Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Danone First Quarter 2022 Sales Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speakers' presentation, there'll be a question-and-answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star one on your telephone. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. If you require any further assistance, please press star zero. I would now like to hand the conference over to your first speaker today, Mathilde Rodie, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Good morning, everyone. Mathilde Rodie speaking, Head of Investor Relations at Danone. Thank you for being with us this morning for Danone's Q1 sales call. I'm here with our CFO, Juergen Esser, as we go through some prepared remarks before taking your questions in the second step. Before we start, I draw your attention on the disclaimer on page two related to forward-looking statements and the definition of financial indicators that we'll refer to during the presentation. With that, let me hand over to Juergen.
Thank you, Mathilde, and good morning, everyone, and welcome to our Q1 results call also from my side. I hope you are all well and safe. It's only a few weeks ago that we shared our new strategic plan called Renew Danone, and today's Q1 release is very much in line and consistent with what we discussed with you on the eighth of March in Evian, making this year, 2022, a foundational year for our company. You will see as I guide you through the details of the Q1 results that the financial disclosure is now first time adapted to our new organization, and therefore our reporting structured by geographic macro zone, while we are maintaining also the category reporting to provide maximum transparency on our performance. With that, little introduction, let's now get started on page 2 with the concrete key figures of our Q1 performance.
It's great to report that we had a good start into this year, 2022. We delivered +7.1% sales growth on a like-for-like basis. There's a contribution from both price, but also from volume and mix. As expected, our growth was more price-led, adding as much as +4.9% in this quarter. At the same moment, volume and mix had also combined positive contribution of +2.2% this quarter, with resilient volumes across geographies and a strong contribution from product as well as from country mix. Our teams did a remarkable job bringing those Q1 results home, despite the particularly challenging operating environment, first and foremost, with the direct and indirect consequences of the terrible war in Ukraine, but also with the continued supply chain challenges across geographies, and more recently, with the impacts of COVID-related city lockdowns in China.
In this complex environment, input cost inflation remains obviously a key point of focus. Global commodity indexes have continued to be extremely volatile, with lots of ups and downs over the recent days and weeks. Yet, so far, not changing our full year estimates, not changing the guidance on inflation that we shared in Evian just a few weeks ago. Going deeper into this Q1 performance of +7.1% net sales growth on slide number 3, you will see that all zones and all categories contributed to this result. Let me remind you that you will find in the appendix of this presentation the full growth metrics of geographies times categories, providing you with a very granular reading of our top line dynamics.
Looking at it through the lens of our macro zones, both Europe as well as North America delivered another quarter of strong mid-single-digit growth, maintaining the solid momentum which they have now shown since many quarters. Our China and North Asia zone delivered an exceptional +15.3% growth in the quarter, driven by another strong competitive performance in specialized nutrition in China, something I will come back to in a few minutes. Finally, the rest of the world zone that grew +7% in the quarter, notably driven by another strong quarter in Latin America and Southeast Asia. From a category perspective, EDP is consistently delivering quarter-` by- quarter with 3.6% growth in this Q1, with both the Dairy segment as well as the Plant-based segment growing solidly.
We can report strong market share performances, especially for some of our star brands like Actimel, Evian, Oikos or International Delight. But this quarter has also confirmed that we have clear opportunities to step up competitiveness in other brands, namely with Activia, as we are not yet delivering at its full potential. Specialized Nutrition grew +9.5%, and it's worth noting that all sub-categories were contributing to its growth, from Core Milks to pediatric specialties to diet nutrition. Market shares are globally well-oriented, notably driven by our platforms in China, but also Indonesia, and particularly by our Aptamil brand, which continues to drive strong competitive performances. Finally, our Waters category that delivered +15.9% growth this quarter, driven by a further recovery in Europe and accelerated consumption rebounds in Latin America and Indonesia.
