France were the main contributors with increases for both pastries (driven by the Cake Donut launch) and waffles (driven by the growth of the Liège Waffle).
Lotus & Mondelēz partnership
In June this year, Mondelēz International and Lotus Bakeries announced a strategic partnership to expand and grow the Biscoff® cookie brand in India, and to develop new chocolate products combining the Biscoff taste and texture with Mondelēz’s Cadbury, Milka and other key chocolate brands in Europe, with potential options to expand into additional markets and/or adjacent segments.
New appointments
John Van de Par, a Dutch national, was appointed as Chief Procurement Officer (CPO) as of October 1, 2024. As CPO, John will be leading amongst other the Corporate departments: Procurement, Quality and R&D. He joined Lotus Bakeries in 2008 as Finance Director of Koninklijke Peijnenburg, after having had a career at Friesland Campina.
Outlook
Lotus Biscoff’s volume growth of more than 20% stands out, building on continued momentum for the brand and on the Biscoff® growth strategy initialized in 2023. The Biscoff plants in Lembeke (Belgium) and Mebane (US) have delivered record output to fulfill this additional volume.
The increased production capacity was supported by increased advances in full and continuous production and shift regimes, increased productivity on prior years’ production line start-ups and the commissioning of a new production line in the plant in Mebane (US). In the meantime, the greenfield project in Thailand is progressing according to plan and remains on track to go live with commercial production in the first half of 2026 at the latest.
The outlook for Biscoff in the second half of the year remains positive. “The first production line in Thailand is planned to start up in the first half of 2026 at the latest. Until that step-up is realized, production planning and output need to be diligently balanced with evolution and mix of demand,” the company anticipates.
The company plans to accelerate its expansion plans: “Therefore, the previously announced investment program of EUR 200 million for 2024 and 2025 combined will be increased to EUR 275 million and is anticpated to be almost evenly split over the two years,” it concludes.
Photo: Lotus Bakeries
