Good morning, and thank you for joining JDE Peet's Full Year 2021 Earnings Call. My name is Nazanin, and I'll be your operator for the call. For the duration of the presentation, all participants will be in a listen-only mode, and the conference call is being recorded. Following the presentation, there'll be an opportunity to ask questions. If you do have a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. If you wish to withdraw your question, you may do so by pressing star two to cancel. At this time, I would like to turn the call over to our first speaker, Robin Jansen, Director of Investor Relations for JDE Peet's. Please go ahead.
Thank you, Nazanin, and good morning, everyone, and welcome to JDE Peet's earnings call related to the financial performance of full year 2021. With me are Fabien Simon, CEO, and Scott Gray, CFO. In a moment, Fabien will take you through the operational and financial highlights related to our full-year business performance. After that, Scott will tell you more about the financial performance in 2021. Fabien will end today's presentation with our outlook for 2022 and some closing remarks. After that, we will be happy to answer your questions. Before we begin, I'd like to direct your attention to the disclaimer regarding non-IFRS measures and forward-looking statements on slide two. We would kindly like to ask you to read this information carefully. Our press release was published at 7 A.M. CET this morning.
The release, as well as the slide deck related to this call, are also available for download from the Investor Relations section on our website. A full transcript of this conference call will also be made available in the same section of our website as soon as possible after this call. With that, let me hand over to Fabien.
Thank you, Robin, and thank you everyone for joining the call today and for your interest in JDE Peet's. I trust that you and your relatives are all doing well. A bit more than a year ago, we shared that JDE Peet's is a defensive growth story by nature, but with a view of greater top-line opportunities than what the company delivered historically. Our agenda since then has been to get structured to unleash these opportunities with pace, but not at any cost, as it must go hand in hand with quality of delivery that we believe is the guarantee for long-term success and for compounding shareholders' value creation. Our 2021 results do reflect this strategic pivot of an accelerated quality growth.
In all modesty, I believe they are truly standing out, not only on what was achieved, but as well on how they have been delivered. Before turning to the key highlights of the year, I would like to recognize all the JDE Peet's team around the world, as well as our broad ecosystem partners who have been at the center of this strong performance and who demonstrated exceptional agility in a year of global supply chain disruptions and surge of inflation that came on top of continued pandemic challenges. Now, turning to the highlights of 2021. I would say that in 2021, as we reinvested behind our portfolio and reinforced operational discipline, we delivered on all the promises that the coffee and tea category offered.
Our organic sales grew by 6.1%, with a growth rate almost doubling in H2 versus H1 at 7.9%. We will share in a few moments that the revenue growth has been broad-based, overall well-balanced between volume mix and pricing, and over-indexed on the refreshed strategic priorities. As guided earlier in the year, we invested more than EUR 110 million above prior year to support our long-term goals, with the majority being on marketing spend. That increased by 27% or EUR 87 million versus 2020. We fully self-funded the reset of investment with a renewed discipline on gross profits that was up by 5.4% organically, despite the supply chain disruptions and despite inflation that started to hit our P&L in 2021.
At the time we were exiting the first quarter of 2021, we took the view that inflation would likely strengthen and here to stay. We therefore anticipated mitigation actions on our cost base, but we're as well preparing ourselves for multiple waves of price increases around our market globally for 2021 and for 2022. For the full second year of 2021, we posted 4.3% net price increase already. The external market data suggests that we have been leading on these price increases in the majority of our geographies on both timing and the level of pricing.
And as we were reinvesting behind our brands and leading on pricing, we were very satisfied with our market share that did hold nicely and even increased in three categories out of five, with the two others broadly stable. In 2021, we maintained our financial discipline with free cash flow above the historical level and over EUR 1.3 billion in the year, which positions us very well towards our optimal leverage level as we reach below the 2.7x level at the end of December. Overall, the resulting higher operating profits for the year and structurally lower net finance expenses increased our earnings per share by 13.7% despite higher tax charges.
Last but not least, we stepped up our commitment to an inclusive growth model with tracking tangible progress and higher ambitions going forward on sustainability that I will share in a moment. Let's now zoom on our organic growth, starting with the slide six here. Here, I would like to put our 2021 performance into perspective of the historical growth level. Besides the acceleration in the second part of the year, there is clear evidence that we are elevating our revenue growth to a new level. In-home coffee and tea consumption, which is the center of gravity of our business, is being recast as the new coffee shop. This explains why our revenue growth there remains very strong at +5%, despite a high base of more than 9% in 2020.
In parallel, we do benefit from gradual recovery of the away from home channels that grew by 11.5% organically in 2021 and still offer opportunities for further upside. Now, let's go to, the page here on the screen and take a closer look at the main driver of our growth across geography, channel, brands, and categories. During our Capital Markets Day in March, we spent a fair amount of time explaining why and where we needed to reset our investments. Back then, we disclosed the intention to spend an additional EUR 100 million in 2021 behind our strategic growth priorities. I think ultimately, we invested more than EUR 110 million with double-digit growth increase in areas like working media, performance marketing or coffee machine placement.
