Good morning, everyone. Welcome to the Lotus Bakeries call, presenting our annual results for 2024. I am Jan Boone, and I'm joined today by Isabelle Maes, our Chief Marketing Officer and CEO of Lotus Natural Foods, and Mike Cuvelier, our CFO. We are all here in Lembeke. We'll start with a presentation highlighting 2024, followed by its management comments on our annual results. Isabelle will then delve deeper into the strategy for Lotus Natural Foods. Following these presentations, we will open the floor for questions.
Our call is scheduled for a maximum of one hour. Firstly, I'd like to express my gratitude to our 3,364 colleagues for their incredible contributions, helping us to achieve another outstanding set of results in 2024. We recorded an impressive top-line growth of 16%, driven almost entirely by volume growth. This volume growth amounts to EUR 150 million.
That EUR 150 million is really a record for our company. This growth was achieved across multiple countries and spans our three strategic pillars. I also would like to highlight our strong cash flow conversion, with an EBITDA and underlying EBITDA margin of 19.7% of sales. That enabled us to invest over EUR 200 million in the past two years, primarily in expansion CapEx. We're pleased to report further reduction in our net debt to 0.5 times EBITDA.
This strong performance sees our net result rising by 18%, allowing us to propose a dividend of EUR 76 per share. That's an increase by EUR 18 per share, and also reflects our solid performance and healthy balance sheets. Finally, our emissions reduction program has been submitted to the Science Based Targets initiative, in accordance with the timeline we anticipated. Going to the next slide now.
On this next slide, we can see the impressive track record and growth of our company over the last 15 years. Through its products, revenue increased by nearly EUR 1 billion, and that represents a compound annual growth rate of 11.6%. On the next slide, we have summarized some of our milestones we achieved in 2024. We celebrated the launch of our first in-house BEAR production in South Africa. In March, we proudly joined the BEL 20 index.
In June, we strengthened our strategic direction with a partnership with Mondelez, which I'll discuss shortly. In the second half of 2024, the construction stage of our greenfield plant in Thailand was in full force. Today, I'm thrilled to announce our outstanding annual results for 2024. On the next slide, this one here. On this next slide, our focus strategy is based on three pillars.
It has always been based on these three pillars, and that has remained consistently this way. Both Lotus Biscoff and Lotus Natural Foods continue their remarkable expansion, growing by 21% and 16% respectively. And additionally, our Local Heroes segment saw a 5% growth rate, outperforming its historical growth rates. We've updated our strategic ambition for Lotus Natural Foods to become a leader in the better-for-you snacking segments. And Isabelle will elaborate on this later on.
Once again, we've experienced broad-based growth across all geographical segments. Continental Europe and the U.K. now account for 71% of our sales, and they continue to show potential with double-digit growth rates. Biscoff now. Lotus Biscoff grew in 2024 again by more than 20%, adding EUR 100 million of incremental sales to surpass the EUR 600 million revenue mark.
This growth outpaces the performance of the sweet biscuits category and further strengthens the top five position in the global cookie brands ranking. It underpins the company's longer-term ambition to become a top three cookie brands with Lotus Biscoff. And I'd like to add also that Biscoff has become a love brand and is more popular than ever among young people, as evidenced by viral posts on social media. Biscoff's growth strategy puts a clear focus on building penetration, first for the hero products.
And hero products are Biscoff cookies, Biscoff spreads, concepts that have clearly global appeal and momentum. It also drives another year of geographically broad-based growth across many countries and all continents. This is the case in North America, where both in the U.S. and Canada, household penetration for Lotus Biscoff cookies continued to grow.
In Europe, significant sales increases were realized in several larger consumer markets like Spain and also Germany, both moving up in the top 10 and top 6 country positions for Biscoff. Specific mention also for Australia, realizing strong growth and continuing household penetration gains. Lotus Bakeries is currently investing in Thailand, Chonburi, in a new greenfield production facility for Lotus Biscoff to further support its growth ambition in the Asia-Pacific region.
