Good morning, everyone, and welcome. I'm really pleased to host you today here in the heart of Corbion, in our Gorinchem facility. This is one of our most important manufacturing facilities, but also one of the most important innovation centers we have across the company. Let me begin now with a brief recap of Advance 2025 and the major achievements we've delivered. I'll turn into the future and why we have every reason to be confident as we embark on our Bright 2030 strategic plan. The Advance 2025 plan has been largely achieved. Over the past strategic cycle, we executed a significant transformation. We streamlined operations, we delivered margin expansion from 13% - 16%, and we strengthened our balance sheet by now 10 consecutive quarters of positive free cash flow delivery. In our specialty food and green business, volume mix grew by 4%.
We also turned a heavily loss-making Algae Omega-3 business into a highly profitable nutrition platform. In addition, we divested our low-growth emulsifier business and invested in capacity that will drive future value, most notably through our new lactic acid plant in Thailand. Overall, Advance 2025 delivered a top-line CAGR of 9% and an EBITDA growth of 8%. Looking ahead, Bright 2030 sharpens our focus and accelerates our growth ambition. We aim to become a high-growth specialty food ingredient company centered around natural preservation and nutrition. This strategy also reinforces our commitment to capital discipline. As announced today, we've also initiated a strategy ownership review of the PLA portfolio. For the 2026-2028 period, we are targeting a top-line sales growth of 3%-6% per annum, an adjusted EBITDA margin of 18%, and a cumulative free cash flow of EUR 270 million.
Now, let me discuss our purpose and the Bright 2030 path forward. Guided by a purpose of preserving what matters, we will accelerate building a sustainable specialty food and green business company focused on natural preservation and on nutrition. We will achieve this by leveraging our fermentation backbone technologies, our deep expertise in food solutions, and our portfolio of differentiated natural and clean-label ingredients. Why do we believe we are so well positioned to benefit from the mega trends shaping today's market? The shift in consumer needs, the market dynamics are really redefining the entire food industry nowadays. First, the clean label and the natural preservation. Consumers increasingly demand natural, recognizable ingredients, and the growing concern over ultra-processed foods is really accelerating to push for more and more transparent labeling. Second, the rise in GLP-1 adoption is really reshaping diets and consumer habits.
People are seeking for less processed, minimally processed foods and more and more nutrient-dense foods, products enriched with proteins, vitamins, dietary fibers, and minerals. Third, the regulatory pressure and the demand for transparency continues to intensify. These policy trends do favor sustainable, safe, and innovative food solutions. Think of the ongoing push to reduce sugar, eliminate nitrates, lower sodium content, or removing hydrogenated fats, and more broadly, to clean up the ingredient list. Fourth, with an aging population and a greater consumer health awareness, the focus on functional food is just accelerating. The line between food and nutraceutical is becoming increasingly blurred as consumers are looking to nutrition for proactive health benefits. Finally, food safety remains absolutely critical because ensuring safe food is essential, not only for consumer trust, but to prevent real and serious health consequences.
We also see concrete examples that illustrate how quickly the shift towards natural ingredients is accelerating across everything from colors to preservatives. A few months ago, Walmart, the largest retailer in the U.S., announced that it will remove more than 30 synthetic and artificial ingredients from its private label brands by January 27. Many of these ingredients are commonly linked to ultra-processed foods. This move is really remarkable. It is likely one of the biggest private brand reformulations in the history of retail. Another strong example here comes from Tyson Foods, which recently committed to eliminating high-fructose corn syrups as well as synthetic preservatives like BHT and BHA from all its products. Taken together, this action shows the shift towards natural preservation is clearly accelerating. Yet, the opportunity ahead remains significant. Conversion rates in natural preservatives are still far below, for example, what we have seen in natural colors.
When you look at new produce launches today, those formulated with natural preservatives are growing much, much faster than overall food launches. The markets where we do operate are large, attractive, and growing. This is exactly where the momentum is today. In food preservation, we participate in an addressable market of nearly $3.5 billion. Shelf life extension is a closely related space. These two are going together. Combined, these represent roughly a $7 billion opportunity. In nutrition, when we look at Omega-3s, together with sustainable lipids, we see another market here of nearly $7 billion growing in the range of 2%-6% per annum. These are really substantial markets with strong underlying demand trends.
Just as important, our portfolio is very well positioned to capture in all of these segments, allowing us to play directly in the areas where customer needs and market expansions are the strongest. What also truly makes us unique is our ability to start with something as simple as sugar and transform it into differentiated, high-value food ingredients through our advanced fermentation technology. We work with a broad range of microorganisms, from lactic bacteria to microalgae, yeast, and various food cultures. This diversity allows us to produce a wide portfolio of functional ingredients tailored to really specific market needs. What is especially distinctive is not just the functionality of these ingredients; it is also our ability to scale up.
We can move from a vast library of strains containing thousands of microorganisms from a 5-liter bench scale fermenter in our innovation center, then up to pilot scale, and ultimately to large-scale production with fermenters of more than 250 cubic meters. This seamless scale-up capability, bench to pilot to industrial scale, while maintaining the right yield and competitive cost structure, is extraordinarily rare. Corbion is one of the very few companies globally that can execute this reliably, and it is a core part of our competitive advantage. As a concrete example of scale-up, let me introduce a short video showcasing our breakthrough innovation in lactic acid processing with our new circular lactic acid plant in Thailand. This represents a truly revolutionary state-of-the-art plant that allows us to operate with far greater sustainability, but also far greater cost efficiency.
This process came from here, from this Gorinchem Innovation Center lab that you're going to visit later this afternoon, and was scaled at pilot level, both here in the plant and in our Spanish facility. With this new process, we can significantly reduce CO2 emissions while at the same time securing a high-cost competitive position. This matters enormously, given that Corbion holds a 50% market share globally in lactic acid. Strengthening both our sustainability profile and our cost leadership is therefore critical to maintaining and expanding our leadership in this market. Let's have a look at the video now.
The story of lactic acid starts with sugars from renewable crops like sugarcane, beet, or corn. Follow along as we uncover how they are transformed into pure lactic acid with countless uses. From the cane fields, the beet harvest, and the corn fields, these simple carbohydrates, or sugars, make their way into our process. Through fermentation, specific bacteria convert these natural sugars into lactic acid, a process as familiar and natural as the fermentation that gives us yogurt, sourdough, or pickles. After fermentation, we move to what is called downstream processing. Here, the lactic acid is carefully purified and refined until we are left with a pure, high-quality product. The result is a versatile ingredient with remarkable uses in food and beverages. Lactic acid helps preserve freshness, extend shelf life, and enhance taste.
You'll find it in dairy products, breads, meats, and ready meals, as well as in beverages, confectionery, and sauces. Thanks to its natural antimicrobial properties, it keeps food safe while ensuring it tastes just as it should. From protecting the food we love to keeping it fresher for longer, lactic acid is a small molecule with a big impact, and its importance will only continue to grow.
