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LW, Lamb Weston

Lamb Weston is a leading global producer, distributor, and marketer of value-added frozen potato products and is headquartered in Eagle, Idaho.

We are the number one supplier of value-added frozen potato products in North America and a leading supplier of value-added frozen potato products internationally, with a strong presence in high-growth emerging markets.

We offer a broad product portfolio to a diverse channel and customer base in over 100 countries.

Latest annual: FY2025 10-K

LW · Lamb Weston

The business

What it sells, where the money comes from, the kind of company it is.

Revenue · FY2025

$6.5B

−0.3% YoY · 11% 5-yr CAGR

Vital signs · TTM, with 5-yr average

Revenue $6.5B 5-yr avg $5.2B

Gross margin 21% 5-yr avg 24%

Operating margin 9.3% 5-yr avg 13.4%

ROIC 7% 5-yr avg 13%

Owner-earnings margin 10% 5-yr avg 8%

Free cash flow margin 10% 5-yr avg 4%

The business in brief

read the 10-K →

What this business is and what moves its needle, from its own SEC filings.

What moves the needle: Gross margin has run about 25% and operating margin about 16% through the cycle, a thin spread that turns the result on volume and the cost of what it sells far more than on the price it sets. Inventory runs near 16% of sales, so how fast it turns back into cash — and the risk of writing it down when demand softens — sits alongside the margin. On its own account, the filing leans hardest on customer concentration, set against the numbers in what the filing emphasizes, below.
Is it a good business?: Return on capital has run in the teens (median 16%, above 15% in 6 of 9 years). Owner earnings agree: roughly 10% of revenue reaches owners as cash, consistently. Returns like these are solid but short of clear franchise economics; whether they hold is what the 10-K settles, not the multiple.

Every line is arithmetic on the company's filings, shown in full in the sections below.

Where the money comes from

read the 10-K →

35% of revenue comes from outside the United States.

Revenue by geography, FY2025

United States65%$4.2B
Other35%$2.3B

From the segment footnote of the company's own 10-K. Shares are of total revenue; the profit bar shows each segment's share of segment operating profit, before unallocated corporate costs.

The record

Ten years of arithmetic, read across the cycle.