The greenfield is anticipated to be completed in the Q2 of 2026, and the project capital expenditure is estimated in the range of EUR 160 million. Lotus Biscoff's production planning and outputs need to be diligently balanced with the evolution and mix of global demands. In 2025, the available capacity for Biscoff's original cookies, based on a representative format mix, allows for a volume increase of not more than 10%. That's without any time-limited production volumes.
In June, we announced a strategic partnership with Mondelez, and that's exciting for both companies. This partnership has two primary objectives. Firstly, to expand and grow the Biscoff cookie brand in India. Secondly, to create new chocolate products that blend the distinctive caramelized crunchy Biscoff taste with Mondelez's iconic chocolate brands like Cadbury and Milka across Europe. Since the announcement of the deal, several cross-company project teams have started working together.
For the Biscoff biscuit license in India, teams have been working diligently to define the ideal product portfolio while ensuring the same high-quality Biscoff experience for the Indian markets. Our global chocolate license teams have been hard at work developing co-branded chocolate products that combine Mondelez's iconic brands like Cadbury, Milka, and Côte d'Or with our unique and crunchy Biscoff cookies.
The first Cadbury co-branded chocolate bars will hit the U.K. shelves in March of this year, with Milka co-branded bars expected to launch in several European markets soon after, and now I will hand over to Isabelle, who will elaborate on the natural food strategy and ambitions.
Very proud to share with you today not only our results, but also the key principles of our new natural food growth model. Our ambition is clear. We want to become a leaders in the better-for-you snacking segment. As you know, we have five unique brands in our portfolio, which enables us to offer the perfect better-for-you snack for every occasion, for every consumer, for every age. All five brands realized double-digit growth in 2024 and combined to grow by 16% to end the year with a turnover of EUR 250 million. This is not a one-off, because since we entered the better-for-you snacking segment in 2015, our compound annual growth rate has been 17%.
Now, we do operate in big categories that are growing strongly, but we managed to outperform the growth rates of these different categories, with a category that is over recent years more than double than the category one, which gives us a lot of confidence for the future. Now, if we want to meet our ambitious targets, we will need to focus. And that is exactly what our updated strategy is all about.
The growth model has been developed by Bain & Company, our executive committee, and our global brand team jointly together. And the good thing about Bain is that they are, on one hand, very data-driven, but on the other hand, they offer us a unique outside-in perspective. And specifically for Natural Foods, the outside-in perspective are the learnings of successful insurgent brands in the U.S.
Which brands did manage to go from EUR 50 million- EUR 150 million turnover, and what can we learn from that? Successful insurgent brands base their strategy on their brand DNA, and that guides everything they do, but also, and especially, what not to do. The brand DNA will define how we will communicate, what innovations look like, and what our sales strategy is.
Everything starts with the brand purpose. And for BEAR, the purpose is pretty clear. BEAR wants to make healthy snacking easier for parents and a lot more fun for kids. And this purpose is already recognized by consumers. From a survey done in the U.K. and the U.S., the words that come to mind if we ask people what they think about BEAR, it's healthy, tasty, fruity, and fun.
But part of the brand DNA are also the brand guardrails, the guidance on what to do and how to stay true to our purpose. Brand guardrails have three components. First, you call consumers. For BEAR, kids are at the heart of everything we do, yet we're also loved and eaten by parents. However, if we would develop new products and kids don't like it, we will not launch it, because kids are at our core.
Secondly, product specifications. Our products are 100% fruit, have no added sugars, preserve fruit fibers, and they should, of course, be tasty. Again, if we develop a new product, these are our boundaries. And our biggest brand asset is, of course, our BEAR, he's fun, friendly, and, of course, obsessed by fruit. Second part of the growth strategy is the where to play, or our strategic ambition by country and by brand.
Very different from Biscoff, where we have the ambition to conquer the world. For Lotus Natural Foods, we have clearly defined for brands what our priority markets are. And we've done that by deciding for every brand where we want to be active by focusing on two things. First, the market attractiveness, and secondly, Lotus' ability to win. Market attractiveness is about what's the absolute market size of the category, how fast is the category growing in a certain market, what's the average consumption per capita.