Corbion has produced lactic acid since 1968. Twenty years ago, our engineers began to ask, Can we improve this process? This led to the development of a more efficient method for making lactic acid, starting in Gorinchem, the Netherlands. The Corbion scientists and engineers have developed an innovative method for producing lactic acid through a circular manufacturing process. This advanced approach recycles key chemicals during production, eliminating the need for lime and avoiding the creation of gypsum as a byproduct. The result is a significantly reduced carbon footprint compared to the conventional methods. The plant's design prioritizes both cost-effectiveness and sustainability, underscoring Corbion's commitment to delivering value in an environmentally responsible manner. This new production process was developed and thoroughly tested here at Corbion's Gorinchem site, starting at laboratory scale and progressing to a larger demonstration setup, being able to run the process 24 hours per day continuously.
Insight gains during this phase were directly applied to optimize the plant final design. In addition, the Gorinchem facilities played a key role in onboarding and training essential team members from Thailand, supporting knowledge transfer and operational readiness.
Welcome to Corbion's state-of-the-art lactic acid production facility in Thailand, where sustainability and innovation truly come together. What is really exciting about this new facility is how we are using the latest technology to actually reduce our CO2 emissions significantly. Everything here is designed to be as environmentally friendly as possible and keep our carbon footprint as low as possible. That is something we are really proud of. You know, our new lactic acid facility really shows how committed Corbion is to innovation. In fact, it is the first facility in the world to fully utilize Corbion's unique circular gypsum-free production technology. This is setting a whole new standard in making lactic acid from the perspective of both environmental performance and cost efficiency.
Corbion's new facility in Thailand is more than an investment. It reflects our commitment to innovation, safety, and sustainability. It stands as a promise to preserve what matters: the food we enjoy, the people we care for, and the world we share.
It truly shows how our innovation in biotechnology creates real economic and ecological value for the world. That makes us very proud.
Our ecosystem is not only built on our strong fermentation expertise and our unique scale-up capabilities, but also on deep formulation know-how. Replacing synthetic and artificial ingredients with natural alternatives requires more than just great fermentation technology. It demands the ability to design complete functional solutions. This is where Corbion brings additional strength. Beyond fermentation and industrial scalability, we offer expertise in enzyme formulation, microbiology, predictive modeling, and a fully integrated sustainability approach. All of these capabilities work together to help our customers achieve better performance, cleaner label, and more sustainable products. All of this is supported by strong global innovation capabilities. Today, we operate eight innovation centers worldwide. We are working across 28 core technologies and are managing more than 700 customers' projects every year.
In total, this is over 250 specialists, primarily scientists and PhDs, that are dedicated to innovation within Corbion. The scale and depth of expertise enable us to continually bring forward new solutions and stay ahead of evolving customer and market needs. Now, let's have a look at how sustainability is embedded in our portfolio. Sustainability is not an add-on for Corbion. It is built directly into our technologies and the value they create for customers. From CO2-reducing algae production to natural preservatives that do extend shelf life and reduce food waste, our portfolio helps customers meet their own ESG ambition while improving product performance. A few illustrative examples of this impact food waste prevention. Our natural preservation solutions help safeguard more than 10 million tons of food globally each year by preventing spoilage and extending shelf life.
Our AlgaPrime Omega-3, we enable up to a 30% reduction in wild-caught fish used in aquaculture feed. These couple of examples really demonstrate our ability to really sustainably drive innovation and translate it into real measurable benefits, supporting both our customer sustainability, but also the broader global transition towards more efficient and responsible food systems. How does it translate into our climate commitment? We remain firmly committed to lowering Greenhouse Gas emissions. This is a central pillar of our sustainability strategy. Climate change is already driving severe consequences, from extreme weather and biodiversity loss to growing risk to human health. Every action does matter there. By reducing our emissions across operations and the entire value chain, we contribute to global efforts to limit warming and protect future generations.
Our ambition is clear achieve net-zero emission across our entire value chain by 2050, with these targets being validated by the science-based target initiatives. Our responsible sourcing program is designed to ensure a resilient and sustainable supply chain for our raw material. Over the past decade, we've made really significant progress. Now, 99% of our raw material are verified deforestation-free. In the next five years, we will remain really focused on maintaining this strong performance while responsibly onboarding new suppliers to support business growth. Of course, safety. Safety there is also part of this and is a non-negotiable. Our ambition is zero incident because nothing is more important than protecting our people and our partners. While we've made strong progress over the last years, there is still a lot more to do.
Our 2030 goal keeps us focused on continuous improvement and on building a culture where safety is instinctive and embedded in daily operation. Now, let's have a look at Corbion today. We operate 13 manufacturing facilities and eight innovation centers supported by a global network of sales offices. We are by far the largest producer of lactic acid in the world and the only one with a true global manufacturing footprint. With around 50% market share, we clearly lead this category. We've also recently built a leading position in Omega-3 and in sustainable food solutions. Overall, Corbion is a EUR 1.3 billion business delivering EUR 196 million in adjusted EBITDA, reflecting our strong operational performance and leadership in our core domains. Let's take a look and a closer look at the current portfolio. It's already quite compelling. 98% of our raw material are renewable.
82% from our cells are coming from our backbone fermentation technology. Food and nutrition account for 72% already today of total sales, while natural preservation represents nearly 50%. These numbers clearly demonstrate a strong focus on food and nutrition, which is a critical foundation as we look forward and prioritize future growth opportunities. Looking ahead, our investment priorities will focus where they matter most. This is the essence of our Bright 2030 strategy. First, we will build on our core specialty food ingredient business, strengthening this foundation while accelerating growth in our profitable, high-potential segments. Our strategic focus will be on three key areas natural preservation, nutrition, and biomedical polymers. At the same time, we are committed to developing a robust pipeline across our nutrition portfolio and our food ferments for natural preservation.
Conversely, we will defocus non-food lactic acid applications and have already initiated a strategic ownership review of the PLA portfolio. Let me now come back once again on the essence of Bright 2030. Bright 2030 positions Corbion as a sustainable specialty food ingredient company centered on natural preservation and nutrition, leveraging our fermentation backbone and food solution expertise, and delivering differentiated, natural, and clean label ingredients. We are confident that this strategy is a winning combination. It aligns with consumer needs, taps into powerful megatrends, and positions Corbion to create significant values in the year ahead. Now, let's dive into the three selected focus areas for Bright 2030, and we'll start with natural preservation. Our business has grown strongly over the past few years, with an average volume mix growth of 4%.
We've successfully expanded our clean label solutions into new market segments, including meat snacks, culinary, and baked goods. Geographically, we have extended our footprint into Latin America and Asia-Pacific through strategic bolt-on acquisitions in Brazil, in Mexico, and in India. We have also made significant improvements in cost efficiencies and implemented new ferment technology, such as the new circular-type lactic acid plant, as well as our new vinegar manufacturing facility in Montgomery, Alabama. Finally, our preservation platform allows us to enhance the nutritional profile of products by replacing artificial insulating products by natural alternatives, demonstrating that sustainability, clean labeling, and functionality can go hand in hand. Looking specifically at food preservation, the total addressable market is $3.5 billion, with natural preservation representing $1.6 billion. Importantly, natural preservation is growing faster, 4%-5% per year compared to 2%-3% for the broader food preservation market.
This demonstrates a clear trend of natural alternatives gradually cannibalizing the wider food preservation segment. This growth is driven by very strong market forces, including, first, the shift towards minimally processed foods versus UPFs. This requires a much stronger preservation system. The impact of the GLP-1 trend, which is really reshaping dietary habits. Again, people are looking for more raw food, minimally processed, but also clean label and healthier products. There is a really strong growing consumer demand there for clean label and natural. Last but not least, the increasing regulatory pressure worldwide promoting safety, transparency, and better nutrition. MAGA is one of the examples, but we can see much stricter regulation around the globe about sodium reduction, nitrate reduction as well. Corbion is very well positioned to capture this opportunity.