We invested as well further on sustainability and accelerating growth capabilities such as digital commerce or emerging markets. Looking at the left-hand side of the chart, it is clear that these investments and our efforts are paying off. All our refreshed strategic priorities are posting a double-digit or high single-digit growth rate, which benchmarks us very competitively in each respective area. Geographically, U.S. grew 11%, China by 19%, and overall, we posted a double-digit growth level in the emerging markets. From a channel perspective, besides the away from home recovery I talked about earlier, e-commerce delivered close to 30% growth, and we are accelerating the brand building of Peet's in China with more than doubling the number of coffee stores in 2021, reaching 70 stores at the end of December.
Brands benefited greatly from the step-up in investment as our brand tiers contributed to JDE Peet's overall growth performance with a stronger level from the aspirational global brands, L'OR, Peet's, or illy, but as well, just shy of double digits for our combined iconic local jewel brands such as Pilão in Brazil, Jacques Vabre in France or OldTown in Southeast Asia. Finally, from a category perspective, our priorities area, single-serve, beans and premium instant, jointly grew by 7% organically with a higher level than that for both aluminum capsules and for beans. I think this very strong set of results across the various lenses of our portfolio reinforces two strong belief. First is our portfolio responds very well to investment, and we should continue to invest at sufficient and consistent level behind these rightly defined strategic priorities.
Secondly, by doing so, we are structurally elevating the organic revenue growth rate of JDE Peet's to a new level. On the next slide, we want to disclose in full transparency our market share performance per category in light of our intentional pricing dynamic. We all hear about unprecedented level of inflation across the input costs from raw materials, packaging, logistics, energy and labor costs. JDE Peet's is not immune from that. As a pure player on coffee and tea, we are specifically exposed to the price of green beans that is registering one of the highest commodity inflations globally with more than 100% increase for Arabica, for instance, over the last 12 months. With such a combined level of inflation, there is no other way than pricing.
The two positive sides of the equation for us, and I would say as well for the retailers, are one, every study confirms that in-home coffee is at the bottom of the elasticity curve in the consumer good universe. Second, history told us that the volatility of green beans up or down is being reflected on shelf with few quarters lead time. We started our intentionality on pricing already in 2021, and according to available market data, ahead of branded players in the majority of our markets with 4.3% in H2, which is on average, with a lower level in Q3 and a higher level than that in Q4 as we are exiting the year. In 2021, we have not noticed disruptions on our market share performance, as you can read on the right-hand side of the chart.
We have gained shares in three categories out of five and pretty much hold our share on the two other ones. In total, we even gained volume market share on the entire year of 2021. Of course, we'll continue to monitor it closely as we are entering a greater and more holistic level of inflations in 2022. The second part of 2021 gives me confidence that our portfolio of brands have strengths which are very important at time of inflations. Before I hand over the call to Scott, I would like to update you on the progress we've made across our sustainability agenda. At the beginning of the call, I referred to the belief of quality delivery as a prerequisite for sustained shareholders value creations.
I think alongside consumer experience, excellence in execution of financial discipline, quality entails as well, fostering an inclusive ecosystem and a high standard on ESG, and they all go hand in hand. Next to the achievements we've shared with you when we announced our result in H1, I would like to call out that since July of 2021, all the palm oil we buy is now RSPO certified, compared to only 31% in 2020, and we are well on our way to have 100% of coffee and tea responsibly sourced by 2025. In addition, we have managed to have 40% of recycled material within our total packaging. Both RSPO certified and the level of recycled materials are commitment we made historically targeting 2025. We really leapfrogged to achieve those in 2021.
We also joined the UN Global Compact during the second part of the year. The most recent event I'm particularly proud of is the approval of our climate strategy or our greenhouse gas emission target that had been submitted and approved by SBTi, which is a science-based reference in this field. This means that we have now formalized few weeks ago our commitment to reduce the absolute greenhouse gas emissions for Scope 1 and 2 by 25%, and for Scope 3 by 12.5% by 2030 from our 2020 base year. To be transparent, in my view, I think we were late and lagging behind most of the blue-chip CPG company in committing to greenhouse gas reductions. We have now course-corrected that. Some might question why 2030 target, why not 2050, as often seen.
Actually, delivering on our 2030 ambition should position us very well on the trajectory to reaching net zero greenhouse gas emissions across our entire value chain by 2050. I think it was very important as well, I believe, that we make ourselves accountable for the short to midterm reductions rather than a hypothetical long-term one that would more become a legacy commitment left to future generations of leaders for the company. Of course, with commitment comes transparency and delivery. I am very pleased to share that already in 2021, we are on our way down, and the detailed measures we have now in place confirm that we reduced our greenhouse gas emissions across Scope 1, Scope 2, and Scope 3 combined by 5.3%, despite an increased volume sourced, processed, and sold this year.