The record, 2017–2025

realized figures from each filing · older years to the left

2017’17	2018’18	2019’19	2020’20	2021’21	2022’22	2023’23	2024’24	2025’25	TTMTTMFeb 2026
										Income statement
$3.2B	$3.4B	$3.8B	$3.8B	$3.7B	$4.1B	$5.4B	$6.5B	$6.5B	$6.5B	RevenueRevenue
25%	26%	27%	24%	23%	20%	27%	27%	22%	21%	Gross marginGross mgn
8%	9%	9%	9%	10%	9%	10%	11%	10%	10%	SG&A / revenueSG&A/rev
0%	0%	0%	0%	0%	0%	0%	0%	0%	0%	R&D / revenueR&D/rev
$518M	$580M	$668M	$557M	$475M	$444M	$882M	$1.1B	$665M	$608M	Operating incomeOp. inc.
16.4%	16.9%	17.8%	14.7%	12.9%	10.8%	16.5%	16.5%	10.3%	9.3%	Operating marginOp. mgn
$327M	$417M	$479M	$366M	$318M	$201M	$1.0B	$726M	$357M	$300M	Net incomeNet inc.
34%	23%	22%	23%	22%	26%	18%	24%	29%	31%	Effective tax rateTax rate
										Cash flow & returns
$447M	$481M	$681M	$574M	$553M	$419M	$762M	$798M	$868M	$979M	Operating cash flowOp. cash
$109M	$143M	$162M	$182M	$188M	$192M	$223M	$307M	$408M	$420M	DepreciationDeprec.
$5M	($92M)	$21M	$3M	$27M	$4M	($509M)	($281M)	$64M	$220M	Working capital & otherWC & other
$287M	$307M	$334M	$168M	$147M	$290M	$654M	$930M	$638M	$344M	CapexCapex
9.1%	9.0%	8.9%	4.4%	4.0%	7.1%	12.2%	14.4%	9.9%	5.3%	Capex / revenueCapex/rev
$338M	$338M	$519M	$406M	$406M	$227M	$539M	$491M	$461M	$634M	Owner earningsOwner earn.
10.7%	9.9%	13.8%	10.7%	11.0%	5.5%	10.1%	7.6%	7.1%	9.7%	Owner earnings marginOE mgn
$160M	$174M	$347M	$406M	$406M	$129M	$108M	($131M)	$230M	$634M	Free cash flowFCF
5.0%	5.1%	9.2%	10.7%	11.0%	3.1%	2.0%	−2.0%	3.6%	9.7%	Free cash flow marginFCF mgn
—	—	$89M	$117M	—	$0	$0	$11M	$0	$0	AcquisitionsAcquis.
$27M	$110M	$113M	$121M	$135M	$138M	$146M	$174M	$207M	$207M	Dividends paidDiv. paid
20%	23%	23%	18%	15%	13%	16%	15%	9%	7%	ROICROIC
—	—	—	152%	66%	56%	71%	41%	21%	16%	Return on equityROE
—	—	—	102%	38%	17%	61%	31%	9%	5%	Retained to equityRetained/eq
										Balance sheet
$57M	$56M	$12M	$1.4B	$784M	$525M	$305M	$71M	$71M	$58M	Cash & investmentsCash+inv
$185M	$226M	$340M	$342M	$367M	$447M	$724M	$744M	$782M	$751M	ReceivablesReceiv.
$525M	$550M	$498M	$487M	$514M	$574M	$932M	$1.1B	$1.0B	$1.1B	InventoryInvent.
$295M	$254M	$289M	$244M	$359M	$403M	$637M	$834M	$616M	$600M	Accounts payablePayables
$415M	$521M	$549M	$584M	$521M	$619M	$1.0B	$1.0B	$1.2B	$1.2B	Operating working capitalOper. WC
$858M	$930M	$962M	$2.3B	$1.8B	$1.7B	$2.1B	$2.1B	$2.0B	$2.1B	Current assetsCur. assets
$555M	$519M	$553M	$1.0B	$618M	$699M	$1.4B	$1.6B	$1.5B	$1.4B	Current liabilitiesCur. liab.
1.5×	1.8×	1.7×	2.2×	2.9×	2.4×	1.6×	1.3×	1.4×	1.5×	Current ratioCurr. ratio
$133M	$135M	$206M	$304M	$335M	$318M	$1.0B	$1.1B	$1.1B	$1.1B	GoodwillGoodwill
$2.5B	$2.8B	$3.0B	$4.7B	$4.2B	$4.1B	$6.5B	$7.4B	$7.4B	$7.4B	Total assetsAssets
$2.4B	$2.3B	$2.3B	$3.6B	$2.8B	$2.7B	$3.5B	$3.8B	$3.8B	$3.8B	Total debtDebt
$2.3B	$2.3B	$2.3B	$2.2B	$2.0B	$2.2B	$3.2B	$3.8B	$3.7B	$3.8B	Net debt / (cash)Net debt
($647M)	($335M)	($5M)	$240M	$481M	$361M	$1.4B	$1.8B	$1.7B	$1.8B	Shareholders’ equityEquity
0.2%	0.4%	0.5%	0.6%	0.6%	0.5%	0.7%	0.7%	0.6%	0.6%	Stock comp / revenueSBC/rev
										Per share
147M	147M	147M	147M	147M	146M	145M	146M	143M	140M	Shares out (diluted)Shares
$21.61	$23.29	$25.50	$25.78	$24.96	$28.09	$36.85	$44.42	$45.21	$46.69	Revenue / shareRev/sh
$2.23	$2.84	$3.25	$2.49	$2.16	$1.38	$6.95	$4.98	$2.50	$2.15	EPS (diluted)EPS
$2.30	$2.30	$3.52	$2.76	$2.76	$1.55	$3.71	$3.38	$3.23	$4.54	Owner earnings / shareOE/sh
$1.09	$1.19	$2.35	$2.76	$2.76	$0.88	$0.74	$-0.90	$1.61	$4.54	Free cash flow / shareFCF/sh
$0.19	$0.75	$0.77	$0.82	$0.92	$0.95	$1.01	$1.20	$1.45	$1.48	Dividends / shareDiv/sh
$1.96	$2.09	$2.27	$1.14	$1.00	$1.99	$4.50	$6.38	$4.47	$2.47	Cap. spending / shareCapex/sh
$-4.41	$-2.28	$-0.03	$1.63	$3.27	$2.47	$9.72	$12.28	$12.18	$13.09	Book value / shareBVPS

