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All stocks · Consumer Defensive · Packaged Foods & Meats

Lamb Weston LW

Lamb Weston scores weak on business quality (4.1 of 10). Here is why, in plain words, and what our sealed record shows.

Last price$47.87Oct 9, 2026
Business qualityWeak
Next earningsDec 17, 2026
Insiders, 90 daysQuiet

Why it matters

  1. What Lamb Weston does

    Lamb Weston processes and sells frozen potato products, primarily French fries, to restaurants and institutional food service providers who pay for branded and private-label supply. The business is navigating a period of operational adjustments with a focus on innovation and digital expansion to protect volume.

  2. What it does best

    Lamb Weston dominates frozen potato supply chains through deep restaurant partnerships, backed by a 20.7% gross margin. This scale outpaces peers like PPC at 9.6%, locking in massive buyers who cannot easily swap fry suppliers without risking menu consistency.

  3. The main risk

    Heavy debt loads with total debt at $3.9B create vulnerability if operational cash flow stumbles. Interest coverage sits at 4.0x, leaving narrow room for error if restaurant traffic slows down further.

Quality, check by check

Scored against its own industry, from company filings.

ProfitabilityWeak

Operating margin of 10.9% and net margin of 4.4% drive a mixed profitability profile that compresses under higher debt servicing costs, limiting scale benefits.

MoatFair

Scale and deep customer integration form a moderate moat in the food products sector, placing gross margins in the bottom quartile at 21st percentile.

GrowthSlow

Revenue ticked up to $6.6B with a 2.5% growth rate, reflecting a slower pace compared to historical expansions as core demand normalizes.

Financial healthWeak

Debt-to-equity of 2.1x and net debt of $3.8B strain the balance sheet, though free cash flow recovered to $533.0M. Financial health remains under pressure.

Insiders

Executives and directors, from SEC Form 4 filings we read ourselves. Open market trades only; grants, option exercises and pre-planned sales left out.

No open market buys or unplanned sales by executives or directors.

Our sealed record on LW

Verdicts appear here 30 days after we publish them; members see today's. Each one is in the nightly ledger, fingerprinted the night it was made.

The first sealed verdicts appear here on Oct 11, 2026.

Questions

Is LW a good business?

Lamb Weston scores weak on the Cluenex quality check (4.1 of 10), measured against its own industry. Profitability is weak, moat fair, growth slow and financial health weak.

Are insiders buying LW?

In the last 90 days of SEC Form 4 filings: No open market buys or unplanned sales by executives or directors.

When does LW report earnings?

Dec 17, 2026.

For members

See LW today

  • Today's verdict on LW, and why
  • Fair value with cautious, base and optimistic cases
  • The exact price that would change the verdict
  • Which stocks each signal names, the night it fires
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Cite this page: Cluenex, “Lamb Weston (LW)”, https://cluenex.com/stocks/lw/, data as of Oct 10, 2026.