Our brands are winning in the marketplace, especially in Europe with Evian and Volvic, while Mizone confirmed the stabilization of its market shares also in this first quarter of the year. Moving on to the next slide. In order to address the heavy inflation on our cost of goods sold, we have been activating the full playbook of mitigation actions over the last couple of weeks and months. It starts with revenue growth management and pricing that had a +4.9% positive contribution this quarter. As of today, we have passed price increases across all our categories and all our geographies. In some geographies, we even passed already several subsequent price increases. For Europe, we closed commercial negotiations with most price increases hitting our P&L from the end of Q1 onwards.
We are continuously monitoring the situation and are preparing ourselves to possibly go for further pricing rounds should we need it. Beyond pricing, we continue to drive product mix to the max, pushing the winners in our portfolio, but we are also rolling out our most promising premium innovations with speed and discipline. Q1 has clearly demonstrated the opportunity ahead of us, with product mix contributing positively in each of the three categories. Last but not least, we are obviously putting a lot of effort to deliver another year of record high productivity. As we shared a few weeks ago at our capital market event, the ambition is to deliver higher productivity than in the year 2021 through the enhancement of product specifications and formulation, through optimization of our go-to market and supply chains, as well as by driving more efficiency in sourcing and manufacturing.
I'm happy to report that our teams in charge of operations are doing a fantastic job and are delivering on their commitment. It means we are well on track to deliver upon our full year productivity targets. Let's now have a look at the performance of each zone in more detail, starting with our largest zone in itself, Europe, on slide number 5. Europe registered a strong start to the year, reaching +5.7% in Q1, with a contribution from volume and mix up +3.1% and price up +2.6%. From a category perspective, this strong performance was led by specialized nutrition, which registered high single digit growth, thanks to an increasing level of demand from customers and consumers, of course, also benefiting from a relatively low base of last year.
The waters category grew again double-digit also in this quarter, confirming its sequential recovery with great market share performances, especially of the Evian, but also the Volvic brands. While EDP delivered a softer Q1, with plant-based growing low single-digit and Dairy in flattish territory on the elevated demand basis of Q1 2020 and 2021, while being exposed to continued supply chain challenges. From a country perspective, worth noting that France delivered a good quarter, led by double-digit growth in several brands, including Actimel, Alpro, but also by Aptamil and Evian, with market share gains across the board. The U.K. business also posted strong growth in Q1, driven by Aptamil and Fortimel in specialized nutrition, but also with strong performances in Activia, Actimel and Volvic. Finally, the growth dynamic was a bit softer in Spain.
Good momentum in specialized nutrition, waters and plant-based was offset by a weaker performance in Dairy in this Q1. Net-net, a good start of the European zone into the year. Moving to slide 6 and to North America. We delivered another strong quarter of growth with revenues up +5.5% on a like-for-like basis. I would like here to particularly highlight the quality of the growth which the team delivered this quarter. We achieved the +5.5% growth with positive contribution from volume, mix, as well as price. Our brands and categories are enjoying robust consumer demand, building on the strong deployment of our growth strategy and thanks to a further enhanced excellence in execution from core brand growth and innovation to revenue growth management and finally improved in-store execution.
Yet, especially in North America, we are still facing supply chain challenges, although the situation seems to start stabilizing as service levels have been improving for the quarter, bringing us sequentially back to a more competitive situation. Looking at the growth composition of this Q1, it was driven by all categories. In yogurt, it was led by Greek with Oikos and Two Good probiotics with Activia and kids with Danimals. In plant-based, growth was driven by our adjacencies like yogurt, creamers and cheese. While on plant-based beverages, we have seen an improved momentum in both growth and competitiveness. Both almond and soy delivered good growth and gained market shares on their respective segments, while oats delivered strong double-digit growth. Finally, creamers that delivered a particularly strong quarter driven by International Delight. Let's now move on to page seven to discuss the performance of our China and North Asia zone.