We combine preservation and shelf-life extension while also using our preservation platform to enhance the nutritional profile of products or without compromising on food safety. Today, we hold a solid 25% market share in the natural food preservation market, and we will be reinforcing our leadership in this high-growth space. How are we winning in this market? First, by leveraging the breadth of our portfolio, and second, by building on our strong market positions. Our natural preservation portfolio today is centered on three major product categories. The first one is around natural antimicrobials. These are clean label fermentation solutions such as vinegars, cultured dextrose, cultured sugar, or cultured wheat, and various food ferments. Together, they provide efficient microbial control with minimal impact on flavor. The second family is around natural antioxidants. These solutions, including botanical natural antioxidants, help prevent oxidation of food and do enhance flavor stability.
Last, natural acidification. Here, we provide high-quality lactic acid and lactate derivatives for pH control and flavor management. By combining these natural preservative solutions, we can serve a wide range of categories, including meat and meat snacks, but also culinary products, baked goods, confectionery, and dairy. In short, we offer a focused, fully natural ingredient portfolio that addresses both consumer but also regulatory demands while delivering functional performance across multiple applications. Let me now share a practical example that highlights our formulation capabilities across both preservation and nutrition. In this specific project, we replace a synthetic mold inhibitor, calcium propionate, with a cultured wheat ferment. At the same time, we use dough conditioners and our freshness solution derived from our enzyme systems technologies, and we fortify the bread with high protein content.
By combining these approaches, we were able to deliver to that customer a product that is natural and clean label, that is nutritionally enhanced with reduced sugar and enriched in protein and free from emulsifiers. These examples demonstrate the strength of the Corbion ecosystem, integrating preservation capabilities, shelf-life extension, and fermentation and enzyme technologies to create clean label, functional, and nutritionally improved products. Looking ahead, there are really several reasons to be excited about the short and medium-term opportunities in natural preservation. On the very short-term action, obviously, we are busy closing Q4 now, and we are also busy in finalizing the contracting round for 2026, and this is progressing very well. We are also accelerating penetration in the natural mold inhibitor space to replace synthetic alternatives, and this is a large opportunity today.
We are also preparing to leverage the upcoming E.U. list area legislation that is going to be enforced on July 26. This is coming very soon, and this is offering us a very large opportunity in this market. Number two, it is about restoring our margins there. This is a key priority. First, through an improved and disciplined pricing strategy, but also we are benefiting from much favorable sugar price input there, procurement savings, and a major program to optimize our end-to-end supply chain. Lastly, we will maximize further the throughput of our new Thai lactic acid plant that will further enhance our cost efficiency. On midterm, we will be launching new food ferments and high-potency vinegars with initial launches planned for early 2026. We are expanding into adjacent categories, including primarily culinary and seafood preservation.
Third, we will also grow in pet food preservation there, leveraging the strong market position we've built from our nutrition Omega-3 business already. There are very nice synergies we see there. Last, by introducing a clean label system that supports reduced sodium, minimally processed foods, and the diet trends related to the higher adoption of the GLP-1 diet in the U.S. Finally, growing beyond, we embarked recently on an open innovation collaboration with a company called Brain. This is targeting sorbate replacement. Most of the sorbate today being synthetic, this is a very nice large opportunity. We are also exploring small selective bolt-on M&A to just complement and expand further our portfolio there. All these initiatives and the Bright 2030 make us committed to take our business up to the EUR 1 billion mark there by unlocking also significant growth at improved margin.
Now, let's move to the second area, our nutrition business. Before we dive into strategy, let me review where we stand today. Over the past several years, we've built a leading market position in algae-derived Omega-3 oils, transforming the business from a modest EUR 13 million operation into a nearly EUR 160 million business by 2024. What began as a heavily loss-making venture is now a highly profitable, fast-growing contributor to Corbion's overall performance. Our first focus area was aquaculture, where we secured multiple longer-term, multi-year supply agreements. These contracts provide stability for the base business and enable growing and ongoing investment in growth primarily into pet nutrition and human nutrition.
In parallel, we've successfully built a strong presence, as I said, in pet nutrition, where demand for sustainable and high-quality ingredients continues really to accelerate, and in human nutrition, where our nutritional portfolio is supported by a strong opportunity pipeline. Operational excellence has been very critical through that journey. The manufacturing plant in Brazil has been steadily ramping up, supported by a great breakthrough from our San Francisco Innovation Center, improving massively the yields of our fermentation there. Our Corbion Omega-3 business is another strong proof of the company's end-to-end scalability and fermentation expertise. The journey here begins at lab scale, where optimal microalgae strains are selected and tested in five liters fermenters at the San Francisco lab. When successful concepts are being developed, this is transferred to 1,000 liters went on fermenters in Belmont, California.
This is in the pilot plant, which is validating performance, consistency, and process robustness. From there, the process is scaled seamlessly to large industrial fermenters in Urupês, Brazil, where the full-scale production takes place. Across the scale-up trajectory, bench to pilot to plant, Corbion has successfully replicated manufacturing conditions, optimized yields, increased downstream processing efficiency. This integrated scaling capability has really enabled us and the rapid growth on the Omega-3 platform from small loss-making ventures to highly profitable business. With this, we have not only built the world's largest Omega-3 plant, but also the most competitive and sustainable one. What you can see there is quite unique. It is a sustainable, low-cost, and fully backward-integrated production model we do have in Brazil.
At our Corbion site in Urupês, we benefit from access to abundant, ultra-competitive sugar, the lowest cost feedstock globally, and from a direct integration with an adjacent sugar mill that supplies very affordable utilities and renewable energy. This integration significantly enhances both our cost position and our sustainability footprint. The site is now really fully invested to support our growth trajectory till at least 2028. It is important to highlight that within a few years, On an Omega-3 production basis, this plant is already the largest plant in the world. Compared to peers, it gives Corbion a truly distinctive advantage: a single large-scale, fully integrated operation that delivers significant operational efficiencies, cost advantage, and consistent quality. This concentration of capabilities in one major site is a unique competitive strength that firmly positions Corbion ahead in the Omega-3s market.
Now, let's take a closer look at the market dynamics, particularly those shaping the Omega-3 demand and the fish oil sector. Globally, Omega-3 represents roughly a 1 million-ton market, translating into a total addressable value of about $5 billion. Aquaculture dominates the consumption there, accounting for nearly 70% of demand, and this is followed by nutrition and pharma at around 20%, with smaller segments such as pet food and terrestrial applications making up the remainder. When we look at the supply picture over the last decade, one thing is really clear fish oil availability is highly volatile and structurally constrained. Despite steady growth in end market between 1.5% and 2.5% annually in aquaculture and 3%-6% in human nutrition, especially in the terrestrial and pharma, there is simply not enough fish oil to meet rising demand.