Lotus' ability to win is about what's our current market share, what's the historical performance of Lotus in that market, and what makes our brands and products different from competition. This strategic ambition per country defines then our priorities in terms of resource allocation and investments. Amplify and Accelerate markets are highly attractive markets with a high chance of success.
So we will allocate the biggest part of our resources to these markets, also the biggest part of our investments. We will develop innovation only for these markets. The same principle will apply to media. A and B markets are markets that are a little bit less attractive, but success. Lotus Future countries, the certainty of success is even smaller. The third part of our strategy are the activation levers for the tools we have to transform our strategy into more concrete actions and guidelines.
And all guidelines we get for these different levers are focused on building strong rotations, because that is the basis of our growth. And this rotation-led growth strategy is fundamentally different from Biscoff, because the brands are clearly at a different stage. Our categories and consumers are different.
Cookies are consumed everywhere and by everyone, whereas our natural food categories are skewed towards certain markets and also towards consumers that are more affluent and health conscious. The brands are also different. For Biscoff, we have a straightforward value proposition, whereas the natural food brands are more premium brands that require more education. For Biscoff, we have the right to win everywhere, so we have a penetration-led growth model aiming for mass penetration.
For Natural Foods, we have a rotation-led growth model where we aim for strong rotations in the right markets and in the right types of stores first, before extending distribution further. The Natural Foods enablers are exactly the same ones as for Biscoff growth model, where we want to have strong data management, revenue growth management, and media teams to help out the local marketing teams based on KPIs, global learnings, and tools.
I would like to end with our new BEAR commercial that just went live this month in the U.K. and the U.S., fully aligned with our brand DNA and obsession for real food.
BEAR. 100% fruit. Wildly irresistible
Thank you, Isabelle. I will start with an update on the implementation of the European Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive, mainly to assure that Lotus Bakeries will be able to report the new sustainability statements in our annual report of 2024, and also the mandatory audits is progressing according to plan. In the past 12 months and before, a lot of work was put in the implementation of the so-called CSRD legislation. We finalized the double materiality assessments, we mapped the stakeholders' material risk inputs, and we defined five applicable European Sustainability Reporting Standards.
These five standards actually lead to the future reporting of more than 600 non-financial KPIs, both quantitative and qualitative. Under the umbrella of our long-time and well-known sustainability program, Care for Today and Respect for Tomorrow, we mapped these five standards, and you can see them lined up here from left to right.
On the social side, we have the S4, end consumers, and the S1, workforce. On the environmental components, we have the E1, climate change, and the E5, resource use and circularity, and then finally G1, governance. We translated these legal standards into our five more engaging guiding principles: a balanced portfolio of great taste, one Lotus family, the road to net zero, sustainable sourcing, and ethical business practices. You can consider this short update as a teaser and an invitation to the annual report and sustainability statements and KPIs that will be issued at the end of March. And now let's dive into the financials. We delivered again a strong set of annual results.
Revenue is up by 16%, underlying EBITDA is up by 17%, and free cash flow before Expansion CapEx is up by 15%, all of which gives us the possibility to invest more than EUR 120 million mainly in Expansion CapEx this year and at the same time reduce the Net Financial Debt further to less than 0.5 times EBITDA. This strong performance of the group and the strong balance sheets allow us also to propose an increase in dividends of EUR 18 per share to EUR 76.
As already mentioned, we realized record volume growth in 2024, record in terms of percentage, 14%, record in terms of absolute value, EUR 150 million. As you can see on the slide, in 2022 and 2023, the volume and price components of the growth were more evenly balanced, making indeed 2024 an exceptional year in terms of volume growth.
Then we go into the detailed profit statement and the evolution of cost by nature. I will go to the next slide and will then return to the income statement. The combined cash costs of the three main buckets of costs by nature on the slide here are exactly at 80% of sales, which is a slight 10-20 basis points lower than the previous two years.
This means with the exception of chocolate, the input and production costs for raw materials, packaging, co-manufacturing, utilities, and labor have on an aggregated level stabilized year over year. The factories, especially for the production of Biscoff and BEAR, have been capable to deliver the additional output needed to fulfill market demands and contributed to positive operational leverage.
This allows us to continue to invest in strengthening the organization and to upscale the promotion and media investments, all key to sustain continued growth. These latter investments are visible in the update on the line services and other goods at 26.9%. Returning to the previous slides. Besides the three main cash flow slides, depreciation increases with 7%, of course driven by the expansion CapEx program being rolled out and amounts today to 3% of sales.
Underlying EBITDA increased by almost 20% to EUR 207 million for 16.8% on sales, and underlying EBITDA increased more than 17% to EUR 243 million for represents 19.7% on sales. The non-underlying items of minus 5.2 million consist mainly of startup costs related to the capacity expansion and the greenfield site in Chonburi, Thailand. The financial result of minus EUR 2.2 million consists mainly of interest expenses, net of cash deposit income, and bank charges.
The tax expense amounts to almost EUR 47 million for 23.5% effective tax rate. This effective tax rate is slightly higher than in the past and is in part also linked to the increase of the corporate income tax rate in the U.K. from 19% to 25%. Net profit increases by EUR 23.2 million compared to 2023 and amounts to EUR 152.5 million or 12.4% on revenue.
Earnings per share increased by 18% to EUR 188 per share. Underlying net profit amounts to EUR 156.3 million or 12.7% on revenue. On this slide, you can see again a high level of expansion CapEx in 2024, EUR 105 million, with maintenance CapEx remaining well below 2% of sales. As already mentioned, the new greenfield plant for Biscoff in Thailand is anticipated to be completed and fully operational in the Q2 of 2026.
The CapEx forecast of 2025 is in the range of EUR 155 million, which aligns with the EUR 275 million forecast for 2024 and 2025 combined, which we announced in August. This slide shows the strong cash flow conversion in 2024. Cash flow conversion before expansion CapEx is again in the 90% range, allowing the EUR 105 million expansion CapEx to be largely autofinanced and decrease, of course, the net financial debt further, and we see this net financial debt indeed decreasing to EUR 110 million, excluding the IFRS 16 lease obligations, and currently at a two-year low, representing less than 0.5x EBITDA.
The balance sheet is stronger than ever, with increased long-term investments alongside increased equity. Working capital remains under control at approximately 2% of sales, and the reported net financial debt further reduces to EUR 130 million.
The evolution of the earnings per share is showing a 16.5% CAGR over the recent years, and this, together with strong balance sheets, allows for the 24th consecutive year to propose a dividend increase, this time to EUR 76 per share. This concludes the presentations, and we will now open the call for questions.
We have a first question of Alexander Craeymeersch, Kepler Cheuvreux. Another one. No, both of us.
Hey, good morning, Alexander from Kepler Cheuvreux speaking here. Yeah, so I'm just, first off, congratulations with the nice set of results. It's really stirring to see you guys on such a growth tracker. So yeah, two questions on my side. One is you mentioned you maximized output, but in a couple of sentences later, you said that 10% additional volume is possible for 2025. So could you explain where the additional capacity comes from versus H2 this year? And that 10%, is that also until the Thai facility is built in the Q2 of 2026? And then the second question would be on costs.
Yeah, of course, looking at the raw material cost, which has come off somewhat from the peaks in 2022, I was wondering whether we can see this as a stable cost versus sales in 2025, or should we expect an increase due to a bit of higher gas prices or potential tariffs? I know you hedged some of that gas prices, so just wondering that. And then maybe related to that cost question as well, would be the higher administrative cost. It has somewhat peaked in 2024. Just wondering how much of that is related to expansion and how much of that is related to that sustainability reporting that you just mentioned? Thank you for that.
Okay, two long questions. Thank you for that.
Maybe a bit more than two then, sorry.
Yes, I think it was five, six questions. No, but thank you for the good questions. In respect of capacity, referring to the Biscoff capacity, in 2024, we did realize a volume growth of 20% in Biscoff, which was also higher than we had expected and which was also higher than our provisions, and our provisions are for the mid-long term that we want to grow high single digit with Biscoff, and we will make sure that we organize ourselves to realize that goal, the goal of high single digit growth with Biscoff. For 2025, again, we can realize that goal. We just want to indicate that the maximum output of Biscoff cookies will be 10%.
With 10%, we take into account an evenly spread commercial output, which means that, to just give you an example, if everybody all of a sudden wants to buy Biscoff cookies, then yeah, then you will have a faster constraint on certain lines. But we calculated what we have as prognosis, or we think we will sell in the different markets per SKU, per line, per plant, that there will be more or less a maximum of 10%, also based on the efficiencies that we think we will realize. For 2026, we expect the plant of Thailand to be fully operational. That means that the 10% we have mentioned for 2025 does not include any volumes of the Thai plants.
For 2026, the Thai plant will be operational, will be fully operational in the Q2, and that will give us, again, additional capacity, which we will need to realize a goal to grow the high single digit on Biscoff. So I hope this answers your first question. In respect of raw materials, the inflation in 2024 is quite limited. You have seen in our figures, everything or almost all growth can be linked to volume growth. And for 2025, it will be quite similar with slight inflation.
This being said, chocolate is a watch out. As you all know, chocolate and cocoa prices went through the roof. Luckily, we mainly sell cookies without any chocolate. But still, if a raw material increases so significantly, it has also an impact on our cost prices.
And that means that we need higher prices for our, for example, our Dinosaurus with chocolate, for our Liège waffles with chocolate. So mainly, there is an impact on the local heroes. There we will need a higher price increase than on the other products like Biscoff or Natural Foods. Okay. Thank you.
Maybe just still on that last part, on the administrative cost. Of course, you're in expansion mode. So yeah, if you just could describe how much of the, let's say, 2% increase that we saw in the last two years is related to that expansion and maybe is related to that sustainability reporting, which of course also has a cost. Thank you.
I think you're referring to the services and other goods line as a percentage of revenue.
Indeed.
Yeah. I think that increase is mainly related to two things. First of all, in general, not specifically related to administration, but more to sales organization expansion, because we do have to obviously continue to follow that growth on the one hand. And then on the other hand, what we also mentioned is that we are increasing in the recent, let's say, 18 months to two years, the promotion, but especially also the marketing investments for Biscoff, after we've been quite modest in terms of marketing support in the years before. So that's mainly related to those two elements, sales organization to follow the growth and marketing, not so much or not very specifically sustainability.
Okay. Thank you for that.
Second question, Antoine Prévost from Bank of America.
Hi, yeah, good morning, everyone. Thank you for taking my question. So two on my side. So first on Natural Foods, I think there is probably quite a sequential slowdown, let's say, in the second half of the year, probably in markets excluding the U.K., where I mean, in H1, I think you were talking about 30%. Now you talk about 20% for the full year, so probably H2 in around 10%.
So anything to flag maybe on the deceleration for market ex U.K., especially because I mean, when I look at the U.S. data on Nielsen, I mean, it's pretty good for BEAR. So I mean, anything else maybe to flag? Or is it also maybe the U.K. a bit slowing down? I mean, any comments here would be super, super insightful. And also a quick question on Biscoff. I mean, amazing growth.
Do you think that Biscoff is benefiting a bit from the inflation in chocolates and in confectionery in general, so your competition has to put more price, you with Biscoff doesn't really have to, so you're quite competitive? Do you think you have benefited from here or just the brand equity strength and the rollout globally? Thank you for that.
Yeah, thank you. Natural Foods, second part of the year, second semester, no slowdown, double-digit growth. So no significant difference with the first semester. U.K. is doing really well, continues to grow. BEAR in the U.S. is really increasing strongly. So we don't see any slowdown in the Natural Foods business unit. Your second question is, if I understand it well, other products, other competitive products need to increase prices, certainly in confectionery.
And we don't have to increase that much that we will create a competitive advantage. I think that's your question. I think we have always strived to be affordable in all markets. We want to be there for all the families. And so if we increase prices, we calculate it diligently. We make sure that our factories are efficient, and we bring it as affordable as possible to the consumers.
And then, of course, you can see other products going up or going down. And nowadays, chocolate will increase. We have not noted any significant moves to the cookie category recently. So yeah, let's see what happens in 2025. Yeah. Thank you.
Please.
Guy Sips from KBC Securities.
Yes, thank you. I have two questions as well. First is, and both are on the Thailand side. Can you give us a color how big this site is compared to, for instance, the U.S. production capacity? Is it similar? Or if you compare it to the U.S., how big is the Thai plant or will be the Thai plant? And the second question is also related to that plant. Out of the EUR 600 million today, you gave the split country by country, how much of this 600 million is today located in countries that will be served from that Thailand plant? Thank you.
Okay. Thank you. But we will have indeed three different Biscoff sites as from 2026. The good thing is that on all three sites, we have land where we can build more plants and add lines. So as well in the plant in Belgium as one in the U.S., as also the Thai plants. So that gives us an ample opportunity to grow capacity.
At the moment, we say that the plant in Thailand will be operational, fully operational with all lines in the Q2, means that the capacity will be a little bit less than the U.S. plants today. And we will indeed ship to Asia, Australia, New Zealand. And we have to take into account that the Thai plant should provide 10%-15% of all Biscoff cookie sales.
Next question comes from Maxime Stranart from ING.
Hi, Jan. Hi, Mike. Hi, Isabelle. Good morning. Two questions on my end. Firstly, if I'm not mistaken, you have left out the sandwich cookies out of the volume guidance. So I just wanted to make sure you don't have any capacity constraints there, and just want to inquire if you have any plan for capacity expansion on this one. Secondly, to come back on pricing, if I understand you correctly, Jan, you or Mike, I don't recall, my bad, you basically expect a flat impact compared to 2024, so roughly 2%. Just to clarify, is this including FX, potentially headwinds in the U.S. or not? Just want to be clear on that, thank you.
Thank you. Sandwich cookies are produced in our Belgian plants, and there are also capacity constraints there, and back end of this year, that will be partially resolved, so we will increase capacity on sandwich back end of this year. So as we speak, there is also a capacity constraint. Your second question was in respect of inflation and how we foresee our prices and consumer prices to evolve in 2025.
So there we're talking about low single-digit increases in prices, so quite similar to last year. But you have to take into account that for our home markets, we have quite some chocolate-related products, being France and Belgium mainly, and there the inflation will be somewhat higher. But overall, if you look at group-wise, it's low single-digit increase of the prices from us towards our customers.
Okay. Thank you. Next question, Kris Kippers from Degroof Petercam.
Good morning. Thank you, gentlemen, for taking my questions. A couple of them remaining. Just the first one, you just indeed elaborated on the fact that the sandwich cookies are still being produced in Belgium. Given the new administration in the U.S., could you share with us how much impact you could have from any tax levy from imports in the U.S.? And then second question would be on the margin. We saw indeed in H2 for the first time a nice 20% plus margin in EBITDA terms. Is that something which is sustainable going forward? And then just a small one on the dividend payout now amounts to 40%. I'm just wondering, is that the new payout we should look at? Thank you.
Thank you, Kris. Indeed, as I mentioned, the sandwich cookies are being produced in Belgium, and I think the strategy should be to organize ourselves that we can produce sandwich cookies also locally in Asia and the U.S. Sandwich cookies, as I said, being produced in Lembeke, and it's quite still relatively a new product. Efficiencies on these lines are getting very good.
In the beginning, it was quite a struggle, but they're getting good, and now we also have captured the know-how, and now we are building the plants to also add sandwich lines in the U.S. and in Asia, so in a couple of years' time, we will have also these lines abroad, but that's not for the first two years. That means indeed that we still have to import these sandwich cookies into the U.S., that we still have to import them into Asia.
So far, there are no additional import duties foreseen, also not in the U.S. Of course, we would prefer not to have additional import duties. With that said, that could maximum be an issue of a couple of years' time and probably not very significant on our overall figures. In respect of margin, second half of the year, indeed, 20% of EBITDA. I think we feel fine with an EBITDA percentage between 19%-20%.
As Mike also said, we want to invest more in our brands or brands, not only Biscoff, but also the natural food brands. We have been investing in 2024 more and more digital, supporting Biscoff, digital also supporting our natural food brands, and we will continue doing that and we've seen good results, positive results on our investments.
As explained last year, it's our first year of really significant investments in digital media, and it's working. So now we know that we'll further increase these efforts in 2025. So that will also impact the costs. And at the end, we will end up, hopefully, with an EBITDA percentage between 19% and 20%. If we would lower these marketing efforts, maybe on the short term, we will not see immediate effects, but we want to build brands for the future.
And then we need to invest in the awareness of these brands. In respect of the dividends, results are good. Our net profit, recurring net profit or underlying net profit, we have to say, has increased significantly. Our balance sheet is very strong, very low leveraged.
So we have indeed increased the payout ratio on our net profits, on our recurring net profits to almost 40%, which is indeed a bit higher, but seeing the results, seeing the strong balance sheets. And also looking at certain yields on the value of the company. Looking at the last years, this year, and the last couple of years, we're always around 0.7%-0.8% of yields on the value of the company.
Okay. Very clear. Thank you.
Okay. Thank you for all the questions. Oh, one more.
One more, Samantha from Berenberg.
Hi, good morning. Thanks for the question. I just wanted to come back to Natural Foods, please. I just wondered if you could give us a bit of an update on how you're getting on with launching the brands and markets outside the U.K.. I know you've been investing in bringing more of the brands across continental Europe. It would just be great to see where you're at with that. And then could you perhaps give us a bit of an insight into how you hope that that business will grow in the midterm? You've quantified the mid to high single-digit ambition for Biscoff. I'm wondering if you can quantify something for Natural Foods for us as well, please. Thank you.
Thank you, Samantha. Yeah, that's indeed exactly our strategy to keep on growing in the U.K., but we want to grow faster outside of the U.K. You're referring to continental Europe. There, Natural Foods is doing well, especially the nākd brand is doing really well this year. So it's a real success. And as said, in the U.S., BEAR is becoming a real significant brand. So the plan of internationalizing these brands are working out really well.
But as Isabelle presented this morning, it's also important to focus on certain brands, to focus on certain regions and countries, and not take all the brands and launch these in 50 different countries. So we have our strategy now, and we will also implement that strategy diligently. As said, indeed, Biscoff, we want to grow high single digit.
Our ambition also with Natural Foods is to grow high single digit outside of the U.K.. To be very specific.
Thank you. That's really helpful.
Thank you.
Thank you, and then I have one more question from Antoine. Bank of America.
Thank you. Yeah, thank you. Just as a quick follow-up on the tariff side of things for BEAR in the U.S., is there a risk there on the tariff? Because, I mean, you are imported, I guess, the work in progress type of product there, and then you are packaging in the U.S. So, I mean, is there a risk, anything you want to flag there for BEAR in the U.S.?
Indeed, the BEAR brands, BEAR products are being produced outside of the U.S. We are able to produce BEAR products at a very strong cost price, very good quality, but a strong, sharp cost price, which is important to be successful internationally. Today, we have not seen any changes in tariffs coming from South Africa into U.S. or into any other countries. So far, we don't see an issue. And as said, that's the same for Biscoff Sandwich. We hope, of course, that that remains the case, but there are no indications that that change. As everybody knows, today there is a focus on Mexico, Canada, China, and less so to other regions. We feel today quite confident that that will not change.
Perfect. Thank you.
Okay. Thank you. Thank you for all your interesting questions, and enjoy the rest of the day. Thank you.
Thank you also from my side, and have a nice day.
Thank you. Have a nice day.
Thank you.