Like-for-like growth reached +15.3%, almost entirely driven by volume and mix that were positive at +13.2%. In China, infant milk nutrition has obviously been a strong contributor to that performance, growing mid-teens on a low base of year 2021. When double-clicking on this IMF performance by channel, we have seen following dynamics. First, domestic channels with our China labels posted again a strong quarter, growing well in the mid-teens range. Second, our international labels sold in controlled cross-border e-commerce platforms delivered again a very strong quarter of growth. Third, the performance of before mentioned controlled e-commerce platforms did largely offset the further decline of our uncontrolled indirect sales realized through Daigous and friends and family.
Importantly, to sum up. We closed the quarter with another strong market share performance on both China and international labels, which bodes well for the resilience of our Chinese infant milk nutrition platform moving forward. Outside infant milk formula, the special pediatric solutions and diet nutrition portfolios delivered a strong quarter of growth, both well into double-digit territory and ahead of the growth numbers of comps. Finally, Mizone closed the quarter slightly negative compared to last year. While market shares and fundamental consumer and distribution KPIs continue to be well-oriented, the growth in this Q1 was impacted by city lockdowns, limiting temporarily our ability to produce and ship our product in some areas of China. Let's now move on to slide 8, to the rest of the world zone that delivered +7% like-for-like net sales growth this quarter.
I could not start to review the performance of this zone without mentioning the terrible war in Ukraine. Obviously, we operate there in a highly disrupted environment, and we do everything we can to support our colleagues impacted on the ground. From a business perspective, our platforms in CIS registered double-digit net sales growth in the quarter. Yet this was entirely driven by price, while our volumes are significantly down. More concretely, in Russia, the volume decline is a consequence of the fact that we operate under restricted conditions, as we announced several weeks ago, combined with a very challenging macroeconomic context. In Asia, Indonesia delivered high single digit growth this quarter, led by the recovery of mobility that benefited our Aqua water brands.
Latin America also delivered strong mid-single digit growth in the quarter, led by Mexico, where EDP delivered strong mid-single digit growth with stable volumes and where waters grew double digits. Finally, platforms in Africa and Middle East deliver mid-single digit growth with a strong contribution from EDP, while specialized nutrition registered a soft Q1 on a very high base of last year. To sum it up, let's now take a look at our Q1 net sales bridge and turning to the next slide number 9. Let's start with the composition of our +7.1% like for like growth. As mentioned, growth was led by price, up +4.9% in the context of global pricing initiatives all around the world.
At the same time, our volume and mix components remained resilient with a positive contribution of +2.2%, thanks to a solid contribution from product and country mix, while volumes were slightly negative this quarter. Outside of the like for like, currency and others had a positive impact of +3.4%, mostly driven by +2.2% tailwind from currency effect. This reflects the appreciation of several currencies against the euro, notably in the U.K., in the U.S., in Asia, and in Latin America. Next to the currency, scope had a slightly negative effect of -0.2%, mainly resulting from the combined effect of the integration of Follow Your Heart and the disposal of the Vega brand.
All in all, reported growth stood at +10.2% for the quarter, bringing our quarterly net sales to roughly EUR 6.2 billion, up from EUR 5.7 billion in Q1 last year. Moving on to the next slide 10, and looking at the remainder of the year, we continue to expect like for like growth within the 3%-5% range and recurring operating margin to be above 12%. We've been rather precise on the different moving parts just a few weeks ago at the occasion of our Capital Market event, and they remain very much the same. We continue to see input cost inflation around mid-teens levels, with broad-based inflation from milk and other ingredients, packaging materials, manufacturing and transportation costs.
Against that backdrop, we are preparing ourselves to deliver productivity on our cost of goods sold above last year, above 5%, while aiming to deliver strong pricing contributions ahead of what we saw already in Q4 last year. Importantly, we are confirming that we are starting our reinvestment journey, aiming to reinvest 100% of the Local First savings in the spirit of the strategy unveiled at the CME. I will close my prepared remarks with chart number 11. Our strategic plan, Renew Danone, is now in motion and the whole company is set to making this year, 2022, the foundational year it ought to be for Danone, bringing our company back to a sustainable, profitable growth model to sustainable value creation.