Per-share growththe realized rate an owner's share compounded

	8-yr	5-yr
Revenue / share	+9.7%/yr	+11.9%/yr
Owner earnings / share	+4.3%/yr	+3.2%/yr
EPS	+1.5%/yr	+0.1%/yr
Dividends / share	+29.2%/yr	+11.9%/yr
Capital spending / share	+10.9%/yr	+31.4%/yr
Book value / share	—	+49.5%/yr

The record, charted

FY2017–2025

Each measure over its full record; the current point and the worst year marked.

Share count

143Mpeak FY2019

ROIC

9%low FY2025

Gross margin

22%low FY2022

Net debt ÷ owner earnings

8.0×peak FY2022

Owner earnings vs. net income

Owner earningsNet income

The accountant's number, and the cash an owner can take; the gap is the tell.

$461Mowner earningsvs.$357Mnet incomelow FY2022

Where the cash went

ReinvestBuybacksDividendsAcquisitionsRetainedBeyond op. cash

Each year's outlays against its operating cash: the mix, and how it drifts. The hatched cap is spending beyond that year's operating cash — financed from the balance sheet or borrowing, not operations.

FY2017FY2025

Owner-earnings bridge

FY2021–FY2025cash-flow statement, SEC EDGAR →

Net income is the accountant's number; owner earnings is the cash an owner could take out. The walk between them, off the cash-flow statement, and whether the gap is widening or holding.

In fiscal 2025 the business earned $461M of owner earnings, the operating cash left after the $408M it takes just to hold its position. It put $231M more into growth; free cash flow, after that spending, was $230M.

Reported net income$357M

Owner earnings$461M · 7% of revenue

	FY2025	FY2024	FY2023	FY2022	FY2021
Reported net income	$357M	$726M	$1.0B	$201M	$318M
Depreciation & amortizationnon-cash charge added back	+$408M	+$307M	+$223M	+$192M	+$188M
Stock-based compensationreal costnon-cash, but a real cost	+$40M	+$47M	+$39M	+$21M	+$21M
Working capital & othertiming of cash in and out, other non-cash items	+$64M	−$281M	−$509M	+$4M	+$27M
Cash from operations	$868M	$798M	$762M	$419M	$553M
Maintenance capital expenditurethe spending needed just to hold position and volume	−$408M	−$307M	−$223M	−$192M	−$147M
Owner earnings	$461M	$491M	$539M	$227M	$406M
Growth capital expenditurediscretionary; spent to get bigger, not to stand still	−$231M	−$623M	−$431M	−$98M	—
Free cash flow	$230M	($131M)	$108M	$129M	$406M
Owner-earnings marginowner earnings ÷ revenue	7%	8%	10%	6%	11%

Owner earnings is the cash an owner could pull out without starving the business: operating cash less the maintenance capital it must spend to hold its position (here about $408M, roughly its depreciation, the rate its assets wear out). The other $231M of its capital spending is growth it chose, not upkeep it owed; charged only with the maintenance it must do, the business earns well more than the year's free cash flow shows. The cash-flow statement also adds stock comp back as non-cash, but it is a real cost paid in shares; counted as the expense it is (less $40M), owner earnings is nearer $421M.

Maintenance capex is estimated as depreciation where a growing business invests above it; free cash flow is the figure the scorecard's free-cash margin reads.

III

Quality & stewardship

Returns, the balance sheet, capital allocation, and pay.

Owner’s Scorecard

FY2025 10-K · source on SEC EDGAR →

Will it survive?

Can it pay its interest? —

Interest expense not tagged in the data

What this means
No usable interest-expense line was tagged in the filing data, but the balance sheet carries real net debt — so the interest burden here is unknown, not absent. Read the debt on the net-debt check below.
How heavy is the debt, net of cash? $3.7B · 5.6× operating profit

Heavy net debt

Cash $71M − debt $3.8B

What this means
Netting $71M of cash and short-term investments against $3.8B of debt leaves $3.7B owed, about 5.6× a year's operating profit (5.7× on the gross debt, before the cash). Net debt is the leverage figure that matters: the cash is already set against the debt. Strategic or illiquid investments aren't counted here.
How long is cash tied up? 74d

Long (60+ days)

DSO 44 + DIO 75 − DPO 45 days

What this means
Days cash is tied up between paying suppliers and collecting from customers. Lower is better; a long cycle means growth itself eats cash.

