
Packaged bakery food company Flower Foods (NYSE:FLO) met Wall Street’s revenue expectations in Q4 CY2025, with sales up 11% year on year to $1.23 billion. The company’s outlook for the full year was close to analysts’ estimates with revenue guided to $5.22 billion at the midpoint. Its non-GAAP profit of $0.22 per share was 45.6% above analysts’ consensus estimates.
Is now the time to buy Flowers Foods? Find out by accessing our full research report, it’s free.
Flowers Foods (FLO) Q4 CY2025 Highlights:
- Revenue: $1.23 billion vs analyst estimates of $1.23 billion (11% year-on-year growth, in line)
- Adjusted EPS: $0.22 vs analyst estimates of $0.15 (45.6% beat)
- Adjusted EBITDA: $117.4 million vs analyst estimates of $100.4 million (9.5% margin, 16.9% beat)
- Adjusted EPS guidance for the upcoming financial year 2026 is $0.85 at the midpoint, missing analyst estimates by 12.4%
- EBITDA guidance for the upcoming financial year 2026 is $480 million at the midpoint, below analyst estimates of $503.8 million
- Operating Margin: -5.8%, down from 5.9% in the same quarter last year
- Free Cash Flow Margin: 6.4%, down from 7.6% in the same quarter last year
- Sales Volumes fell 2.2% year on year, in line with the same quarter last year
- Market Capitalization: $2.47 billion
Company Overview
With Wonder Bread as its premier brand, Flower Foods (NYSE:FLO) is a packaged foods company that focuses on bakery products such as breads, buns, and cakes.
Revenue Growth
Examining a company’s long-term performance can provide clues about its quality. Any business can have short-term success, but a top-tier one grows for years.
With $5.26 billion in revenue over the past 12 months, Flowers Foods carries some recognizable products but is a mid-sized consumer staples company. Its size could bring disadvantages compared to larger competitors benefiting from better brand awareness and economies of scale.
As you can see below, Flowers Foods’s sales grew at a sluggish 3% compounded annual growth rate over the last three years as consumers bought less of its products. We’ll explore what this means in the "Volume Growth" section.
This quarter, Flowers Foods’s year-on-year revenue growth was 11%, and its $1.23 billion of revenue was in line with Wall Street’s estimates.
Looking ahead, sell-side analysts expect revenue to remain flat over the next 12 months, a deceleration versus the last three years. This projection doesn't excite us and suggests its products will see some demand headwinds.
The 1999 book Gorilla Game predicted Microsoft and Apple would dominate tech before it happened. Its thesis? Identify the platform winners early. Today, enterprise software companies embedding generative AI are becoming the new gorillas. a profitable, fast-growing enterprise software stock that is already riding the automation wave and looking to catch the generative AI next.
Volume Growth
Revenue growth can be broken down into changes in price and volume (the number of units sold). While both are important, volume is the lifeblood of a successful staples business as there’s a ceiling to what consumers will pay for everyday goods; they can always trade down to non-branded products if the branded versions are too expensive.
Flowers Foods’s average quarterly sales volumes have shrunk by 1.9% over the last two years. This decrease isn’t ideal because the quantity demanded for consumer staples products is typically stable. 
In Flowers Foods’s Q4 2025, sales volumes dropped 2.2% year on year. This result represents a further deceleration from its historical levels, showing the business is struggling to move its products.
Key Takeaways from Flowers Foods’s Q4 Results
It was good to see Flowers Foods beat analysts’ EPS expectations this quarter. We were also excited its EBITDA outperformed Wall Street’s estimates by a wide margin. On the other hand, its full-year EBITDA guidance missed. Overall, this print had some key positives. The market seemed to be hoping for more, and the stock traded down 7.4% to $10.51 immediately after reporting.
Big picture, is Flowers Foods a buy here and now? The latest quarter does matter, but not nearly as much as longer-term fundamentals and valuation, when deciding if the stock is a buy. We cover that in our actionable full research report which you can read here (it’s free).