The supply ceiling is defined by catch limits, by ecosystem protection requirements, and of course, biological variability and climate events are also a limiting factor. As a result, the market faces an ongoing structural supply gap that will only get bigger in time. In fact, in recent days, the market has reacted sharply to speculation around significantly reduced fishing quota from Peru, one of the world's most important sources of marine ingredients. This is already triggering upward pressure on fish oil price, reaffirming the fragility of supply and the urgency of scalable alternatives. To illustrate the supply gap in fish oil, let's have a look at key dynamics currently reshaping the aquaculture market. These insights are based on a very recent Rabobank report. Aquaculture continues to rise.
By 2023, the sector will require an additional 14 million-15 million tons of aquafeed simply to keep pace with the expected growth. Translating into fish oil, aquaculture alone will need 20,000-30,000 additional tons of fish oil every year, a requirement that the current supply base cannot meet. This growing imbalance is amplified by several factors. First, inelastic demand in end market. Even small variations in fish oil demand trigger disproportionate price variations because applications such as aquaculture and human nutrition cannot substitute Omega-3. There is also an impact from more intensive farming and farming of new species. Modern aquaculture techniques and this expansion into new species with higher nutritional requirements are both increasing the demand for fish meal and fish oil. Last but not least, the climate variability. There is today and over the last decade much greater volatility from El Niño & La Niña.
We see these cycles really coming sooner and sooner and closer, and this is making fish oil supply more unpredictable, very often reducing fishing quotas. The data clearly shows the impact there. I only put, for illustrative purpose, if you look to the bottom left slide, just looking at the trend of fish meal, I mean, this is steadily also growing over the years. On the right side, simply look at the trend. The light blue part of this slide is just showing fish oil structural deficit. This deficit is already present this year in 2025 and is projected to widen sharply next year in 2026 and really accelerate in subsequent years. This widening gap underscores why we are so confident in the medium-term and long-term outlook for algae-based Omega-3 business.
As fish oil price rises and supply volatility increases, large-scale, sustainable, and reliable alternatives like our Algae Omega-3 oil become not just attractive, but they are essential. This is exactly why we are so excited about the opportunity ahead of us there. We are planning to leverage our technology platform to unlock value there and address, I mean, evolving market needs through a dual growth approach. First, we are expanding from our strong base in Omega-3 DHA for animal nutrition and primarily aquaculture into pet nutrition and human nutrition. At the same time, we are diversifying beyond Omega-3 DHA into other sustainable lipids. Our recent launch of Omega-9 is being positioned in food application to support better nutrition. Looking further ahead, we are exploring additional product platforms, including algae-derived ingredients as antioxidants and proteins.
This strategy not only broadens our market reach, but also enhances margins and reduces our reliance on aquaculture. What is next for our nutrition business and why is it, again, so exciting? In the short term, we are well underway on closing a strong Q4, as we discussed during our latest Q3 results, while we are continuing to secure long-term contracts in aquaculture and further also expanding our customer base in aquaculture. From 2026 onwards, our nutrition business will benefit also from favorable sugar input costs, further securing margin, and also potentially higher fish oil prices. We are also optimizing and diversifying our Omega-3 business by expanding beyond salmon into other species, but also different life stages such as hatchery, while accelerating growth in high-margin segments such as pet and human nutrition. There, we aim to convert the healthy opportunity pipeline we have developed this year into meaningful growth in 2026.
Last but not least, we are also advancing an EPA Omega-3 strain development to complement our existing DHA portfolio. Beyond Omega-3, the growth is driven in the short term by the commercialization of our Omega-9 and by a strong focus on open innovation. Key initiatives you might have spotted in recent press releases include developing Astaxanthin through fermentation in partnership with Kuehnle AgroSystems and investing in algae-based protein development with FICOM here in the Netherlands, building a robust pipeline for the future. Now, looking ahead to our Bright 2030 ambition for our nutrition business, we are committed to driving revenue from EUR 157 million up to EUR 275 million, an ambitious almost EUR 120 million increase in just five years. This is not just growth. It's a strategic evolution for Corbion, built on innovation, built on efficiency, and a relentless focus on value creation.
The beauty of it is that we will not need massive capital investment to make this happen. As I said, we are pretty well invested to sustain sales till at least 2028. In this journey, building a human nutrition business is a cornerstone of our future. We are doubling down on human nutrition, aiming for it to represent up to 10% of our total revenue there by 2030. This is not just about numbers. It is about leading the charge rapidly in an evolving market, as we believe human nutrition will also convert from fish oil to algae oil. We see also a strong consumer demand there for algae oil, reshaping the industry going forward. We are positioning ourselves at the forefront of this shift, delivering really product that matters there.
On this now, let's move to the last and third really exciting platform, our biomedical polymers business. This business is not just growing. It's really striving. Over the past years, we've nearly doubled our revenue, achieving a remarkable 14% CAGR there. Now, as part of our Bright 2030 vision, we are setting our sights even higher. We have the ambition to reach EUR 125 million in sales over the next five years. We will continue the powerful momentum we've built so far. This is a business like no other. We boast a truly global footprint with two GMP-certified manufacturing plants, one in the E.U. here next door and one in the U.S., serving customers globally. Our reach extends across wound management, orthopedics, slow-release drug deliveries, regenerative medicines, and aesthetics, making us a pivotal player in the biomedical polymers space. At our core there, we are material scientists and innovators.
Starting from monomers like lactide and glycolide in that case, we engineer highly specialized polymers with tailored properties as material strength, degradation rate, different viscosity, water absorption, and more. Our advanced technology allows us to really fine-tune every aspect from polymer length, polymer architecture to meet the exact need of the end application of our customers. The total addressable market is large, speaking about EUR 1 billion there. With our current market share, the potential for growth is immense. To capture this opportunity, we are pursuing a dual growth strategy there. First, by building on a solid foundation we do have for our resorbable sutures and wound management. Second, by further expanding in high-growth areas as orthopedics and drug delivery, where our pipeline is really robust and really promising.
Last, by exploring new areas as we are building expertise and capabilities in aesthetics and in regenerative medicines, positioning ourselves for future leadership in these emerging fields. Let's have a closer look at how we're delivering value today. Our joint venture with MedinCell in slow-release drug delivery is a prime example there. The first product launched using MedinCell technology with our polymer, really at scale, is UZEDY, a groundbreaking product from Teva Pharmaceuticals for schizophrenia, which is really experiencing rapid growth. Moreover, there is a second major product now in clinical phase III that is really planning to launch in the second half of next year. That is also exciting. This is just the beginning. The pipeline, as you can see, is rich and deep with innovation set to roll over the next five years. This is not just about optimism.
It's really confidence backed by science, our partnership with MedinCell, and a very clear roadmap for success. With this foundation, we feel really confident to scale this business and shape the future of the biomedical polymer space. Our unique capabilities, strategic investments, and relentless focus on innovation is just positioned us to lead and grow within this dynamic industry. On this now, I will hand over to Peter, who will walk you through the financial details of our Bright 2030 plans and will return later for wrap-up and the Q&A session. Thank you, Peter.
Thank you, Olivier, and welcome to all investors and analysts. Our strategy, Advance 2025, has delivered strong results on both sales as well as EBITDA. We've amended our portfolio towards natural food preservation and nutrition, and that significant capital investments fueling future value creation.
