Value Investor
Start free

Lifeway Foods

LWAY on Nasdaq. Lifeway sells kefir and dairy products to U.S. consumers. Market value $317m.

Watch this stockFree. We tell you when something changes.

Price checks use the past 12 months to June 2026. Quality checks use five annual reports, the latest for the year to December 2025.

We can't read total debt from the filing, so debt is left out.

Should I look at this?

Not a fit for our list right now

Why it could be worth it

What to watch out for

See Everyday goods stocks that passed both tests

This is not advice. Check the numbers below.

Compare with another stock

Cash yield
past 12 months to June 2026
-10.1%low

For every $100 of what the whole company costs, it produced $-10.07 of spare cash in the past 12 months. A savings account pays about $4.

Price to profit
past 12 months to June 2026
n/a

The filings do not give us enough to work this out.

Return on capital
five annual reports to December 2025
10.5%five-year median

Each dollar kept in the business earns 10 cents a year. Above 10 is good.

Quality score: 69 of 100. Price score: 36 of 100. Our list needs 70 on quality and 60 on price.

$20.46 a share, 18% above its 1-year low

Over the past year the price has ranged from $17.31 to $32.71.

Pays no dividend

Prices from Tuesday’s close (6 October).

Five years of cash, in billions

0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
-0.0
-0.0
2021202220232024202512 monthsto Jun '26

Spare cash swings from quarter to quarter here: a shortfall of $31 million in the past 12 months, a shortfall of $16 million in the year to December 2025.

Revenue
$119m$142m$160m$187m$212m
Operating margin
4.9%1.7%10.6%7.4%7.6%
Debt to equity
0.090.080.05n/an/a
Shares outstanding
0.02bn0.01bn0.01bn0.02bn0.02bn

Health checks

  • Free cash flow positive4 of 5 years
  • Accounting looks honest (Beneish)Not enough data
  • Financial strength (Piotroski)4 of 8 checks we could run
  • Profit backed by cash (accruals)Yes
  • DebtUnknown
  • Revenue growth, five yearsStrong, 15.8% a year
  • Buying back its own sharesYes, 3% fewer since 2021

The quarter to June 2026

How the business did, compared with the same quarter a year earlier.

  • Sales: $67 million last quarter, up 24% on a year ago.
  • Profit: $127,000, down 97% on a year ago.
  • It keeps 6 cents of each $1 of sales as operating profit, about the same as a year earlier.
  • Over the past 12 months it spent $31 million more cash than it brought in. A year earlier it had $1 million spare.
  • 1% fewer shares than a year ago. Each share owns a bit more of the company.
  • Sales grew on a year ago in each of the last 4 quarters.
Sales by quarter
Sales by quarter
Quarter toAmount
September 2024$46m
December 2024$47m
March 2025$46m
June 2025$54m
September 2025$57m
December 2025$55m
March 2026$63m
June 2026$67m
Profit by quarter
Profit by quarter
Quarter toAmount
September 2024$3m
December 2024-$160,000
March 2025$4m
June 2025$4m
September 2025$4m
December 2025$3m
March 2026$5m
June 2026$127,000

From the company's quarterly reports to the SEC.

Dates

Next results (estimated)
n/a
Last annual report (10-K)
17 March 2026
Next quarterly (estimated, 10-Q)
12 November 2026

Who owns it

2 long-term investors we follow own it, up from 1 last quarter. 97 funds in all.

Jun '25
Dec '25
Jun '26
Largest holders overall

From 13F filings for the quarter ended 30 June 2026.

Big holders and activists

5 investors own more than 5%; 1 of them is pushing for change.

  • Danone North America PBC
    22.7%0.0 pts
    Since 30 September 2025
    What they said

    Item 4 of the Original Schedule 13D is hereby amended and supplemented to add the following: Danone North America PBC and Danone S.A. (together, "Danone", "we" or "our") are continuing to review our investment in Lifeway, including whether to sell any or all of the shares of…

    Read the filing
  • Edward Smolyansky
    Activist
    Wants board seats
    at least 19.7%−0.3 pts
    (filed with 2 related holders)
    Since 18 May 2026
  • Julie Smolyansky
    Insider or founder
    17.5%
    Since 19 December 2024
    What they said

    The transactions itemized in Item 3 above were compensatory. As a substantial shareholder and executive officer and director of the Company, Ms. Smolyansky expects to communicate from time to time in the future to management, the board of directors and other Company shareholders…

    Read the filing
  • at least 13.8%+4.9 pts
    (filed with 4 related holders)
    Since 14 May 2026
  • Kenneth Griffin
    Passive investor
    at least 5.8%
    (filed with 6 related holders)
    Since 19 May 2026
  • Danone S.A.
    Sold down below 5%
    Since 19 May 2026
    What they said

    Item 4 of the Original Schedule 13D is hereby amended and restated as follows: On May 19, 2026, Danone S.A.'s wholly owned subsidiary, Danone USA Public Benefit Corporation, completed the sale of Danone USA Public Benefit Corporation's holdings in the Issuer. Danone S.A.…

    Read the filing

From Schedule 13D and 13G filings: anyone owning more than 5% must file one.

What insiders did

In the last 12 months, 1 insider bought $50,520 of shares on the open market.

  • SMOLYANSKY JULIE
    CEO, President and Secretary, Director
    Bought
    Date
    19 August 2026
    Shares
    2,000
    Price
    $25.26
    Value
    $50,520

From Form 4 filings: insiders must report trades in their own company's shares within two days.

Warning signs in its filings

Problems the company itself reported to the SEC, in its own words.

None of the warning signs we check for were found.

We look for five warning signs: doubt it can keep going, weak checks on its own accounts, a notice that its past accounts can't be relied on, a change of auditor, and one customer bringing in a big share of sales. We don't check lawsuits, investigations or debt yet.

We checked the auditor's report, internal controls, restatement notices, auditor changes and big customers in the 10-K filed 17 Mar 2026, plus the 10-Q filed 13 Aug 2026 and 8 later 8-Ks.

A 10-K is the yearly report every US company files with the SEC. An 8-K is a short notice of a big event.

What could go wrong

Cheap for a reason is the question the numbers cannot answer.

Whether the price already reflects the risks is what the deep dive is for.

The deep dive

Everything above is arithmetic on public filings. The deep dive reads the last ten years of annual reports, the proxy statements, and the earnings calls, then argues the case the way Buffett, Klarman, and Hohn would, and checks every claim against the source.

  • What the business is worth, as a range, and the margin of safety at today’s price
  • Prices to start buying, buy, and buy hard
  • The three things that would make this a mistake
  • Every number footnoted to the filing it came from
Create a free account to run it

Your first deep dive is free.

What a finished deep dive looks like

Not advice. Numbers on this page come from SEC filings and are updated each night; prices are updated again after the US market closes. The five-year figures are rounded.