This absolute level of reductions is likely benchmarking us very well for 2021, but we see it as a journey, and we will continue with determinations to make every cup of coffee and tea, not only with higher absolute margin, but as well more sustainable year over year. With that, I will hand over the call to Scott, and I will be back to discuss the outlook before we go to Q&A.
Thanks, Fabien, and good morning to all of you. Let's go to slide 11 to take you through the most important financial highlights of 2021. After that, as usual, into a bit more detail on our sales, EBIT, the performance of each segment, as well as our performance related to profit, cash, and our financial position. After that, I will finish with a quick reminder of our capital allocation priorities and share the board's dividend proposal with you. As mentioned earlier by Fabien, our overall organic sales growth of 6.1% was driven by organic sales growth of 5% in the in-home and 11.5% in away from home. In terms of profitability, our adjusted EBIT grew organically by 1.5% compared to last year, and our underlying earnings per share increased by 13.7%.
When it comes to cash and debt, we generated close to EUR 1.4 billion of free cash flow, which enabled us to decrease our leverage to below 2.7 x. Let's now move to the following slide to take a closer look at sales. Our organic sales growth of 6.1% was driven by 3.5% growth from volume and mix and 2.5% from price. While we had the same level of volume and mix as we had in H1, we had a greater contribution from pricing with 4.3% pricing in H2, accelerating our top line growth.
FX movements negatively impacted sales by 1%, mainly as a result of the appreciation of the euro against the U.S. dollar, Brazilian real, the Turkish lira, and the Russian ruble, and this, together with a minor change in scope, resulted in reported sales growth of 5.3% to EUR 7 billion on a reported basis. Let's now move to slide 13 to provide you with a bit more detail about our adjusted EBIT performance. The 1.5% organic growth of the adjusted EBIT that I referred to earlier was driven by a 5.4% organic increase in gross profit, of which we reinvested a meaningful part back into AMP to support our brands and other SG&A to build capabilities to fuel growth, particularly behind our strategic priorities.
Fluctuations in FX decreased adjusted EBIT by 0.4%, while changes in scope and other small non-organic items added 1% of growth to the reported adjusted EBIT growth of 2%. Now on the next slide, you see an overview of the organic sales and adjusted EBIT performance by segment. CPG Europe continued to benefit from elevated in-home consumption and continued focus on premium offerings as it delivered 2.6% organic sales growth despite the challenging year-on-year comparisons and the gradual easing of lockdown measures in many markets. Sales performance was broad-based across countries, with particularly strong contributions coming from markets like France, Germany, Poland, and Denmark, and continued momentum in premium categories like beans, capsules, and other single-serve offerings like Tassimo T DISCs.
Despite a strong double-digit increase in investments in AMP as well as in other growth opportunities, the organic adjusted EBIT was only slightly down, resulting in a two-year CAGR of 6.8%. CPG LARMEA delivered particularly strong and geographically broad-based organic top-line growth of 17% as the segment increased prices while continuing to deliver healthy volume and mix growth. From a category perspective, growth was mainly driven by roast and ground and premium instant offerings. Organic adjusted EBIT decreased organically by 4.7%, driven by higher AMP spend, higher cost of goods sold, and the timing of implementation of price increases to pass through inflation. Due to the catch-up in pricing, the EBIT improved in H2. On a two-year CAGR, the organic adjusted EBIT growth was 7.7%.
Please stand by while we reconnect the speakers.
Welcome back everybody, and apologies for the inconvenience, but there was a technical glitch in the system. We will pick it up from the comments that Scott was providing on CPG APAC. Once again, apologies for the inconvenience. Over to you, Scott.
All right. Thanks, Robin. Apologies. In regards to CPG APAC, and I'll make sure to recap there, various markets entered into new lockdowns in the course of 2021, which in many cases were stricter than the initial restrictions in 2020 that we saw, thereby further impacting the away from home businesses and the macroeconomic environment overall. As a result, organic sales performance in various markets in Southeast Asia were in decline, but China, on the other hand, continued to deliver strong double-digit performance. The adjusted EBIT decreased organically by 31.2% as a result of lower operational leverage and significantly higher A&P spend and other investments in growth in the region. On a two-year CAGR, the organic adjusted EBIT declined by 4.5%.
Now, at Peet's, the total segment delivered sales growth of 12.3%, driven by both volume and mix and pricing. The CPG business continued to deliver solid single-digit organic sales growth despite a tough year-over-year comparison, resulting in a two-year CAGR of nearly 20%. On the away from home side, Peet's coffee stores experienced a strong pickup in same-store sales growth as the U.S. started to reopen over the course of the year, while the other away from home channels were still impacted by relatively low returns to offices. Adjusted EBIT increased organically by 20.8%, largely driven by operational leverage, the recovery in away from home and disciplined cost management, which was partly offset by incremental investments to increase household penetration in CPG. Based on a two-year CAGR, the organic adjusted EBIT growth was 18.9%.