Our strategy, Bright 2030, is focusing on delivering profitable growth, delivering productivity, and reinvesting in value-creating opportunities. Our balanced capital allocation policy is focused on supporting the profitable growth as well as returning profits to shareholders, to both dividends as well as share repurchases. Our medium-term financial targets are on the period 2026-2028 on organic sales growth, adjusted EBITDA margin, as well as free cash flow. Over the period, we target an organic sales growth between 3%-6% per annum, an improvement in adjusted EBITDA to around 18% by 2028, and a cumulative free cash flow over the next two years of around EUR 270 million. As a result, we see return on capital employed and earnings per share grow significantly as well. Over the last five years, we can show a strong track record of sales and EBITDA growth.
Sales growth in our core activities has grown 9% per annum, translating into an adjusted EBITDA growth of 8% per annum. Our non-core activities included the frozen dough business, which we divested in 2021, as well as the emulsifier business divested in 2024. Both divestments were a result of portfolio choices we made earlier in our strategy to focus on preserving what matters. These results were generated in a volatile business environment, which really shows the resilience of our business model. Sales growth over the last five years has been driven by both volume mix as well as price, with currencies being constant. Price on average has been 5% per annum, which was by passing on input cost inflation, especially in the early part of our advanced period.
Volume mix growth has been 4% per annum, which has been driven by the significant increase of Omega-3 sales, our biomedical polymer business, as well as volume mix in food of around 4% per annum. As you know, volume mix in 2023 was driven by industry-wide destocking. Following the margin erosion in the early part of advance, driven by price inflation and some investments, we've seen a significant increase of margins over the last three years. This margin increase of 430 basis points has been driven by a combination of pricing, yield optimization, efficiency measures, fixed cost reduction, as well as input cost deflation. On top of that, we've fully compensated the stranded cost of our emulsifier divestment. The reported EBITDA year-to-date Q3 was 16.3%, and we see further upside in the coming years, on which I will come back later.
Over the last five years, we've deployed significant capital behind organic growth plans, fueling future value creation. Some of the key projects were the new lactic acid facility, but also installing vinegar capacity, insourcing vinegar as a building block for our natural preservation solution strategy, expanding Omega-3 fermentation capacity in Urupês, Brazil, as well as expanding lactic acid powder capacity to support our food business. Going forward, we see a more normalized CapEx level of around 6% of sales. Our capital investments are delivering sound returns, with paybacks generally lower than five years and internal rate of returns above 20%. The exception are the longer-term investments like the lactic acid plants, where we see internal rates of return in excess of 15%. The three expansions which I just mentioned, lactic acid powders, Omega-3, as well as vinegar, are all showing adequate returns.
All these projects have become operational over the last years. Most of the milestones announced in our latest capital market update in January 2024 have been delivered. In the capital markets update of January, we've presented the financial targets for the year 2024 and 2025. These targets were a volume mix growth of 2%-6%, organic adjusted EBITDA growth of 15%-20%, and a cumulative free cash flow over two years in excess of EUR 125 million. With one quarter being left, we can announce that all these metrics were achieved. We're also proud that we continue to deliver behind some of our key business growth areas, like food preservation, nutrition, and the biomedical business. In food preservation, we've seen further growth in product and market adjacencies. In Omega-3, we reached our sales and EBITDA objective from 2025 already in 2024.
In biomedical, we are on track to deliver double-digit growth. We also delivered on most of our restructuring program, delivering free cash flow. The emulsifier business has been divested, and the stranded cost has been fully compensated during the course of 2024-2025. The fixed cost savings program has delivered, with some key components being an FTE reduction of around 200 FTE, as well as mothballing our Peoria site in the U.S. We also reduced variable costs by insourcing some production following the successful growth earlier in advance. Although we made nice progress in the ramp-up of our Thai lactic acid plants, we have not yet generated the full potential in 2025. In 2025, we have had some startup inefficiencies, which are being addressed. The supply chain savings, which we anticipate, are therefore to come to fruition in 2026.
Related to working capital, we've seen some reduction, although not to the original ambition level. This is partly driven by the volatile geopolitical environment, where the Red Sea is still blocked and tariffs need to be managed carefully. Although under control, I don't see a significant improvement going forward. Let me come back on our strategy, Bright 2030. Our strategy is growth-led, with a focus on delivering sustainable value creation. Our strategy is, on one hand, focused on delivering profitable growth, delivering productivity, and reinvesting in value-creating opportunities. This should lead to organic sales growth as well as an enhanced EBITDA margin. Our strategy is also focusing on capital returns, underpinned by a balanced capital allocation policy. We continue to focus on free cash flow and, as a result, envision to grow both in return on capital employed as well as on earnings per share.
As indicated, our strategy is focusing on three targets. Our medium-term targets are an organic sales growth of 3%-6% per annum, an increased EBITDA margin to around 18% by 2028, as well as a cumulative free cash flow of around EUR 270 million over the next three years. As a result, we do see ROCE improving to around 13% by 2028, as well as a double-digit increase per annum of earnings per share over the next three years. Now, let's dive a bit deeper in some of the businesses. Overall, our organic sales growth is 3%-6% per annum. This is driven by functional ingredients and solution between 2%-4% and health and nutrition of 8%-10%. We will not amend our reporting structure going forward and continue to report on the different market segments. This also amplifies the consistency.
Functional ingredients and solutions continue to consist of food, biochemicals, and lactic acid to PLA, and health and nutrition continue to consist on nutrition, biomedical polymers, and pharma. The different businesses have different growth ambition levels. As mentioned by Olivier earlier in the presentation, we target double-digit growth in our nutrition and biomedical polymer businesses, and we target mid-single-digit growth in our food business driven by natural preservation. We plan to increase our EBITDA margin with 170 basis points to around 18% in 2028, and this is driven by a combination of different levers. The first lever is product mix, which is driven by higher growth in more profitable business. As indicated, the growth rates of our H&N segment are at a higher pace than the functional ingredients and solution segments.
Our Thai lactic acid plant is ramping up, but the full savings are anticipated to be delivered in 2026, and therefore a step up in margin versus the current margin level. Our value creation program consists of pricing strategy, further cost optimization, as well as lower anticipated sugar costs. Over time, we plan to invest in H&N and also in our innovation capability. Our balanced capital allocation policy is focusing on driving profitable growth and shareholder returns. We will continue to invest behind organic sales growth and selectively invest in bolt-on M&A, strengthening the core portfolio, all in a disciplined manner. We anticipate the CapEx program will be around 6% of sales the coming years. We also remain committed to returning capital to shareholders via dividends and share repurchases. Our dividend policy remains unchanged, which is paying a stable to gradually increasing absolute dividends.
Our anticipated midterm leverage ratio is between 1.5 and 2.5 times. Driving organic sales growth is supported by a disciplined CapEx program. Our expansion investments are behind food preservation, nutrition, and biomedical polymers. The cumulative CapEx is estimated at around EUR 255 million, which translates to around 6% of sales. The CapEx program is split into maintenance, which is there to maintain our current asset base, as well as expansions. The plant expansion programs all have attractive returns. The key expansion programs will be in food behind powder capacity, as well as vinegar. In H&N, it is driven by further capacity optimization in our Urupês, Brazil plant, as well as capacity increase behind biomedical polymers in both the U.S. and the Netherland. We plan to generate a free cash flow of around EUR 270 million over the next three years, which is on average EUR 90 million per annum.
