IN Brief:
- Lotus Bakeries will invest at least €500 million in Biscoff capacity between 2026 and 2030.
- New production halls and lines are planned across Lembeke, Mebane, and Chonburi.
- The staged programme will add regional capacity as Biscoff volumes continue double-digit growth.
Lotus Bakeries will invest at least €500 million between 2026 and 2030 to expand Biscoff production across Belgium, the United States, and Thailand, setting out a five-year capacity programme across its three regional manufacturing bases.
The plan covers new production halls and lines at Lembeke in Belgium, Mebane in North Carolina, and Chonburi in Thailand. Lotus Bakeries expects capital expenditure to exceed €250 million across 2026 and 2027 alone as the next phase of the programme moves into construction and equipment installation.
In the US, Mebane is due to gain a new hall for Biscoff cookies and spread, with additional capacity expected from mid-2028 and further output available in 2029. At Chonburi, the first phase of the Thai plant has been completed and work has started on a second production hall, where the first new line is scheduled to be operational before the end of 2027.
Lembeke is already in an earlier expansion cycle. Construction started in May on another production hall after the required permits were secured, with first production expected within two years. The Belgian project remains part of the wider programme rather than a separate new announcement.
Jan Boone, chief executive officer of Lotus Bakeries, said: “We are committing to the largest Biscoff expansion programme in our company’s history, investing at least €500 million across three continents between 2026 and 2030.”
The spending follows another period of double-digit growth. Lotus Bakeries reported first-half 2026 revenue of €749.1 million, up 14% year on year, while underlying operating profit rose 19.4% to €131 million and net profit increased 23.5% to €98.1 million. Biscoff revenue and volume both increased by more than 20% over the period.
That growth is forcing a different production model from the one that supported Biscoff’s earlier international expansion. A single European base can serve export markets while volumes are modest, but the cost and risk of moving finished product across long distances become harder to justify as local demand rises. The three-site structure gives Lotus Bakeries dedicated manufacturing capacity for Europe and the Middle East, the Americas, and Asia-Pacific.
Spread production is being regionalised alongside cookies. Lotus Bakeries has invested in spread manufacturing and in-house bottling in the US and Thailand, reducing the need to move finished spread from Europe and giving each region more control over replenishment. That matters because cookie and spread capacity increasingly have to support both direct retail demand and co-branded applications.
Replicating the same product across three continents also puts process control under greater pressure. Mixing, forming, baking, cooling, handling, and packaging have to remain within common specifications while plants operate with different utilities, labour markets, raw-material supply chains, and ambient conditions. Lotus Bakeries has already used Lembeke as a training base for Thai employees as process knowledge has been transferred into Chonburi.
The investment programme will therefore create work well beyond the core baking lines. New halls require supporting capacity in dough preparation, thermal processing, cooling, conveying, primary and secondary packaging, utilities, maintenance, and warehouse handling. The sequencing of those systems will determine how quickly nameplate capacity turns into stable commercial output.
The capacity programme also spreads commissioning risk across several years rather than relying on one large start-up. Chonburi, Lembeke, and Mebane have different construction and ramp-up dates, which gives the group more scope to absorb new output in stages and to transfer operating lessons between sites. It also reduces the chance that one delayed project becomes the only route to relieving a global capacity constraint.
Packaging and warehouse systems will have to scale with the ovens. Higher biscuit and spread output increases demand for primary packs, cases, pallet handling, and finished goods storage, while regional production changes the balance between export preparation and domestic distribution. Capacity added at the baking stage is of limited value if packing or dispatch becomes the next bottleneck.
For the company, the immediate constraint is no longer whether Biscoff can sustain international demand, but whether enough qualified production can be added without creating uneven performance between regions. The programme gives that expansion a defined sequence rather than a single capacity jump. The first milestones are already set: the next Chonburi line is due before the end of 2027, Mebane’s new hall is expected to contribute from mid-2028, and the broader programme runs through 2030.