As mentioned before, in most of our out-of-home markets, lockdown measures started to be gradually eased over the course of 2021, most notably in the second half of the year, despite some reversal of easings towards the end of the year. As a result, sales in the out-of-home segment accelerated from a by and large stable level of organic sales growth in the first half of the year to 27% growth in the second half of the year. Due to these improving activity levels in various out-of-home channels and the various structural cost measures we took since the outbreak, the out-of-home segment was able to significantly improve its profitability in 2021. Let's now take a look at our underlying profit in absolute terms and per share on the next slide, which is slide 15.
Our underlying earnings per share increased by 13.7% or EUR 0.22 to EUR 1.79. As you can see on this slide, the majority of the increase was driven by operational improvements, which can be split between the increase in organic adjusted EBIT and the impact of our refinancing and deleveraging efforts throughout 2021. Next to these operational improvements, our underlying profit also benefited from the change in the net impact from fair value changes of derivatives and FX results, partly offset by a somewhat higher underlying tax rate of 25%, which we estimate to be at a similar level in full year 2022. Let me now share a bit more detail on our free cash flow and net debt developments.
As you can see on this slide, in 2021, our business delivered a total free cash flow of close to EUR 1.4 billion, an increase versus last year, which brings our average cash conversion, which is our free cash flow after CapEx, as a percentage of EBITDA over the last three years to 73%. As you can see on the right-hand side of the chart, our strong free cash flow enabled us to reduce our net debt by EUR 835 million, as we always maintain discipline across all the lines while investing in the business and adhering to our capital allocation priorities.
Now, on the next slide, which is slide 17, you see an update of our net debt evolution and how our consistently strong free cash flow generation has enabled us to reduce our net debt by more than EUR 2.2 billion since the end of 2019. We continued our steady path of leverage reduction in 2021, bringing net leverage down to 2.67 x, a further reduction of over a half a turn during the course of the year, which positions us well on our path to an optimal leverage level of around 2.5 x.
Next to that, as you can see on slide 18, we have substantially strengthened our financial position and capital structure in 2021 through the initial refinancing back in March and the subsequent euro and dollar bond issuances we did over the course of the remainder of the year at very compelling terms, as you can see on this slide, as we took advantage of the historically low interest rate environment. As a result, our average cost of debt has halved to 1.2%. Our weighted average maturity was extended by about four years to six years, and our total liquidity basically doubled to EUR 2.1 billion at the end of 2021. As of the end of the year, we have no bank loans outstanding.
Before handing back to Fabien, I'd like to briefly remind you of our capital allocation priorities and share the board's dividend proposal with you. Therefore, moving to slide 19. Our capital allocation framework guides us as we create long-term value. Our first capital allocation priority is to reinvest in our brands and the growth opportunities within our business. Our second priority is to deleverage as we target an optimal leverage of around 2.5 x. Our third priority is to continue to pursue inorganic growth opportunities, but always in line with our highly selective business and financial criteria. Our fourth priority is to use excess cash to contribute to shareholder remuneration through stable dividend flows that we expect to sustainably grow over time. While our leverage is above our optimal leverage of around 2.5 x, we do not prioritize share repurchases.
If you look at the actions we have taken in 2021, you will see that they are very consistent with our capital allocation priorities, which we first shared with you during our Capital Markets Day back in March. On the next slide, lastly, based on our capital allocation priorities, our dividend policy, and our financial performance in 2021, the board will propose to the AGM in May to pay a dividend related to full year 2021 of EUR 0.70 per share in cash, to be paid similar to last year's dividend in two installments of EUR 0.35 each in July 2022 and January 2023. Let me now hand back to Fabien for the outlook before we open the call for Q&A.
Thanks, Scott. Let's now turn to slide 22 to remind you on our medium- to long-term target and share our thinking around the outlook for the full year of 2022. We have made solid progress in 2021 and have really strengthened the company in many areas in a year in which the world was again faced with a very challenging environment. Although we do not expect that uncertainty and volatility story around us will go away anytime soon, we remain confident and committed to our long-term algorithm of 3%-5% organic sales growth, mid-single-digit organic adjusted EBIT growth, a free cash flow conversion of around 70%, and stable dividend flows, which we expect to sustainably grow over time, as Scott just alluded to.
Now, when it comes to 2022, it goes without saying that we believe the biggest element we will face this year is the unprecedented level of inflation across many input costs and the related volatility and uncertainty that comes with it. Within this context, we expect to deliver double-digit organic sales growth as we will be disciplined to price for inflation. We'll aim for a stable level of absolute gross profit compared to last year. We will also continue to increase our investment where we see fit in our strategic growth opportunities while keeping a tight focus on other cost items, and we aim to deliver free cash flow of at least EUR 1 billion in 2022. I would like to conclude today's presentation with the following messages here.