This is a result of organic sales growth, improved EBITDA margins, while having disciplined programs on CapEx and working capital in place. It is a continuation of our free cash flow delivery over the last two years. As a result of our profit improvements, we see ROCE increasing from currently 10.7% to around 30% by 2028. We have actively managed down our leverage ratio following the investment cycle. The reduction is driven by free cash flow delivery, as well as the disposal of our emulsifiers business. At the same time, we increased dividends and did a share buyback. Going forward, our net term EBITDA is planned to be between 1.5-2.5, including the subordinated loan, which we have around EUR 100 million. This subordinated loan is having an impact of 0.5 times. We have a very balanced maturity profile, which is well spread over the coming years.
In total, we have around EUR 370 million of U.S. private placement after the planned reduction of EUR 25 million by December. The average interest rate on our portfolio is around 3%. On working capital, working capital as a percentage of sales has increased in 2021, driven by input cost inflation, as well as global supply chain disruptions. After 2021, working capital looks relatively stable around 25%. The underlying improvements which have been made were being offset by the disposal of our emulsifier business, which did operate at relatively low inventory levels. Going forward, we only plan a mild reduction of inventories in the continuous volatile geopolitical environment, where the Red Sea is still blocked and tariffs need to be managed carefully. Earnings per share has been stable during the period 2020-2023 and has been impacted by the disposal of our emulsifier business.
As from 2023, earnings per share has grown, driven by organic sales growth, EBITDA margin improvement, and reduction of our debt levels. Going forward, we anticipate double-digit growth of EPS every year. Concluding, our strategy, Bright 2030, is focusing on driving profitable growth, delivering productivity, and reinvesting in value-creating opportunities. We continue to deploy capital towards organic growth opportunities, as well as selectively in bolt-on laminate. We also remain committed to returning capital to shareholders. Our medium-term targets are focused on organic sales growth, margin improvement, and free cash flow. As indicated, organic sales grows between 3%-6% per annum, adjusted EBITDA margins of around 18%, and a cumulative free cash flow of EUR 270 million. As a consequence, we see return on capital employed increasing to around 13% and an EPS growth per annum in the double-digit range.
With that, I would like to hand over back to Olivier.
Thank you, Peter. Let's conclude with the key Bright 2030 takeaways now. As you have understood, we are not just evolving, we are also transforming. Bright 2030 will really make Corbion stand as a global leader in sustainable specialty food ingredients, primarily natural preservation, nutrition, and biomedical polymer. How will we get there? We will accelerate clean label preservation and formulation, enabling the massive shift from artificial insetting ingredients to natural and clean label alternatives. We will expand algal fermentation, unlocking new opportunities beyond our current DHA Omega-3 business. We will fuel growth in biomedical polymer, capitalizing on our unique capabilities and unlocking the vast potential in this dynamic market.
As we discussed, we announced that we have initiated a strategic ownership review of our PLA portfolio, and we will defocus our lactic acid non-food biochemical business. The ambition is clear and is backed by clear financial targets 3%-6% growth annually, reaching 18% adjusted EBITDA margin by 2028, and delivering a cumulative EUR 270 million free cash flow also by 2028. This will drive a ROCE of around 13%, and we are committed to grow EPS double-digit every year. On this, I really thank you for your attention and your engagement today, and we will open the floor to Q&A.
Yes. Thank you. If you'd like to ask a question this morning, please raise your hand, and we have some mic runners that will come your way. Hang on. Kindly state your name for your question, please.
Thank you. I'm also KBC Securities.
I would like to ask two questions that I'll ask them one by one. The first one is a pretty short one, sorry, on the tariffs update. There's been some volatility on measures from the U.S. government trying to reduce food inflation. Is there any impact on the recent measures on your business?
Let me answer that question. The answer is no, not a significant impact. You are right that every day you get some new announcement, whether it's on exemption list or every country is changing. I would say it puts a lot of time and effort of people within the company in order to manage it. So far, the kind of direct impact is relatively minimal and overseeable.
Okay. Thank you. And then my second question would be on Omega-3.
With the recent price increase in fish oil, can you maybe elaborate on where do you stand on the 2026 contract? How much have been contracted? At what pricing levels? Yeah, can you offer some clarity on that, please?
Let me answer this one. As you remember, we've had this multi-year supply agreement. One was, I mean, ending this year. Others are rolling over. We've renewed the one that was ending now already a few months ago. We have also negotiated new long-term supply agreements with additional customers. On, let's say, a large part of the aquaculture business, this is already contracted for 2026. On the 30% that are open contracts, this is not being contracted.
Basically, these are markets moving with the volatility official, and we are not yet done, and we are looking closely to what the official prices are doing before we close any contract there. We try really to secure the base, and we have been able to secure the base at a much higher price than the depressed low level you have seen last year. That is the aim, that we maintain a level of pricing in between the floor you see in fish oil price and the high peaks we have seen also in the past. The aim for us is really to have a predictability of a margin by, on one side, hedging our sugar cost in time, and then by securing a large base of our business for the years to come. On contracted business, we are already well contracted for 2026.
We have the vast majority of the open-end market, which is around 30%, still to be negotiated. Yep.
Carl Sutter, with Kepler Sephra. Two questions. The first one is on the natural ferments and the ambition to grow there. If you look to some of your major end markets, meat, bakery, candy, often in the U.S., these are not super growing markets. To what degree can you expand into adjacencies or new parts that are offering faster growth, and how quickly can you make that shift? The other one is one with regards to the scope of the operations and global reach. You have very interesting innovations, leadership positions, but at the same time, we have a company with EUR 1.3-EUR 1.4 billion revenues. To what degree is that sufficient to scale and reach opportunities everywhere?
Two very relevant questions. On the first one, you're right.
If you look, for instance, to the major categories as meat or baked goods, these are not really the growing ones. However, within this category, if I take, for instance, meat today in the U.S., you see a reduction in base, what we call harvest intervention, meat preservation on fresh meat. At the same time, you see a very nice hike on meat snacks that do offer high proteins. That is quite interesting because, obviously, we play into that segment as well of meat snacks because these are the kind of type of protein shot people do take today, primarily people on GLP-1. Just to say, you have segments that are really impacted by higher inflation and GLP-1 or UPF trends and others that are supported. Overall, we see really also that there is, and this is why we are expanding into culinary.
We see, in terms of ready-to-eat food and ready meals, very nice trend, ongoing trends where, so far, we are not that present. This is largely new for us. This is also where people are also cleaning label. I was mentioning sodium reduction a few times. We see very nice moves now into high-sodium-containing products. Think about soy sauces as an example. You have a lot of the sauces and dressings that are sold through basically a food service that are really converting to healthier alternatives. Within this segment, we see very nice growth opportunities. The aim is really going there. Obviously, the key categories on bulk commodities, primarily in the U.S., are suffering. The second part of your question there is also to grow beyond the U.S..
This is the largest market for us, but we are making very good strides in Asia-Pacific now and also in Latin America. There is a both approach there on this. Can you repeat your second question? Sorry.
Yeah, the scale of the business. There are lots of opportunities, but then we see a revenue number that is.
No, this is indeed also a good point. We are indeed smaller, but we are truly global. This is why this model, if you look to how do you go to market with our sales force, we've said, yeah, we need to be the better expert in town, for instance, in natural preservation or in sustainable lipids. This is what we do.