While we have been starting well into this year, we are focusing with Antoine and the whole executive committee on the implementation of our strategic roadmap, shifting the gears in managing our portfolio in the most value creative manner, boosting our winners as much as we can, accelerating the core while fixing our underperformers with determination. This is supported by the start of our reinvestment program, thanks to the savings generated by Local First. We are obviously mindful of the particularly challenging environment we navigate through, but we do also feel very energized by our plans, which provide a great north star to deliver on our targets. With that, let me hand it over back to Mathilde to start the Q&A session.
Thank you. Thank you, Juergen. We'll start the Q&A session with Celine Pannuti from JP Morgan.
Thank you. Good morning, Juergen. Good morning, Mathilde. My two questions. First of all, I wanted to talk about the EDP and the volume mix there that was negative. I would like to a bit deconstruct that because it seems that there are some what I would call one-off, so logistic and supply chain, if you could talk about that. But as well, what have you seen in terms of elasticity, and how big was the contribution from Russia on that negative mix? And I'm sorry, another one is on the mix, are you starting to see a benefit from your innovation?
Yeah, if you could a bit help us understand how this has moved into one and what may not be recurrent as we look in the remainder of the year. My second question is on, well, let's start with the, maybe the supply chain as well issue in emerging market on Specialized Nutrition, which was only flat in the quarter. If you could explain what has been behind that, and again how should we look at this moving forward? Thank you.
Good morning, Celine. Yes, EDP, let's start with that point. First of all, I think we can say that EDP has been delivering a very solid Q1, +3.6%. In consistency with what we have seen over the last couple of quarters, and within EDP, Dairy has been growing low- to mid-single digits, while plant-based grew mid-single digits. I think a very good performance, and I think confirming what we were discussing in terms of perspectives for the future for this category. When we decompose a bit this performance, North America, it's a bit more than +5%.
I think a very strong performance in volume, mix and price, all three aspects, and this is why I was saying that we are particularly happy with the quality of that growth in this part of the world. This is broad-based within Dairy, so it is about Oikos winning again in the marketplace. This is about Activia winning in the marketplace, a very strong performance of coffee creamers. While we have been doing now several rounds of pricing, we see also the volumes holding very robustly. I think a very good balanced performance in this part of the world. Rest of the world, very solid dynamics overall, especially driven by Africa and Mexico, where we saw volumes contributing positively.
On the other side, of course, there's a number of markets where our pricing initiatives had some impact on volumes, as expected, I would say. Here, we are particularly speaking about markets like Russia. We are speaking about markets like Turkey or Brazil, where the macroeconomic environment is the most complex. Lastly, Europe, where we had a softer Q1, definitely, in volumes and in value in EDP. Clearly here, we had a number of supply chain challenges in the middle in the moment where we were in the middle of the commercial negotiations with our customers. The situation on the supply chain has been sequentially improving, including in Spain over the last couple of weeks. We saw customer service levels coming back.
We saw pretty good competitive performance of Actimel here and also our high protein ranges in this part of the world, both with a pretty stellar performance. On the other side, we can still not be happy with a few other elements, including Activia. We know that here we still have a job to do. Overall, I would say volumes holding well in Europe and North America. Mix contributing well because we see that benefit-led products in Dairy are pulling the growth. And price is delivering across all the geographies in EDP. Very solid performance.
When it comes to specialized nutrition and the rest of the world, it's true that we had a slower start of the year, but this is really mostly driven by the very high base of comps from last year. We expect the first half performance to normalize as of next quarter, as our competitiveness remains very strong and as the markets remain to be in growth. I think here we can be very positive on the outlook, as we are very positive on the outlook across the other geographies in this category.
Can I just ask on EDP? Thank you for the very comprehensive answer. Is it possible for you to tell us what was the volume impact on Russia?
When we talk more about Russia, the volumes have been declining significantly, as I was saying. This has been overcompensated by price and by our decision to ring-fence promotional activities. The net-net of this is positive and even double-digit positive. Let's say they're growing in double digits over in Russia. Volumes are clearly significantly down.
