Sunopta financial data

SunOpta is a commodity fruit and plant milk producer benefiting from excitement around oat milk. The stock spiked and is returning to a lower level, as it tends to do historically after investors get burned by management's hype and remember that this is a terrible business. Let's start on oat milk, which is growing quickly and is the main source of investor excitement. Making oat milk is easy-- oats, water, and a blender. You can do it at home if you want, at a fraction of the cost of packaged oat milk. Their largest customer is Starbucks, which has been pushing oat milk, and STKL has been building the capacity for them as well as Planet Oat, owned by Hood. Per the Chobani S-1, oat milk market size in 2021 was $370M at retail. It has grown since then, mostly through pricing. Back of the envelope, assuming that oat milk was $3/half gallon in 2021 (and $4 now), then this was around 240M liters. STKL is building a new plant in Fort Worth. Oatly/Ya Ya are also building a new plant in Fort Worth. The combined capacities of these plants are 300M liters. Even assuming strong volume demand growth since 2021, the impact on supply will be massive and should tip the market into oversupplied. Since oat milk was 18% of the plant-based category in 2021 (per Chobani), it is likely 25-30% now, implying that share gains may be tougher to come by. Last quarter, OTLY reported 7% volume growth. Assuming STKL saw the same pricing growth as OTLY (30%), then their volumes grew 3%. Overall Q1 revenues and EBIT were down for STKL in Q1. I don't think it's crazy to say that increasing market supply >50% into flattish volume trends will lead to pricing pressure, and it seems likely that revenue growth could/should be negative for this segment over the next 12 months. OTLY is still a customer of STKL, and will in-source that production, which is an additional headwind. Additionally, oat prices have mean-regressed after a sharp spike, and as OTLY is paid a processing fee with oats as a pass-through cost, this should also pressure the topline. And what if oat milk is a true fad? This seems possible to me-- after all, it doesn't taste that great. A weak consumer might balk at paying $1 upcharges on their lattes, or another trendy plant might be blended into a new "milk".SunOpta是一家大宗商品水果及植物奶生产商，受益于燕麦奶赛道的市场热潮。该公司股价曾大幅冲高，随后回落至较低水平，这符合其历史表现：每当投资者因管理层的炒作蒙受损失后，市场终将意识到该业务基本面疲软。 我们先从燕麦奶说起，该品类正快速增长，也是投资者追捧的核心主题。燕麦奶的制作门槛极低——仅需燕麦、水与搅拌机，消费者可自行在家制作，成本仅为预包装燕麦奶的一小部分。其最大客户为星巴克，后者一直在大力推广燕麦奶；而STKL（SunOpta的股票代码）正为星巴克以及Hood旗下的星球燕麦（Planet Oat）扩建产能。 根据乔巴尼（Chobani）的S-1招股说明书，2021年燕麦奶的零售市场规模为3.7亿美元。此后该市场规模持续扩张，其中涨价贡献了主要增量。我们可进行粗略估算：若2021年半加仑装燕麦奶售价为3美元（当前售价约4美元），则2021年燕麦奶总销量约为2.4亿升。STKL正在沃斯堡新建一座工厂，而Oatly与Ya Ya也计划在当地新建工厂，上述三座工厂的总产能将达3亿升。即便考虑2021年以来燕麦奶需求的强劲增长，新增产能对市场供给的冲击仍将极为显著，或将推动市场进入供过于求的状态。2021年燕麦奶在植物基饮品品类中的占比为18%（数据来源：乔巴尼），当前这一占比或已升至25%-30%，意味着后续获取市场份额的难度将大幅提升。 上一季度，Oatly（股票代码：OTLY）公布的销量增长率为7%。假设STKL的定价涨幅与Oatly持平（30%），则其销量增长率仅为3%。STKL今年第一季度的总营收与息税前利润（EBIT）均出现下滑。在当前市场环境下，若市场供给增幅超过50%，而需求仅维持平缓增长，势必会带来定价压力；未来12个月内，该业务板块的营收增速很可能转为负值，这一判断并非过于激进。Oatly目前仍是STKL的客户，但该公司正计划将相关生产环节转为自营，这将成为STKL的又一不利因素。此外，燕麦价格在大幅冲高后已回归均值水平，而Oatly的加工费以燕麦作为可转嫁成本，这也将对其营收产生负面影响。 倘若燕麦奶只是一时的潮流风尚呢？在笔者看来这并非没有可能——毕竟其口感并不算出众。若消费者消费能力疲软，可能会拒绝为拿铁咖啡多支付1美元的额外费用；或是市场上会出现另一款更热门的植物基饮品，取代燕麦奶的地位。