It is about presenting and offering ourselves really a deep expertise in very selected area and not pretend we are the supermarket to the world for ingredients because we're not. We want to make sure that when people do have a preservation issue, the first name on the list is Corbion, that they call Corbion. We are one of the few having this very specific capability. Yes, we do not have a portfolio that is the kind of supermarket to the world in terms of natural ingredients, but we aim to be very specialized and be first on the list when we get briefs. Now, it is essential we have all these application labs and innovation centers globally because this is customer proximity that, as you know, food is local and taste is local.
By having these eight innovation centers locally, it's how do you basically also turn briefs more quickly than the largest company. The aim for us also is important as a mid-size company is to be extremely fast to the ball because that's the way we win briefs, is by being able to turn it around. This is why we have discussed many times our blending business. We are now trying to convert this business that was historically a bakery business into a system solution fast business where we plug not only bakery products but our antimicrobial systems going forward and probably tomorrow some nutritional solution as well. That's the trend we are trying to accelerate.
Thank you.
Questions over here. Robert Jan Vos, ABN AMRO, a few questions. What could be the operational or even strategic implications of your defocusing on non-food lactic acids? That's my first question.
Related maybe also on the portfolio, can you be a bit more precise what you mean with what you said on PLA? Should we anticipate that you are looking for a seller for your stake in the joint venture? A bit of clarification would help there. Sorry. Another question is on the free cash flow target. Peter, you said it is EUR 90 million on average per year. For this year, you are aiming for at least EUR 85 million. If I take everything into consideration, your sales target, your EBITDA growth target, it does not seem to be very ambitious. What am I missing there, is that the working capital, although you said it is limited improvement, there is still some investments, obviously, if your revenue grows. Can you elaborate on this? Final question, why not a more committed comment on share buybacks? You keep it open as an option.
You have a firm free cash flow target. Dividend is clear. Why not a bit more firm commitment on share b uybacks? Thank you.
Yeah. Let me take the first two. On this biochemical business, what we intend to do, there are two pieces around it. One is that we see there is part of this business that is commoditizing, and we're going to run it really for cash as a commodity business, meaning very lean organization that we are actually busy restructuring, really working on our cost base to make sure that we remain and we maintain our attractive margins, but we will not further invest going forward. That's important. When you think about in the past, we've been discussing and exposed to volatility into the semiconductor business, for instance, or the agrochemicals.
Obviously, if you look to the market outlook, the regulatory outlook also for these segments, we do not expect massive growth going forward for this. When you look to capital allocation, we see much higher potential for growth into the food and the nutrition space. We are going to put really the money and investment where the mouth is there. This is why we want to move to really, as you have seen, today, we are almost already at 80% food and nutrition. We are going to increase that by growing much faster. We are going to really continue to run the biochem for cash. That is what we are going to do to fuel the growth in food and nutrition. That is the approach we have. We are streamlining the way we operate there already as from now to make sure we maintain high margin.
On PLA, I think the strategic review says a lot. I think if you understand, of course, we are looking to exit there. That is a process we have already kicked off. That is in the play now. Peter, maybe you want to answer.
Let me answer your two questions on the free cash flow delivery. If you look, free cash flow then actually translates quite well into the numbers which we presented. If you look to indeed this year and also last year, last year, we had a benefit in terms of reduction of inventory, as well as we monetized some VAT receivables in Brazil. There is a bit of phasing in terms of the longer-term contracts, which we do have. As indicated, we have long-term contracts around the delivery of our nutrition business.
Of course, the way how these contracts are designed is that you have a payout at the end of the contract. I would say the volatility in operating working capital is a bit year on year. If you pencil in the kind of organic EBITDA growth, and you then take into account an operating working capital of around 24%, the kind of tax, which, by the way, effective tax rate is roughly 24%, and the interest rate of 3% on our interest, you roughly come to EUR 90 million per year. There is always a bit of fluctuation from that. Your other question, Robert Jan, is also a fair question in terms of share buyback. If you look at the moment, our kind of medium-term net debt EBITDA is between 1.5-2.5 per annum.
We always communicated this leverage ratio, including this subordinated debt of roughly EUR 100 million because that branch leads to 2.3. That is the reason we carefully basically assess moving forward. As indicated, we are committed to both have the existing dividend policy in place, which is stable to gradually improving, as well as doing share buybacks.
Sebastian? Thank you. Sebastian Bray of Berenberg Bank. Thank you for taking my questions. My first one is on polylactic acid. I am thinking about mechanically and financially how uncoupling this business from Corbion would work. Imagine Corbion gets EUR 50 million, let's say, for its stake. Does it actually see any of that cash, or is there something that prevents Corbion getting that? For the JV, it is quite heavily indebted. It is something like 8x-10 x gross debt to EBITDA. Is Corbion actually expecting any cash out from that transaction?
Does TotalEnergies have right of first refusal to any potential bidder for the 50%? That's my first question. I'll ask the second one afterwards. Thank you.
Shall I pick this one? I mean, we communicated that we initiated the process, and we are in clear alignment with TotalEnergies on the way and how to proceed with that. That means from a contractual perspective, I think that is covered. In terms of do we anticipate proceed? The answer is yes. It would be a bit premature to kind of disclose anything on that.
That's helpful. If I move to the EBITDA bridge that you showed, there's about 1.2% that is the largest single component when moving from 16% towards 18% that is focused on self-help initiatives that seem to be centered around pricing.
Corbion has, in some cases, historically struggled to grow volumes when it's pushed price, particularly in food. What does that 1.2% refer to? And does it include the EUR 10 million of delayed benefit from a new lactic acid plant in Thailand? Okay.
Let me pick on that. It doesn't include the delayed savings of the Thai lactic acid plant because that's the 50% improvement in the box before. It's a combination, indeed, of three different levers. One is the combination of pricing on the one end and input cost on the other end. In that, by the way, as everybody is well aware, sugar prices is quite on a downward or has been on a quite downward journey from that perspective. Also, people know that we have a hedging policy in place, so there is a bit of delayed impact in that.
The other element, which is that we did review our end-to-end supply chain and see further opportunities to get cost out of the system. That is the totality of the 1.2%. If you look to that, then pricing, it is always a bit of, how would I say, system. There is a bit of delay. I mean, we have seen a significant increase in terms of pricing in the earlier part of advance. We have seen then price deflation with a bit of price reduction on that way. I do not see further significant price reduction, especially in our functional ingredients and solution business going forward.
Thank you. Last one from me. The Thai lactic acid plant, has this gone according to plan? How far away from full ramp-up are we, and is it affected by the ambition to exit the PLA business? Okay.
Yeah. Quickly addressing the Thai lactic acid.
As you know, this is really a revolutionary process. We have had stop and go in the early part. What I can say is that, yeah, we are ahead of 70% capacity occupation and are really ramping up more and more every day. What came in the way was more that to adjust, we had to stop and go. Again, I will not get into the technical detail, but obviously, when you stop and go, it is not one day. You have to just get the process cleaned, restart. This has got us delayed. The big thing where I am really optimistic is that the chemistry there is working because that, of course, when you launch it, is always the big question mark. Chemistry is working. It is how do we get quickly to the 125,000 tons design capacity? This is the number we made public.
