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Henan food company best known for its Lotus-brand MSG seasoning, also selling compound seasonings and health products.
Henan food company best known for its Lotus-brand MSG seasoning, also selling compound seasonings and health products.
Makes MSG and seasonings by the tonne for food makers, restaurants and shoppers, so profit is the gap between product prices and grain-based costs, in a market where much bigger Chinese rivals hold more scale. Compound seasonings and health products are priced higher per unit than plain MSG.
In one line: A Chinese MSG/seasoning maker, akin to a legacy Ajinomoto-style producer.
Moat: none. Commodity seasoning producer with limited pricing power against larger MSG/amino-acid makers.
Headquarters: Xiangcheng, Henan, China · Employees: 1,201
Size Lotus (600186.SS) is a China Consumer Staples company (Food: Specialty/Candy) with a market value of $2.37B, the 1082nd largest of 4,839 China companies the cockpit tracks. Shares closed at CN¥8.79 on 6 Nov 2026.
Performance Over six months the shares fell 18.0%, against -1.1% for the median peer and -16.4% for the China market (cap-weighted) — 4th lowest of 21 in its peer set.
Growth Revenue grew 20.7% over the last twelve months (peer median +2.8%); the operating margin is 13.2% (peer median 9.8%).
Valuation It trades at 35.2× forward earnings against a peer median of 19.4× (3rd most expensive of 20).
Capital Return on invested capital runs 9.3 points above its cost of capital (10.2% WACC).
Next results Next results expected around 1 Apr 2027 (exchange calendar; dates can move).
| TTM | FY2025 | FY2024 | FY2023 | FY2022 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Revenue | CN¥3.86B | CN¥3.44B | CN¥2.64B | CN¥2.10B | CN¥1.69B |
| Revenue growth | — | +30% | +26% | +24% | — |
| Gross profit | CN¥1.13B | CN¥915M | CN¥649M | CN¥344M | CN¥224M |
| EBITDA | n/a | CN¥574M | CN¥382M | CN¥150M | CN¥86.8M |
| Net income | CN¥387M | CN¥309M | CN¥203M | CN¥130M | CN¥46.2M |
| Free cash flow | -CN¥259M | CN¥210M | CN¥8.90M | -CN¥36.1M | CN¥13.4M |
| Capital expenditure | CN¥1.58B | CN¥10.9M | CN¥643M | CN¥110M | CN¥41.6M |
| Total debt | CN¥1.14B | CN¥1.11B | CN¥1.38B | CN¥715M | CN¥806M |
The default views of Competitor Analysis ▸ Charts, drawn from the same data. Open them in the cockpit to change the axes, pin companies and read every value.
| Company | Market cap | 6M return | Revenue growth | Op. margin | Forward P/E | Req g |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lotus 600186.SS | $2.37B | -18% | +21% | 13% | 35.2× | n/a |
| MeiHua 600873.SS | $2.99B | -27% | -3% | 4% | 14.5× | n/a |
| Fufeng 0546.HK | $1.31B | -37% | +1% | 4% | 7.4× | n/a |
| Ajinomoto 2802.T | $25.3B | -16% | +7% | 11% | 29.4× | 19.2% |
| Foshan Haitian Flavouring and Food 603288.SS | $29.8B | -7% | +6% | 27% | 28.9× | 7.6% |
Peer set: Industry: the same industry and sector in any market, nearest in size. This is the same default set the interactive Competitor Analysis opens with.
| Measure | 600186.SS | Peer median | Rank in peer set |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1-month return | -23.3% | +3.2% | lowest of 21 |
| 6-month return | -18.0% | -1.1% | 4th lowest of 21 |
| Distance from 52-week high | -44.8% | -15.7% | 4th lowest of 21 |
| Revenue growth (TTM) | +20.7% | +2.8% | 3rd highest of 21 |
| Operating margin | 13.2% | 9.8% | 9th highest of 21 |
| Forward P/E | 35.2× | 19.4× | 3rd most expensive of 20 |
| ROIC minus cost of capital | +9.3 pp | +3.2 pp | 5th highest of 21 |
| Company | Market | Market cap | 6M return | Revenue growth | Op. margin | Forward P/E | Req g | Delivered g |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lotus 600186.SS | China | $2.37B | -18% | +21% | 13% | 35.2× | n/a | n/a |
| CALBEE 2229.T | Japan | $2.37B | +7% | +5% | 8% | 22.0× | -1.8% | +5.0% |
| Kanematsu 8020.T | Japan | $2.35B | +2% | +4% | 5% | 9.6× | -2.4% | +10.5% |
| Premier Foods PFD.L | United Kingdom | $2.34B | +3% | +2% | 18% | 12.6× | -1.3% | +4.4% |
| Yantai North Andre Juice 605198.SS | China | $2.31B | +16% | -17% | 18% | 66.5× | 36.8% | +14.8% |
| Gambol Pet 301498.SZ | China | $2.25B | -32% | +14% | 7% | 43.6× | n/a | n/a |
| Sichuan Teway Food 603317.SS | China | $2.24B | -18% | +22% | 21% | 20.4× | 2.9% | +7.8% |
| Weilong Delicious Global 9985.HK | Hong Kong | $2.22B | -20% | +13% | 25% | 9.6× | -6.3% | +11.1% |
| Suedzucker SZU.DE | Germany | $2.57B | -5% | -5% | -3% | 34.2× | 0.7% | +4.6% |
| House Foods 2810.T | Japan | $2.58B | +49% | 0% | 6% | 27.2× | 5.0% | +4.9% |
| UTZ Brands UTZ | United States | $2.05B | +90% | +2% | 4% | 17.9× | 31.8% | +8.3% |
| Chongqing Fuling Zhacai 002507.SZ | China | $2.04B | -6% | +3% | 28% | 18.0× | -0.9% | +1.4% |
| Kotobuki Spirits 2222.T | Japan | $2.81B | +41% | +10% | 25% | 29.3× | 5.2% | +27.7% |
| Nissui 1332.T | Japan | $1.97B | -16% | +8% | 4% | 10.8× | 0.9% | +8.7% |
| Marzetti MZTI | United States | $2.86B | -8% | -1% | 11% | 15.6× | -2.4% | +5.6% |
| Tootsie Roll Industries TR | United States | $2.92B | -8% | +2% | 12% | n/a | 14.1% | +9.2% |
| MeiHua 600873.SS | China | $2.99B | -27% | -3% | 4% | 14.5× | n/a | n/a |
| Robertet RBT.PA | France | $1.84B | +4% | 0% | 15% | 18.3× | -0.4% | +9.4% |
| Anhui Jinhe Industrial 002597.SZ | China | $1.83B | -8% | +22% | 4% | 19.4× | 10.3% | +6.0% |
| Cloetta CLA-B.ST | Sweden | $1.82B | +16% | 0% | 14% | 20.9× | -0.3% | +8.4% |
| Freshpet FRPT | United States | $3.09B | +21% | +12% | 9% | 34.9× | 28.5% | +28.2% |