Disclaimer: Unless noted otherwise, views and analysis expressed here are the author's own and based on public sources. The article is intended for informational and entertainment purposes only. This is not financial advice. Please consult a professional for investment decisions.

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Do you remember the last time you ate a biscuit? I do: it was a Biscoff. There it was, the distinctive red-and-maroon packet beckoning to me from a hotel room coffee corner. I polished off the biscuit without a second thought…it tasted really sweet. I glanced at the wrapper: 38% sugar and 19% fat. Ouch!    

Evidently this is not a mainstream opinion, for the world seemingly can't get enough of Biscoff. Lotus Bakeries, the Belgian company that owns Biscoff, sells a stunning 12 billion biscuits a year, making it a top 5 brand globally (Oreo is No.1 with 60 billion biscuits sold).        

Biscoff’s commercial success has produced Croesus-like riches for the founding Boone family that (together with the Stevens family) still owns 50% of the company. Ironically, the wealthiest person of Belgian origin, according to at least one source, is the founder of Weight Watchers. 

Lotus sports a market cap of €9B ($10B): still a minnow next to $80B for Mondelez’s, Oreo’s parent. At the same time, Lotus’ relative valuation is much higher: 30x vs. 15x on an EV/EBITDA basis (source). Underpinning the lofty multiple is a track record of compounding.

Between 2000 and 2025, Lotus grew sales by a factor of 10x (from €132M to €1.4B) and EBITDA by a factor of 18x (from €15M to €273M):

Meanwhile, since 2000 Lotus share price has grown 159-fold:

Including reinvested dividends, an investment in a Lotus share at the turn of the millennium would have returned a princely 243x (on a Total Shareholder Return basis).

Today, not only is Lotus one of the fastest growing packaged foods stocks globally, but one of the most resilient too: 

Nearly 50% of Lotus’ revenues, and the lion’s share of profits, are still linked to Biscoff: a simple sugary biscuit that looks and tastes much the same way as it did 40 years ago. Yes, but - while the biscuit remains the undisputed “brand ambassador”, adjacencies such as ice cream, spreads, and ingredients for foodservice customers are increasingly driving topline. 

The other 50%, however, are the outcome of a decade-plus deal spree which saw Lotus gobble up prized healthy snack brands like Nakd, TREK, BEAR, Kiddylicious and others.  

So… is Lotus the “next Mondelez”? The “next Coca-Cola”? We don’t know. But one thing is certain. The market is pricing in a long runway of double-digit earnings growth, consistent with the company’s ambition of going head-to-head with Oreo. 

We studied Lotus’ nearly 100-year history to understand when, and how it became a super-compounder. Our analysis points to the year 2011, when Jan Boone became the CEO. Since then, revenue growth has averaged 12%, outpacing the 2000-11 average of “only” 7%. What did Jan do to lift Lotus’ fortunes? And how resilient is Lotus' business model in a world obsessed with clean eating and GLP-1 jabs? Below, we dig into:

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Lotus’ history began in 1932 in Lembeke, a Belgian village north of Ghent. The brothers Jan, Emiel, and Henri Boone tweaked a centuries-old recipe of children’s speculoos snack to create a lighter, more consumer-friendly taste. According to the company, the result was “caramelised cookie with nothing but natural ingredients”. 

At first, the Boones sold the biscuits from their distinct red truck and in bulk. A breakthrough came in 1958 when Jan Boone encouraged café owners to serve individually wrapped biscuits to World Expo visitors. Before long, this free advertising began to meaningfully drive Biscoff retail sales.

Along the way, Lotus developed a taste for M&A. In 1974, it merged with the cake and pastry specialist Corona based in the neighbouring village of Oostakker. More deals followed, such as the acquisitions of the gingerbread brands Peijnenburg (2006, the Netherlands) and Annas Pepparkakor (2008, Sweden). As you will see in a minute, this was just the beginning. 

In 1986, Lotus rebranded the biscuit to “Lotus Biscoff” to emphasize the coffee connection. In time for the US entry, facilitated by a food broker named Michael McGuire who’d discovered Biscoff on a trip to Europe. Michael introduced Lotus to Delta Air Lines, which became the first US carrier to serve the biscuit inflight. Before long, other airlines followed suit. 