Today, we are running on above 70% rhythm, roughly, of this. We are not to the full. We expect to get there in the course of next year. On the PLA question, Sebastian, we have this stream, which is roughly EUR 60 million sales to the PLA GV. We see the PLA market continue to grow. You see this year volume-wise, PLA is growing 10%-11%, backed on, of course, the Chinese market momentum. We still see that continuing ahead. There is a very long-term contract. We do have to supply whoever new owner is going to be of that business.
There is a contract in place, and the margin is correct in the sense that for us, when you run such facilities as the new Thai lactic acid plant or the former one, running at high level of capacity occupation creates really big operational leverage and makes really cost-efficient savings into the entire business. We see that it is a very simple business to manage because it is a pipeline between the two factories, and it helps us really run consistently at the max cap. It is a small impact. You speak about EUR 60 million sales over EUR 1.3 billion today, but it really helps operational leverage on the entire Corbion business. That is how we see it.
Morning all. Reg Watson from ING. I have two questions, one for each of you. Peter, the 10% growth in human nutrition top line looks pretty impressive.
Can you break that down for us, please, between volume and price mix expectation? And for Olivier, sorry to harp on about the PLA, but a little over two years ago, you placed PLA under strategic review, and we know the outcome of that in January, a few months later, was that you were going to retain it. What is different about the review this time, and can you take us through your thought processes, please?
Shall I take the first one? If you look on health and nutrition, let me do one step back. We did indeed guide on sales growth instead of full-year mix because I think we are a bit out of this kind of significant price bumps up and forwards, which makes it a bit more easy.
If you overall think the majority of our growth is really coming out of full-year mix and less so in terms of pricing, so give that as a bit of an overall context. If you then dive a bit deeper into the specific of health and nutrition in nutrition, biomedical, polymer, and let's do pharma even there as well, the majority is coming from volume mix. I mean, in the biomedical polymer business, I would say almost everything, and also in the pharma. If you look in terms of health and nutrition longer term, I would say it's coming from volume mix because if you look into a three-year strategic cycle, I mean, it's a bit more difficult in terms of where prices will go to.
If you look into the immediate future, we did indicate we anticipate some price reduction into Q4 and a bit of spillover into next year as well. Moving forward, it is a bit of a crystal ball from that perspective. I think, look, in a three-year cycle, it is really volume mix driving the equation, less so in terms of pricing, but we need to manage a bit of short-term volatility, especially with the non-contracted part of the portfolio, as we say.
Thank you. Yeah, Regan, on PLA, I think there is one big change compared to a couple of years ago. It is that on this decision, we are really aligned with our partner on this. That makes a difference if you consider only a 50% stake or a full stake in terms of valuation, as you may understand.
That's really a major difference compared to the situation where a couple of years ago, it was only about disposing a 50% stake. Yeah.
Hi, I'm Seto from Barclays. I have a question, like you mentioned, about the margin growth for the whole group. If you can give some color about the divisions and some of the phasing that we can expect in the margin delivery, because as I expect that you have taken some pricing cuts in health and nutrition. Will that be some margin headwinds for next year?
I did not understand the regional one, but in terms of margin improvement to the 18% into 2028, I expect a quite gradual improvement from that perspective if you look to the kind of different levers.
It is not that next year we do a mild improvement, and then there is a hockey stick in the year 2028. I would think overall, it is a gradual improvement in our P&L. You said the other one was on regional.
On the divisions, if you can, do you still reiterate your 15% EBITDA margin guidance for fish and?
Yeah. If you roughly do the kind of guidance on health and nutrition as well as functional ingredients and solution, a bit longer term, I would stay with this around 30% in health and nutrition and around 15% in terms of functional ingredients and solutions. The key, I would say, stack-up in terms of margin is more in the functional ingredients and solution part of the business.
Okay. My second question is about the biomedical polymers. You mentioned about expected growth of about 15% CAGR.
How much of that would be coming from the existing drugs, and how much would be the new drugs that you would be launching? What would be the phasing in that particularly, and how much time does it take for one drug for you to monetize?
Yeah, let me answer this question. I think if you look at what's going to fuel the big part of the growth, it is both orthopedics and slow-release drug delivery. If you remember, we have these four different businesses. We see promising development in aesthetics. This is on the back of, of course, complementing or replacing a hyaluronic acid or collagen. We see really our polymers do work with a very different mechanism of action that is quite natural. We see promising, but we are building proof of concept.
We have already a couple of very large global customers, but we need to build a much wider customer portfolio and wider base there. Really, the bulk of the growth will be around orthopedics and slow-release drug delivery, primarily. 80% of the growth will be there. This business, to your second question, is very sticky because the depth of the pipeline, as these are really pharma FDA-approved, you have to go through this famous clinical stage, one, two, three. Our customers would submit FDA approval. They would come to audit our sites. Then you can start the business. These are cycles that are 5-10 years.
This is why I was showing that the breadth of the depth of the pipeline is that with the launches that have been done this year on schizophrenia, and the big one, which is much larger, coming next year, these are things we initiated six, seven years ago, and that will materialize. You might have seen MedinCell announce their cooperation with AbbVie on top of Teva Pharmaceuticals. AbbVie, you know that this pipeline, also using some of our polymers, will probably materialize in 2029, 2030, 2031. This is the time it takes. Of course, the disadvantage is it takes really long. On the other, it's so sticky that once you're in there, you're in there forever because it's FDA-approved, and cost to change is huge. This is why we feel good because we have a visibility on this pipeline.
We have good visibility. Of course, we are really early days in regenerative medicines. There are a few major trials going on. We see also very nice potential. You have to look at this business into a 5-10 years horizon.
Thank you.
Yeah. Okay. That is going to conclude.
I think there is a last question. We have one more.
I'm sorry. Please go right ahead.
Erik Verloop, Verloop Solutions B.V. First of all, compliments for the team on improving the financial attractiveness of Corbion over the last couple of years. Very impressive. I have a more strategic question. You mentioned the Asia-Pacific region only currently accounting for 17% of the market share. I think a very attractive market. A lot of access to better foods is coming up. It's a growing population. Also not new to Corbion with the production facility up and running.
What is the current target for growing the market share in the upcoming 5 to 10 years for Corbion in the Asia-Pacific region?
Now, it's a great question because indeed we didn't develop here the geographical strategy, but we are really committed to really grow much more this Asia-Pacific market. Just to illustrate what we've done recently is that, again, we really strengthen our management there. We operate from a regional hub in Singapore to cover the entire region. We also built the last few years application centers, innovation centers in both Shanghai and Singapore to cover the space. We moved our senior leaders that did build our business in LATAM into Asia-Pac to reproduce the same success we've had in Latin America into Asia-Pacific.
Maria Cecilia London, she's now our Head of Asia-Pacific, really busy to reassess the strategy, rebuild the entire go-to-market in Asia-Pacific to really improve our business there because this is also having a big opportunity where Corbion is under basically represented. We see the market. I was speaking about soy sauces as an example, but you see that these are markets that are really facing huge sodium salt consumption. Where also you find a lot of synthetic preservatives. If you just look at the landscape where these countries are becoming a lot more health conscious, you see already in China, for instance, people banning TBHQ, all these very bad synthetic products, antioxidants. There is a lot of fried food in Asia as well that are using a lot of synthetic antioxidants.
We see really big opportunity in sodium reduction and in natural, simply for health reasons. Yeah, good question.
Thank you very much for your attention and your questions. This will conclude the webcast portion of the call. We'll just wait for a disconnect, and you may end the call.