I think we have made good progress on our new strategic priorities, and the performance in 2021 was very strong and well-balanced. Beyond the financial delivery, I am very pleased by the way it was achieved, which makes it standing out in my view and a pivot to recent years' performance. We closed 2021 being a stronger and nimbler company with a structurally higher growth profile, with greater operational discipline, and with a solidified capital structure. We realize how fortunate we are to operate in a very attractive and resilient category of coffee and tea, with a powerful and unique portfolio of brands, which gives me confidence that JDE Peet's can successfully navigate this year of inflation in 2022. With that, I will now turn it over to the operator to start the Q&A.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we're now ready to take your questions. If you wish to ask a question, please press zero one on your telephone keypad. That's zero one on your telephone keypad to ask a question. Please remember that you're limited to one question and a follow-up per round. Our first question comes from the line of David Hayes from Soc Gen. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Good morning, all. There's two questions from me. The first one on the gross profit and the margin. The second one on AMP. On the gross profit and the margin, just taking the math on the outlook, 10% plus top line growth, flattish target for gross profit absolute, which I guess on the math looks like a 450-500 basis points gross margin deduction. I just wanna check that's the right interpretation of the numbers and that logic is sensible. The second question, just on the AMP uplift, you obviously spent that money that you talked about spending, at AMP went up as a percentage of sales.
Is that likely to be repeated in 2022, or is the AMP level now at a level that you think is to be sustained moving forward as a % of sales? Thanks so much.
Yeah. Thank you, David. Let me start, and Scott can build on. Maybe I can start with the AMP side, and Scott can talk about more the gross profit margin. You know, we are very clear that we have almost two agendas for this year. One, we will navigate and we will overcome the headwind of inflation. At the same time, we want to ensure we keep course on focusing on our long-term growth opportunities because we know it's what create value over time. This year, our portfolio have been proving having the ability to respond extremely well to this investment. Of course, we will be responsible, and we'll continue to invest when we see good incremental return.
I mean, we don't want to spend just for the sake of spending, the level of investment. I think where I'm very, very pleased with 2021 is if I look at the exit rate of the year or the second part of the year, we have now already spent more on the second part of 2021 than we had even back then on the second half of 2019. We have really reset that level of investment. It was not fully the case in H1, but now we are really on the run rate for H2, in particular on the working media side and in particular on the appliance side, which is a very important component when you are a coffee player with a continued increase on single serve.
To your question on how much would be the increase on that next year, I think at this stage it's a bit difficult to answer. As I've said, we will be responsible, but when we see opportunity, we'll continue to do that. Definitely the biggest, I mean, the reset is done by now. I think that's probably the best indication I could give at this stage.
Sure. Maybe on your, I'll take the other second question, which was the first question in terms of evolution of margin and related to the gross profit outlook that we gave. I mean, we obviously focus away a bit on margin percentage, given especially during times of inflation and also just a function of the category as you know and as we've talked about in the past. In terms of our 2022 outlook, what we said is double-digit organic sales growth. You were saying there, I think, I believe a minimum of 10%, and so agree there. Also stable absolute gross profit. Not guiding to a particular margin percentage.
Really what we're doing is the way that we operate the business, and that's to make sure that we protect and drive our absolute gross profit, which we will continue to do, and that was the spirit of the outlook that we gave. Nothing specific in terms of basis points on the margin. Hopefully that answers your first question.
Thank you.
The next question comes from the line of Tom Sykes from Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.
Yeah, good morning, everybody. Firstly, just I wonder if you could expand on any elasticity assumptions and the double-digit growth and maybe just further to that, whether you're seeing different variances in elasticity across categories, so beans, roast and ground, single-serve instant. Then just on the operational leverage in the out-of-home business, is that sort of fully up to where it should be now, or is there more operational leverage that can come? Indeed, what does that business really look like now versus pre-pandemic, and what will it look like when it's at a more stable run rate, please?
Yes, good morning, Tom. Let me start with the elasticity question. I mean, we know, historically, as I've been alluded to earlier, coffee is really at the bottom of the elasticity curve. We have seen in the second part of 2021 an increased level of pricing across most of the geography, not all of them, but most of them. So far, we have seen consumer being very resilient to this, to this inflation, which had always been our belief. We see that actually across all the category. We do not see really a category more or less inelastic than some others, which of course is reassuring.
On your second point on the out-of-home, we have been very pleased with our recovery. It had been exactly on where we have been anticipating it in about 18 months ago. If you recall, we said that we believe it would take two to three years, with even very likely at the end, maybe only a 95% recovery curve, pre-pandemic level. That's why we have very quickly worked on adjusting our cost structure. I mean, we let go a few hundred of our teams. I think we are very pleased with quite significant improvement on the profitability line. I think the job is not over.
I think we do still have opportunity that will be benefiting from the full year effect of all the actions we have been taking, but as well continuing to benefit from the recovery of the away-from-home. If I look at the full year of 2021, we were at about 75% of pre-pandemic level. In Q4 at the exit rate, around 80-85%. Which leaves still room, in my view, for opportunity for next year in particular.
Okay. Many thanks, Fabien.
The next question comes from the line of Jon Cox from Kepler Cheuvreux. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Good morning, guys. I have a Q&A question really back to what David was saying on the gross profit and your guidance for absolute gross profit. You said clearly that you think that consumers can take the double-digit sales increases that you will need. I think in my model, you probably need some 18%, 19% pricing. I'm just wondering to do a full offset, I'm just wondering why aren't you doing that rather than you know, you seem to be indicating maybe 10 or 11 or 12 or something like that, if you believe that you know, consumers you know, will accept some of those prices. I'm just wondering if you're holding a little bit back, you're worried about you know, maybe pricing activities in the market, or you're thinking about acting strategically.
I'm just wondering what your thought process, you know, behind that is. Then the sort of second question as a follow-up, just on the free cash flow, a fantastic print, EUR 1.3 billion. I think there's a lot of EUR 500 million in flow from the payables. You know, how long can you sort of do that? What are your thoughts on payables for this year, you know, given some of the trade financing and things like that you use? Thank you.
Good morning, John. Let me take the first one and Scott can take the one on cash flow. I think your question was more on our thought process on the outlook and the calibration of it. You've been quoting some number, but I think besides the fact that the magnitude of inflation for next year keep evolving, so it's very difficult to quote precisely what it's gonna be in 2022. I trust that you will appreciate that being a pure player on coffee and tea, everyone is watching us, is listening to what we say, and it is a very commercially sensitive information whenever we'll have to talk about the absolute level of inflation or pricing or hedging.
We'll have to be very, very careful of what we can say. But let me come back more to the thought process of the outlook, and I hope, I trust I will answer most of the questions you were having. What we like is to give guidance on what we have a high degree of certainty, because we want to be known to deliver on our commitment, which I think we have been well proving that in 2021. We are in a year where there is still a combination of a very high level of inflation, quite a lot of uncertainty. There is quite a lot of volatility attached to it, and we are only at the beginning of the year.
We need to ensure we are gonna get some variability a bit more fixed on the outlook. We decided instead to be very transparent actually on the way we are navigating the company, the framework we use internally, and how we are aligning and mobilizing the entire organization, which is one, we will overcome the headwinds of inflation, which requires very disciplined pricing. At the same time, we will continue to focus in the long term on growth, and that's why we have been talking more about increasing the investment. I think that should give a pretty good framework on where we see the year.
I can talk a bit later. I'm sure we'll have a question on why I am confident we can really navigate 2022 as far as inflation is concerned. It was very important to us that we are protecting our absolute growth profits. I mean, I am obsessed by margin, and I know that is the only way we can sustain and increase investment for growth on the long term. We have amazing portfolio of brands that will be a waste to cut investment on short term just to manage inflation. I think it will be even not responsible from our side to do so. Of course, we'll do that with good reason.
We think, having been giving guidance on double-digit organic sales growth, highlight very strongly our confidence in pricing to that level, but as well, our ability to manage inflation. But as well, a good framework guidelines with growth profits, but as well with free cash flow at the same time.
John, on your second question in regards to the free cash flow performance in 2021 and in regards to working capital and specifically on payables. Yeah, so we're very pleased with our you know, once again, strong free cash flow performance. I mean, delivering over EUR 1.3 billion of free cash flow. I think that's a testament to the what we talked about in terms of the underlying fundamentals of the business and stability of the business to be able to consistently deliver over EUR 1 billion of free cash flow, which we expect to continue. When we look at the drivers of that, I mean, yes, once again, working capital was a strong contributor as it has consistently been the case over the last few years.
This is really about continuous improvement. We did have an improvement in DPO. This primarily came from mix and also higher spend. For example, you know, we spent more on strategic investments, A&P, for example, and we did not have any change in coffee terms in this underlying performance on DPO. We did improve our DPO overall. At the same time, we also improved our DSO. We reduced our DSO. We did have some small headwind in terms of DIO that increased a little bit, and that was very intentional. Also driven by higher prices on inventory in terms of inventory costs, but also being a bit conservative in terms of managing during this period of challenging supply chain disruptions.
Just one other thing to note, I mean, on them, and we'll disclose that at another point, but I can tell you that supply chain financing did not increase in 2021. Actually, it is at a lower level than it was versus 2020 in 2021. Hopefully that answers your question there.
Just on the EUR 1.3, you're just talking about EUR 1 billion. Are you just being a bit conservative then, or what is the thought process on the lower, you know, substantially lower free cash flow this year?
Yeah. I mean, we said EUR 1 billion plus, so we'll be over EUR 1 billion. You know that we always strive to deliver very good cash conversion, and that will continue to be the case.
Okay, great. Thanks so much, guys.
Sure.
The next question comes from the line of John Ennis from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.
Hello, everyone. Can I ask about the European market share performance, please? I guess when we look at the Nielsen data that we have access to, the market share picture looks less positive than the data you have highlighted, at least at the group level. Can you help with explaining these differences? Is it a case that, say, in Europe, sorry, your share performance is maybe more negative, but that's being offset by other regions? Or is it something else altogether? Would love to just hear what the differences are from your perspective. Thank you.
Yes. Good morning, John. Let me take this one. Before entering specifically on Europe, I want to give a couple of precisions on market share. Because I know there is a lot of attention, and we look at it too. We don't look at market share on a month-by-month basis, in particular in the category at the moment when you see inflation. What matters to us is really, I would say, the evolution of our market share rather than not only one period, which could be affected by a different level of promotions, for instance. That's an important one. The second point I would highlight is most are looking at European market share because they have not much available data on total company.
That's why we wanted to be very transparent once again on our total market share because JDE Peet's is not only Europe. Of course, Europe is an important component to us. The last thing before answering your question is, because we are expanding our business into new channel, for instance, I'm thinking about e-commerce in particular. What is happening is the coverage of Nielsen is becoming at a much lower level than what it was historically. Historically, Nielsen was covering about 85% of our business. If I look now, we're now talking around 70%. We should be a bit mindful to not sometimes overread purely on market share and even less only on the subset of the market share.
To be very transparent to your questions, in Europe, we have been having areas at a country level where we have been gaining shares, somewhere we have not. We have had categories where we have been gaining shares, and I'm thinking of aluminum capsules in markets like France, for instance, somewhere it was less the case. Most of the cases where we have not been gaining shares is because we've made the intentional choice to not participate in what we would call value destruction promotions.
Net, net, we have had, although it's very small, but a very tiny market share of erosions to be fully transparent in Europe, which was more than compensated with market share gain in Europe, in Latin America, in Eastern Europe, in Africa, for instance. What is encouraging is if we look at the market share as we exit the year 2021, even in Europe, they are more on the upside. This is the answer to your question, John.
That's very helpful. Thank you very much.
The next question comes from the line of Robert Vos from ABN AMRO. Please go ahead.
Yes. Hi, good morning. I have two questions. Yeah, regarding your guidance, double-digit organic sales growth is obviously a rather broad concept. My question would be also to get a bit of a sense, the pricing needed, do you expect growth to be closer to the 10% than the 20%? That's my first question. My second one, also related to guidance. You target for a stable absolute level of gross profit, that's very clear. However, I assume that below the gross profit line, there's cost inflation as well. My question would be whether or not you think you will be able to match the 2020 EBIT, EUR 1.2 billion in 2022, particularly because you have not provided the EBIT guide for the current fiscal year. Thank you.
I think, Robert, the line was really not great. I think I picked up you had a question, the first one being on growth. Is it more around 10% or 20%? Quoting you. The second one was on the stability of absolute gross profit. How do we manage inflation, besides the coffee, I guess, or other lines?
Whether you can sustain EBIT at the absolute level?
Okay. We can sustain it. Let's start on the first one. I believe I've probably already answered the first question or is our growth gonna be 10% or 20%, in the fact that it's really an information which is really too sensitive, especially at the time we are still in the middle of some negotiations. Maybe what I can give, maybe a positive tone to it, as one of the few reason I'm pretty confident is we have not left all the inflation impact and related price increase to happen in 2022. We've started already anticipating price increase in 2021. We talked about a bit more than 4% in H2.
We have really exited the year of 2021 at a higher level, almost close already to high single digit price inflations, because we could really anticipate that in geography like Latin America or Eastern Europe or North America. We know we still have quite a lot to do, especially in Europe. We can't really talk more in detail on your questions. I think on the stability of the gross profits, similarly, sorry, it was on the EBIT.
We have talked really about gross profit, which we believe we will work on at all levels: operational leverage, mix, efficiencies, but also with, of course, inflation, which will be the biggest gain. But we will not, I'd say, manage the bottom line by cutting our investment for long-term growth. Having said that, we'll do that, of course, in a very, very reasonable way. We are doing a lot of work as we speak to analyze in detail the efficiency of all the investment we have been putting in 2021, and because we want to make every euro count before even spending more.
Some other line on the SG&A, it's where we have been proving to be extremely disciplined this year, and we'll continue to do so. I really can't go much beyond this to your question.
All right. That, that's very clear. Thank you.
The next question comes from the line of Martin Deboo from Jefferies. Please go ahead.
Morning, everybody. Martin Deboo, Jefferies. Fabien, I just want to push you a bit harder on the second part of Robert's question we've just had. You know, you traditionally guide to organic EBIT growth. That is how you've historically focused and your medium-term guidance is framed around that. That's off the table this year and you're just going for gross profit guidance. You've said quite rightly, it's a year of uncertainty. Actually, to my eyes, the biggest uncertainty for you this year is the interplay between coffee inflation, pricing and volume elasticity. You're actually saying you've got pretty good visibility of all that, and you're locking in gross profit guidance at flat. Slightly paradoxically, what you're suggesting is the biggest uncertainty is what's happening to your SG&A line because you don't feel able to guide to organic EBIT growth.
I guess my question is just what is the uncertainty on the SG&A line that means you're having to take EBIT guidance off the table this year?
Yeah. Thank you, Martin. I appreciate you trying to clarify the question which was raised earlier. I would really reiterate the key point I made, which is we really want to give guidance on where we have a high degree of certainty or high level of confidence. Really, top priority is managing gross profit pricing. For the rest, I've said we have two agendas, managing inflation, but at the same time, continue to seed long-term growth. Growth requires investment. We have been showing it this year, we have been proving it very successfully. So either on continuing to seed more coffee appliances, which is becoming critical to sustain long-term growth on single serve.
Is it gonna be on continuing to be successful in China? I think in China, our numbers are standing out, if you would benchmark them. Similarly, in the U.S., we are only at 6% household penetration on the fantastic brand, which is Peet's. That requires investment. We are as well expanding our store footprint in China. We historically had the ambition to open 150 stores. You know how much we have been accelerating by being already at almost half of that this year. We know all these growth areas are accretive on our top line, are accretive on our margin over time, so we don't want to fall short of this investment, which we know is the best thing to do for the company in the long term.
That's why we have been guiding on the key parameters for 2021 being the absolute gross profit, continuing to increase investment, that we will calibrate during the year pending on how things would settle, given all the uncertainty that we are facing. We'll do that in a very responsible way for 2022 and for the future growth and value creation of the company.
Okay, thanks, Fabien. Thank you.
We have time for one more question from the line of Celine Pannuti from JP Morgan. Please go ahead.
Yes, thank you very much for taking my question. Probably I'll start with Europe, CPG Europe. I think it was about flat in H2. Could you give the split between volume and volume mix and pricing here? I presume the related question is on capsules. Your market share at the global level went negative. Is that the case as well in Europe? What have been, you know, if you could talk about, you know, the competitive launches that we've seen, for instance, on the Nescafé brand, how do you think that could impact your price positioning in the European market?
Maybe just lastly, to respond to what you just said, you increased investment by EUR 110 million in 2021 to go through all the points you just mentioned, the appliance, China, U.S. Maybe you don't want to give a number, but we should expect that another step up is on the table, sorry, for 2022. Thank you.
Yes. Good morning, Celine. You had a couple of questions. In Europe, volume mix, shares, aluminum capsules, and overall A&P to ensure I answer all of them. I think we have actually been very pleased with our performance in Europe in H2. Of course, we are still at a time of the year where it is not that easy to benchmark versus previous years, given all the effect on the pandemic and the impact between in-home and away-from-home. In H2 in Europe, we have already started to price. We have been using what is the most common way to increase price, which is to reduce our promotional intensity.
When you do that, of course, you have a bit of a lower volume effect, as well as, if you take on a short-term basis, some small market share erosions, and we have had, but very tiny, as I've been saying. It was mostly around, I would say end Q3, beginning Q4. If I look at the market share of Europe as we exited the year, they were on the upside compared to the quarter before.
On the other question on market share on aluminum capsules, I think it's where we feel very comfortable and confident on our consumer propositions. If I look at our market share between H2 and H1, for instance, on the aluminum capsules, it increased by 4.2 basis points. I'm sorry, 20 basis points to be fully transparent. Which means that we know we are still doing very well. We have really, if you look despite some of the competitive set you have been quoting earlier, we have been protecting our market share above the 41%-42% level, which makes us the market leader in the space. We have been growing overall in...
I mean, we've not quoted exactly that level, but I can guarantee you we grew on a high single digit level on our aluminum capsules in 2022. To your question on A&P, as I've said a bit earlier, the reset of investment is behind us. It was very important that we were catching up, and I'm very pleased to see that in H2 we are already at a higher level than what we were before the pandemic, so it gives me a lot of reassurance. I don't want to quote a number, but if there would be any increase, it will be, of course, extremely reasonable and without comparison to the EUR 110 million increase we have been doing overall on growth, of which about EUR 90 million was purely for A&P.
Thank you.
Thank you very much. Now I'd like to return the call to Fabien. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Thank you very much, Nazanin. So I don't have a particular prepared remark to conclude today's earnings call, other than reiterating that we are operating in one of the most attractive category in the food and beverage space, and we are very fortunate with that. We know that JDE Peet's has all what it takes to be successful on the long run, including in years of disruptions. I mean, we proved that in 2021, and we really intend to prove that as well in 2022. Thank you again for joining us. Scott, Robin, and I are looking forward to speaking with you in the next days ahead. Stay all well, safe, and have a good rest of the day. Thank you.
Thank you.
This now concludes JDE Peet's earnings call. Thank you all for attending. You may now disconnect your lines.