In 1988, Lotus went public. Sales: €43M (IPO prospectus). Key markets: Benelux and France (97% of total). By 2008, Lotus was turning over a quarter of a billion. It remained an overwhelmingly regional player (80% of sales from Benelux and France). 

In the wake of the Global Financial Crisis, however, questions began to mount over Lotus’ long-term prospects. Growth evaporated. In 2010, IKEA dropped Annas Pepparkakor from its stores: a €4M hit. The following year, Lotus lost a high-profile case that nullified its speculoos patent in Belgium. 

Then, something changed. Starting from the mid-2010s, growth re-accelerated, compounder-style. Today, at €1.4B in revenue, Lotus is more profitable, more diversified than ever. It’s running on 20%+ EBITDA margins with 90%+ cash conversion. Its largest markets are the UK (20% of total) and the US (16%). 

The person who oversaw this period of extraordinary growth? Jan Boone, a grandson of Jan Boone Sr. and the CEO since 2011: 

Early on, Jan made it clear that he was resolutely not the type of person who would contend himself with owning a stable of specialty European snacks. Fortunately, he didn’t have to worry about the family breathing down his neck. As he put it in an interview, “I prepared the transition with my uncle and father for 5 years. But as soon as you become CEO, there’s no question of the predecessor still wandering the halls several days a week. My father celebrated his 65th birthday on May 21st. On May 20th, he stopped: he never came to the office again.”

But how does one start ascending “the top of global brands” with a mere €260M ($300M) in revenue? Turns out, Jan had a 3-part plan: 

One, Jan went all-in on Biscoff, prioritising international expansion - particularly in the US and Asia, where Biscoff consumption increased 6-fold between 2010 and 2025. Partnerships and product adjacencies too. The Biscoff ice cream. The Biscoff crumb sold into foodservice. Seemingly infinite collabs like the Biscoff King Sundae with Burger King. 

Which isn’t to say that Lotus has neglected its other biscuit division, Local Heroes. Remember Annas Peparkakor? It has fully recovered from being dumped by IKEA, with topline growing more than 50% between 2020 and 2024. The bulk of the BU’s revenues come from private labels orders however, a line of work that took off in 2013 when Lotus acquired Biscuiterie Willems, 

Two, Jan hedged the giant biscuit bet with an entirely new division, Natural Foods. In a decade, this federation of healthy snacks went from 0 to €300M revenue, predominantly through M&A (Natural Foods BU represents c.80% of Lotus’ total goodwill). More on that in Chapter 3. 

Three, Jan continuously invested in production capacity. Since Lotus was short of space, it bought a former church and converted it into offices. New plants in the US, Thailand and South Africa. All in all, between 2021 and 2025, Lotus ploughed €500M+ into capex, equivalent to half the cumulative EBITDA over the same period, while increasing dividend. Another €250M in investments has been earmarked for 2026-27, lest the world run out of speculoos. 

Jan likes to think long-term. As he explained in this interview, “A Private Equity player would never have built the [US] factory because the investment won't be recouped in 5 years. But for us, it is the right long-term choice. It provides a natural hedge against the dollar, reduces transport costs, and makes us a 'local' player in the eyes of American retailers".  

Biscoff’s growth trajectory is all the more puzzling given headwinds like the Covid-induced change in eating habits or the proliferation of weight-loss jabs. Analysis by Bernstein Research suggests that in the 13 years to 2024, Biscoff grew 4x faster than the overall sweet biscuit market. 

What’s going on? 

To answer this question, let’s review Biscoff’s 4-step marketing playbook first developed by Jan’s father Mathieu. 

Step 1 is to customise entry strategy depending on every market’s maturity. Belgium has a 50% Biscoff penetration - compared with 5% for the US and Canada. 

Step 2 is to maximise brand awareness by getting the product into as many foodservice accounts - cafés, hotels, airlines - as possible. As we saw with Delta, this sampling strategy is cost-effective for both the brand and the customer, thanks to Biscoff’s single-serve format. Lotus enters new markets with the “hero” trinity: the cookie, the sandwich cookie, and the spread.   

Step 3 is the “halo effect”: encouraging consumers to explore products beyond the “heroes” by pummelling them with more Biscoff single-serve biscuits. A straw poll on a recent trip to Belgium revealed a common trend. Verbatim quote: “I never buy the biscuits, but I love the spread (the ice cream, the cheesecake etc.)”.