Is it a good business?

Return on invested capital 16%

High through the cycle

9-yr median, range 9%–23%; 9% latest = NOPAT $475M ÷ invested capital $5.4B

Industry peers: median 6%

What this means
The rate the business earns on the money tied up in it, Buffett's north star, because over time a stock tracks the ROIC beneath it. Above ~15% sustained hints at a moat; a return below the cost of capital (~8%) erodes value as a business grows rather than building it — the test Buffett weighs most. The headline is the median of the last 9 years (it ran 9% most recently), so one peak or trough year doesn't set the verdict. Asset-light businesses (R&D expensed, little capital) read artificially high, pair this with Owner Earnings.
Owner-earnings margin 10%

Solid through the cycle

9-yr median margin, range 6%–14%; latest $461M = operating cash $868M − maintenance capex $408M

Industry peers: median 10%

What this means
What an owner could take out without starving the business: operating cash less the maintenance capital it must spend to hold its position — Buffett's owner earnings. That's 7% of revenue this year, a 10% median across 9 years. It chose to put $231M more into growth, so free cash flow this year was $230M — the gap is investment, not weakness. Treating stock comp as the real expense it is (less $40M of SBC) leaves $421M.
Are earnings backed by cash? 2.43×

Cash-backed

Cash from ops $868M ÷ net income $357M

In the filing’s words The filing leans on adjusted, non-GAAP earnings, but the GAAP profit is itself cash-backed — the adjustments are not papering over a cash shortfall here.

What this means
How much of reported profit showed up as operating cash. Above 1× is reassuring; well below suggests earnings lean on accruals. One year is noisy, growth and working-capital swings distort it, and this is operating cash, not free cash. Watch the multi-year trend.

How is the cash used?

Where do the earnings go? 45%

Returns about half

Dividends + buybacks $207M ÷ Owner Earnings $461M

What this means
Of $461M Owner Earnings, $207M (45%) went back to shareholders, $207M dividends, $0 buybacks. Returning most of it is the mark of a mature business with little left to reinvest at a high return; reinvesting most could mean a long runway, or empire-building. The split doesn't say which; the return earned on it (see ROIC) does.
Investing or harvesting? 1.57×

Expanding

Capex $638M ÷ depreciation $408M

What this means
Descriptive, not a grade. Above ~1× means investing faster than assets wear out (growth, or, sustained for years, today's earnings carrying less depreciation than tomorrow's will). Below means spending less than it's wearing out (efficiency, or a melting asset base). The ratio won't tell you which; the filings will.

Graham’s defensive tests · 4 of 6 met

Graham’s numerical criteria for the defensive investor (The Intelligent Investor, ch. 14), run on the filings. A floor of safety, not a buy signal; many fine modern businesses fail his strictest liquidity rules by design.

Adequate size Pass

Revenue ≥ $2B · $6.5B

What this means
Big enough to weather a storm. Graham's 1972 floor was ~$100M of sales (≈ $700M today); we use a $2B revenue line as a conservative modern stand-in.
Strong liquidity Miss

Current ratio ≥ 2× · 1.38×

What this means
Current assets at least twice current liabilities, near-term bills covered without touching the business. Strict by design: many cash-rich modern firms run leaner and miss it, holding their cushion in longer-dated securities.
Conservative debt Miss

Debt ≤ working capital · $3.8B vs $557M WC

What this means
Graham's rule that borrowings not exceed net current assets. Capital-heavy and buyback-heavy firms routinely fail it, read it next to interest coverage, not alone.
Earnings stability Pass

A profit every year (9-yr record) · no losses

What this means
Graham wanted earnings in each of the past ten years, the stability a defensive owner leans on.
Dividend record Pass

Uninterrupted dividends · paid every year (9)

What this means
An unbroken dividend was Graham's mark of durability. He wanted twenty years; the filings show about ten, and a single suspension breaks the streak. Non-payers, many fine modern compounders, fall outside his defensive net by design.
Earnings growth Pass

Earnings +33% over the record · +71%

What this means
At least a third more earnings than a decade ago, averaging three years at each end. Net income (not per-share), so stock splits don't distort it, buybacks and dilution show up in the share-count line instead.
Moderate price —

P/E ≤ 15 and P/E × P/B ≤ 22.5 · decided by the price

What this means
Graham's valuation gate, the wall he kept between a sound business and a sound investment. Three-year average earnings are $5.05/share (latest year $2.59), the averaged base the calculator's gate runs on, and book value is $12.59/share. Enter a price in “What the price implies” just below for the P/E, P/B, and whether it clears. But this is the rule Buffett outgrew: there's no hard P/E law, and a wonderful business can deserve a far richer multiple if the thesis holds, treat it as the bargain-hunter's floor, not a verdict on the price.

Durability & moat, 2017–2025

Whether the record’s returns held, and what the capital reinvested earned.

Profitable years 9 of 9

What this means
Never lost money over the record, the earnings stability Graham insisted on.
Return on capital ≥ 15% 6 of 9 yrs

What this means
A moat shows up as a high return on invested capital that holds year after year, not one good vintage.
Operating margin 17% → 14% (3-yr avg ends)

What this means
Through the cycle the operating margin slipped — about 17% early to 14% lately, median 16% — competition or costs are biting in.
Reinvestment, incremental ROIC 7%

What this means
Reinvested capital came back at only a modest incremental return — near the cost of capital, where extra growth adds little per dollar. The record shows whether it is a soft stretch or a thinning moat.
Owner earnings growth +4%/yr

What this means
Owner earnings grew about 4% a year over the record.
Worst year 2025 · 10.3% op. margin

What this means
Stayed profitable even in its hardest year, the resilience that survives recessions.
Share count −0.3%/yr

What this means
Roughly flat share count, little dilution, little buyback.
Dividend record rising

What this means
Paid and raised the dividend across the record, the continuity Graham prized.

Does AI threaten the moat?

Low contestability

The moat is physical, regulated or balance-sheet-funded, the kind AI cuts costs within but does not contest.

In its own filing Raised, but not as a competitor

The filing raises AI among its risks, but in other terms (security, regulation, energy or the like), not as a competitor to its product.

AI is unlikely to contest a moat that is physical, regulated or balance-sheet-funded; here it reads more as a cost tool than a threat.

Read from the filing's own risk factors, paired with the industry's structure under its SIC code; the durability is read above, the price below.

All figures as filed; the source filing is linked above.

Current Position

as of the latest quarter, Feb 22, 2026

Can the business pay what it owes this year, off the freshest balance sheet: the quality of the assets, the debt actually coming due, and what a low ratio means here.

Current assets$2.1B

Cash & short-term investments$58M
Receivables$751M
Inventory$1.1B
Other current assets$158M

Current liabilities$1.4B

Debt due within a year$48M
Accounts payable$600M
Other current liabilities$762M

Current ratio1.46×all current assets ÷ what's due · Graham looked for 2×

Quick ratio0.69×stricter: inventory excluded

Cash ratio0.04×strictest: cash alone against what's due

Working capital$650Mthe cushion left after near-term bills

Debt due this year vs. cash$48M due · $58M cash covered by cash on hand, no refinancing forced · both figures from the Feb 22, 2026 balance sheet

Revenue, latest quarter vs. a year ago+2.9%the freshest read on whether the business is still growing

Current ratio, recent quarters1.3× → 1.5×

Deeper floors

Tangible book value$582Mequity stripped of goodwill & intangibles

Net current asset value($444M)Graham's net-net: current assets less all liabilities

Debt incl. operating leases$3.9B$127M of it operating leases

From the company's latest filing.

Debt maturity

the debt note, SEC EDGAR →

Not how much it owes, but when it falls due, and against what. The ladder the company files, beside cash on hand and a year's owner earnings.

'26$77M

'27$196M

'28$565M

'29$541M

'30$1.3B

later$1.1B

Bars scaled to the largest single year; “later” is everything due after 2030, shown apart since it dwarfs the years.

Due in the next 12 months$77Mthe first rung: what must be repaid or rolled over within the year

Within two years$272Mthe near wall, the part most exposed to today’s credit conditions

Biggest single year$1.3Bin 2030the lumpiest maturity, where a refinancing, if needed, is largest

Total scheduled principal$3.8Bevery year plus what lies beyond, as the footnote totals it

Against what the business has and earns

Cash & short-term investments, Feb 22, 2026$58M

One year of owner earnings (FY2025)$461M

Together, against $77M due next year6.8×

Cash on hand as of Feb 22, 2026 plus a year’s owner earnings comes to $518M against the $77M due in the twelve months after the May 25, 2025 schedule: 6.8 times it.

Maturity schedule extracted from the company’s May 25, 2025 annual report and reconciled to the balance-sheet debt.

How the cash was used, 2017–2025

Over the record, the business generated $5.6B of operating cash; how management split it reads as a reinvestor, most operating cash is plowed back into the business.

Reinvested$3.8B · 67%
Dividends$1.2B · 21%
Retained (debt / cash)$655M · 12%

Returned to owners$1.2B
31% of the owner earnings the business produced over the span, $1.2B as dividends and $0 as buybacks.
Source of fundingOperating cash
Operating cash covered reinvestment and returns; over the span debt rose $1.4B and cash and short-term investments rose $400K.
Net change in share count−4.8%
The diluted count fell from 147M to 140M, so the buybacks outran the stock issued to staff.
Dividend record$1.45/sh
Paid in 9 of the years on record, the per-share dividend growing about 29% a year. It was never cut over the span.
Return on what it retained3%
Of the earnings it kept rather than paid out ($3.0B over the span), annual owner earnings (first three years vs last three) grew $99M, so each retained $1 added about 0.03 of yearly owner earnings. Buffett's test, run on owner earnings instead of market value.

Buybacks are gross of stock issued to staff; the share-count line above is the net of that, the figure that decides whether owners gained. The average price paid blends a year of purchases (and any accelerated repurchase), so it is close, not exact. The record of where the cash went and on what terms.

Management, ownership & pay

read the proxy →

From the proxy: how much of the business the people running it own, and how they are paid, beside what the business earned for its owners in the same years.

Fiscal year	Pay, as filed	“Actually paid”	Owner earnings
2021	$6.4M	$10.9M	$406M
2022	$7.9M	$4.6M	$227M
2023	$20.4M	$40.0M	$539M
2024	$7.0M	−$5.8M	$491M
2025	$2.7M	−$2.0M	$461M
2025	$5.9M	−$10.6M	$461M

Both pay figures are the company’s own, from the pay-versus-performance table its proxy statement files. “As filed” is the Summary Compensation Table total: salary, bonus, and equity awards at their value on the day of grant. “Actually paid” is the SEC’s prescribed recalculation, which re-marks those equity awards to what they became as they vested; it can swing far above or below the filed figure in either direction, and negative years occur. Owner earnings are the whole business's, from the record above, for the same fiscal years.

CEO pay ratio49:1
What the chief earns for every dollar the median employee makes, per the 2025 proxy. A high ratio alone settles nothing; some businesses are genuinely top-heavy in scarce skill. A runaway figure is where Buffett starts asking whether the board is doing its job.
Stock-based compensation$40M
The slice of the business handed to employees in shares this year, 1% of revenue, equal to 6% of operating profit. Buffett's oldest accounting fight: this is compensation, compensation is an expense, real whether or not the headline earnings admit it. One trap: the cash-flow statement adds SBC back, so the operating cash, and the owner earnings drawn from it, are flattered by exactly this amount; counted as the cost it is, what an owner keeps is lower.

Inverting the record

Invert: instead of why Lamb Weston is a good business, the question is what would make owning it a mistake, and whether those marks are in the record. Disconfirming tests across 2017–2025.

3 of the 5 tests turned up something to look into; the other 2 came back clean.

Look hereIs it less profitable than it was?8.3% vs 11.4%
The owner-earnings margin averaged 11.4% early in the record and 8.3% across the last three years, and the latest year has not recovered. Ask the filing whether that is a structural drift or a cyclical trough — price, mix, cost, or a competitor — and whether it is permanent.
Look hereDid debt outgrow the business?$2.4B → $3.8B
Debt rose from $2.4B to $3.8B while owner earnings went from about $398M to $497M — about 6.0 years of owner earnings in debt then, about 7.7 now: measured against what the business earns, the balance sheet carries more debt than it did. Debt raised for buybacks or deals rather than growth is the kind that bites in a downturn.
Look hereDid receivables and inventory outpace sales?22% → 28% of sales
Receivables and inventory grew from $710M to $1.8B while revenue grew 106%: working capital is climbing faster than sales (22% of revenue then, 28% now). That can mean customers paying slower, stock building up, or revenue pulled forward. The filing's cash-flow and receivables notes say which.

And these came back clean

Did the share count rise anyway?
Did reported profit become cash?

Each test is read from the filings and is noisy alone; a flag can mark a cyclical trough or a year of heavy investment as easily as a problem. The filing says which.

What an owner would ask, FY2025

read the 10-K →

How much of the revenue rides on one buyer?
≈$3.3B · 50% of revenue on the largest customers (TTM)
“In fiscal 2025, our ten largest customers accounted for approximately 50% of our net sales.”verify →

The questions the record and the charts do not answer on their own; each carries the figure and the place to look.

Peers, Food Products

The same industry, side by side on owner economics. Each figure is a through-cycle median, so a peak or trough year can’t distort it; the group median at the foot is the line to read each against.

Company	Revenue	Gross margin	Op. margin	ROIC	Owner earn. margin
KHCThe Kraft Heinz Company	$24.9B	34%	12.8%	3%	11%
SJMThe J.M. Smucker Company	$9.1B	38%	13.5%	6%	12%
INGRIngredion	$7.2B	22%	11.5%	13%	9%
MKCMcCormick & Company Incorporated	$6.8B	39%	15.7%	9%	12%
PRMBPrimo Brands	$6.7B	30%	6.7%	3%	4%
LWLamb Weston	$6.5B	25%	16.4%	16%	10%
DARDarling Ingredients Inc.	$6.1B	23%	8.2%	6%	5%
LANCLancaster Colony	$1.9B	25%	12.7%	22%	10%
Group median	—	27%	12.7%	8%	10%

The price

What a price has to assume.

What the price implies

reverse-DCF

Type today's close and see the owner-earnings growth you'd have to believe to justify it, beside what Lamb Weston has delivered.

Today’s price $

Through the cycle, Lamb Weston earns about $650M on its 10.1% median owner-earnings margin. This year’s 7.1% margin runs below that; the reported figure may understate a lean year. Normalize, below, values the price on that through-cycle figure rather than the latest year.

Base Normalize · through-cycle ($650M) Net of stock comp (−$39M)

—

The assumptions Required return 9% Years of high growth 10 Terminal growth 2.5%

9.0% = the 4.55% 10-year Treasury (Jul 15, 2026) + 4.45 points of equity premium. The rate you require is yours to set.

Enter a price above to run it.

Implied by the price—

Owner-earnings growth · ’21→’25+11%/yr

Owner-earnings growth · ’17→’25−14%/yr

Owner-earnings yield—

P/E (3-yr earnings ’23–’25)—

P/B—

Graham’s price gate—

Graham capped the multiple at 15×; Buffett and Munger let that rule go: a wonderful business can deserve 50× if the thesis holds. The gate marks the bargain-hunter's floor.

Against a high-grade bond: Graham’s yardstick bond yield%

Prefilled with the 10-year Treasury (4.55%, as of Jul 15, 2026). Edit it for today’s exact figure, or a AAA corporate yield.

Graham measured a stock against the bond you could own instead, the heart of his margin of safety. Enter a price above to weigh the owner-earnings yield against this bond.

Owner earnings $634M on 138M shares outstanding, per the 10-Q cover, as of 2026-03-25; net debt $3.8B. The base is the latest year by default; Normalize values it on the through-cycle median owner-earnings margin (to avoid paying on a peak year). Net of stock comp treats option pay as the expense it is. The dials set the multiple a growth belief justifies; the price, and every dollar on this page, is yours.

Weigh LW against another business →

The owners of LW: the meeting and the votes →

Cite: Owner Scorecard, "Lamb Weston (LW), the owner's record," https://ownerscorecard.com/c/LW, data as of 2026-07-09.

Manual order: ← LVS its page in the Manual LWAY →

Industry order: ← LANC the Food Products chapter LWAY →