Waffles and speculoos have strong sales
In 2014’s first half, the cookie manufacturer’s turnover grew 5 % to 167.8 million euro. The company points to growth for several brands with Dinosaurus cookies as the biggest contributor.
Lotus already procured the rights to the popular cookies in 2012, but had to wait for the license of its competitor (Lu) finished. Lotus initiated a huge marketing campaign afterwards, both in Belgium and France, while Lu launched the Azteken line, but failed to dampen the excellent performance of the Dinosaurus cookies.
Other Lotus branches also performed well: speculoos paste sales quintupled in the United Kingdom last year, while speculoos and speculoos paste sales also grew in France, America and the Netherlands. The new size of the Liège waffle, now also in miniature size, helped push the waffle branch into growth.
Profit growth
Several investment programs which were launched in the last few years have now impacted the results in a positive manner. A restructuring of the gingerbread factory in the Netherlands and the transfer of the frangipane production (from Lembeke to Oostakker) have been positive, while Lembeke now has new speculoos production lines.
This all helped to get a 22 million euro recurrent company result, 16.9 % more than the year before. Net profit also grew 19.4 % to 16 million euro. “The board is happy to see that these investments have helped the Group’s profitability grow considerably in the current fiscal year”, a Lotus press release said.