All right. Thank you.
Thank you, Celine. The next question from Guillaume Delmas, from UBS.
Thank you, Mathilde. Good morning, all. Two questions for me. The first one, Juergen, is on your outlook, because you had a very strong start to the year, but you have not changed your like-for-like sales growth guidance for 2022. So my first question is, you just being conservative, which is probably a good thing given how volatile the environment is. Or does your 3%-5% guidance signal some, I don't know, expected slowdown in a couple of divisions? I mean, particularly Waters, Early Life Nutrition, as you begin lapping a more normal basis of comparison from Q2 or, you know, Q3 in the case of ELN, China. My second question is going back to EDP, but zooming in on plant-based products.
I mean, it seems Q1 2022 was one of the weakest quarters in plant-based since you acquired WhiteWave. Just wondering if you could shed a little bit more light on this softness. Is it all down to supply chain challenges or any other important factors we should be aware of, such as a slowdown in category growth, maybe still a few challenging countries from a market share standpoint, maybe some share losses still in the oats. Thank you.
Yeah. Good morning. Good morning, Guillaume. You are absolutely right when you are saying that we are maintaining our guidance on the top line, 3%-5%, 3%-5%, and I think the good start in the year is confirming this guidance. As you say, very important to keep in mind that Q1 of this year was the last quarter where we were running against a low base, a COVID-impacted base. From Q2 onwards, the base will be much more demanding and much more comparable, and this is true for all the categories we are playing in. Entering into Q2, we see, however, good and robust dynamics across the categories, and so we expect to be in growth also in Q2, and this is true for all the categories and all the zones.
I think key point for the year to go, as you were mentioning, Guillaume, is indeed volume elasticities. We have done a number of pricings in the different geographies. In Europe, we just implemented it, so we're just hitting the shape. It's true that the key point of attention for us is the need to manage volume elasticities moving forward. We think that the 3%-5% guidance makes a lot of sense. Moving on to plant-based, I would say a very different picture by geography. We saw good, I would say, acceleration in North America, where the supply chain challenges eased a little later.
We immediately saw the benefits of it, the benefits in terms of net sales growth, but also the benefits in terms of competitiveness, because we have been growing shares in the different sub-segments. I would say a pretty good picture. In Europe, it's a more mixed bag. In Europe, we were again constrained by a number of supply chain challenges, which didn't help the performance. It's also true that Q1 2022 is running on a very high base of comparison versus Q1 2021, which makes the category is also a bit softer than what we used to see in the previous quarter.
Last but not least, when we talk about competitive performance, I think we can be happy in a number of countries with our competitive performance, but there's also still a job to do in others, namely in the U.K. A mixed bag overall, which does not change what we have been discussing at the Capital Market Event, which is that we are very confident on the perspectives of this category moving forward, and that we are believing that we have fantastic assets to capture the growth this category is offering to us.
Thank you very much.
Thank you, Guillaume. The next question from Jon Cox, Kepler.
Yeah, thanks. Good morning, guys. A couple of questions for you. The first one really just following on from Celine and, you know, what's going on with the volume and, you know, trying to strip out the volume impact in Dairy from that situation in the Ukraine and Russia and CIS. If you look at that rest of the world segment, the volume mix is down 2.3%. I assume that last year in that segment, CIS would be about 10% of that overall business, maybe slightly lower, but somewhere around there. You seem to be saying it's down substantially, the volume. I'm just wondering how much. I guess it'll be something like 10% or 12% or even more than that?
If we strip that out, you could obviously see volume mix in that segment would be positive, excluding what's happening in the CIS? That's the first question. Second question is just really on strategy and what you're up to. You're saying, you know, going on with the strategy, but we've not seen much in terms of, you know, portfolio reshaping yet or much to that effect. However, there are quite a few reports in the French press this morning about Lactalis may be interested in parts of the business. I wonder if you can sort of just discuss where you are on strategy on that and in terms of the portfolio review, specifically in the sort of like more commoditized parts of the Dairy segment? