One-glance verdict
Undervalued
$27.24 our estimate vs market $7.02
Wall Street consensus: $9.00 (-67.0% lower than our fair-value estimate)
74% below our estimate, below the bear case
Fundamentals snapshot
Flowers Foods, Inc.
FLO · NYQ · Consumer Defensive · Packaged Foods
Current price
$7.02
52-week range
$6.80 - $16.85
Market cap
$1.49B
Balance sheet
Watch
4.25x Stretched
Net debt $1.21B. Interest coverage shows how many times profit covers the interest bill.
What stands out
3 Rewards
2 Risks
3 rewards · 2 risks
- Reward Revenue grew 0.3% last year.
- Reward Returns 5.4% on equity, ahead of 40% of its peers.
- Risk Net debt grew 101.6% over 3 years.
- Risk Insider ownership is only 8.0% (peer median: 13.5%).
What this company does
Flowers Foods, Inc.
Flowers Foods is the company behind many popular bakery brands you see in the grocery store, like Nature's Own bread and Tastykake snacks. The company earns money by selling these everyday items through a huge distribution network that reaches supermarkets, restaurants, and even vending machines. Because people tend to buy these food staples regularly no matter how the economy is doing, the company's sales can be more stable than those of companies selling non-essential items.
How the company got here
Flowers Foods started in 1919 when two brothers, William and Joseph Flowers, opened a small bakery in Thomasville, Georgia. The company grew over many decades by buying other bakeries and expanding its reach across the United States. A major turning point was in 2001 when the company, then known as Flowers Industries, sold its investment in the Keebler cookie and cracker company and spun off its bakery businesses to create the Flowers Foods we know today. This allowed the company to focus entirely on baked goods, and it has since become the second-largest producer of packaged bakery foods in the U.S. through key acquisitions of popular brands.
What it actually does
Flowers Foods bakes and sells a wide variety of packaged bakery products that you would find in most grocery stores. This includes everyday items like fresh breads, buns, and rolls, as well as snack foods like cakes and pastries. You'll recognize many of their brands, such as Nature's Own, Wonder Bread, Dave's Killer Bread, and Tastykake snack cakes. The company operates dozens of bakeries across the country to produce these goods for sale in supermarkets, mass merchandisers, restaurants, and other food outlets.
Branded Retail
This is the company's largest business, making up about two-thirds of its sales. It involves producing and selling fresh bakery products under their well-known brand names like Nature's Own, Dave's Killer Bread, and Wonder. These are the items you see on the shelves at your local supermarket or discount store. The company relies on a large network of independent distributors who deliver these fresh products directly to stores, which is a system called direct-store-delivery (DSD), ensuring that the bread and buns are fresh for shoppers.
Store-Brand and Foodservice
This part of the business, which makes up the remaining third of sales, focuses on two areas. First, it bakes products that grocery stores sell under their own private labels, often as a lower-cost alternative to national brands. Second, it supplies baked goods to foodservice customers, which includes restaurants, schools, and other institutions that serve food. These products, which can include frozen items, are typically delivered to a customer's warehouse rather than directly to a store.
What management is betting on now
The company's leadership is focused on several key areas to grow the business. They are heavily investing in their most popular and profitable brands, like Dave's Killer Bread and Canyon Bakehouse, to appeal to consumers looking for premium or healthier options like organic and gluten-free products. They are also working to improve their margins (the profit made on each sale) by making their bakeries and supply chain (the entire process of making and delivering products) more efficient. Finally, Flowers Foods continues to look for smart acquisitions (buying other companies) to add new brands to its portfolio and expand into new markets.
Price history
How the share price has moved
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Earnings history
Last 8 quarters — what happened
Click any quarter to read the call summary and what the numbers say.
FY2025 Q2
$35.35M
FY2025 Q3
$88.58M
FY2025 Q4
$84.83M
FY2026 Q1
$110.08M
FY2026 Q2
$100.02M
FY2026 Q3
$30.42M
FY2026 Q4
$78.57M
FY2027 Q1
$87.23M
Revenue
$1.57B
Net income
$42.05M
Diluted EPS
0.20
Operating cash flow
$107.86M
Free cash flow
$87.23M
Fetching…
Sources
Revenue
$1.23B
Net income
$-67.07M
Diluted EPS
-0.32
Operating cash flow
$125.38M
Free cash flow
$78.57M
Fetching…
Sources
Revenue
$1.23B
Net income
$39.53M
Diluted EPS
0.19
Operating cash flow
$54.36M
Free cash flow
$30.42M
Fetching…
Sources
Revenue
$1.24B
Net income
$58.37M
Diluted EPS
0.28
Operating cash flow
$130.83M
Free cash flow
$100.02M
Fetching…
Sources
Revenue
$1.55B
Net income
$53.00M
Diluted EPS
0.25
Operating cash flow
$135.63M
Free cash flow
$110.08M
Fetching…
Sources
Revenue
$1.11B
Net income
$43.12M
Diluted EPS
0.20
Operating cash flow
$130.29M
Free cash flow
$84.83M
Fetching…
Sources
Revenue
$1.19B
Net income
$64.98M
Diluted EPS
0.31
Operating cash flow
$113.95M
Free cash flow
$88.58M
Fetching…
Sources
Revenue
$1.22B
Net income
$66.97M
Diluted EPS
0.32
Operating cash flow
$63.27M
Free cash flow
$35.35M
Fetching…
Sources
Is it cheap or expensive?
Fair value $27.24 vs current price $7.02
Wall Street consensus is the average analyst price target: $9.00 (-67.0% lower than our fair-value estimate).
Our most-likely fair value is $27.24 a share — about 288.1% above today's price of $7.02, so the stock currently looks cheap (undervalued).
Is it drowning in debt?
Watch
Net debt $1.2B. Interest coverage 4.3x.
Net debt
$1.21B
Interest coverage
4.25x
Flowers Foods, Inc.'s profit covers its interest bill about 4.3 times over. which is stronger than most peers shown here.
Watch
Worse cushion
Baseline
Better cushion
FLO
BASELINE
Flowers Foods, Inc.
Total debt $1.47B Interest coverage 4.25x This is the baseline the peer rows are being compared against.
Total debt $7.34B Interest coverage 3.92x -8% vs FLO Has roughly the same debt cushion as FLO.
Total debt $192.53M Interest coverage 67.00x +1,475% vs FLO Carries about 15.8x more debt cushion than FLO.
Total debt $2.06B Interest coverage 1.23x -71% vs FLO Carries about 3.5x less debt cushion than FLO.
Total debt $7.48B Interest coverage 3.23x -24% vs FLO Carries about 1.3x less debt cushion than FLO.
What you should know
The case for and against FLO
3 Rewards
2 Risks
Rewards
-
Revenue grew 0.3% last year.
-
Returns 5.4% on equity, ahead of 40% of its peers.
-
Free cash flow was positive in 10/10 years.
Risks
-
Net debt grew 101.6% over 3 years.
-
Insider ownership is only 8.0% (peer median: 13.5%).
The numbers
All the key metrics, grouped by purpose
Tap any ? icon to learn what it means.
Valuation
How expensive the stock looks
P/E (TTM)
20.65x
Forward P/E
8.54x
P/B
1.12x
P/S
0.28x
EV/EBITDA
5.28x
PEG ratio
6.10x
Profitability
How much profit each dollar creates
Gross margin
48.7%
Operating margin
8.3%
Net margin
1.4%
ROE
5.4%
ROA
5.3%
Health
Liquidity and balance-sheet strength
Debt / equity
1.11x
Current ratio
0.77x
Quick ratio
0.42x
Total debt
$1.47B
Total cash
$252.68M
Growth
How the business has been compounding
Revenue TTM
$5.27B
Revenue 5Y CAGR
5.0%
EPS TTM
0.34
EPS 5Y CAGR
-28.1%
Cash flow
How much cash the business throws off
Operating CF TTM
$418.43M
Free CF TTM
$319.09M
FCF margin
6.1%
Dividend
Shareholder payout
Yield
7.0%
Payout ratio
282.9%
Last ex-div date
2026-06-12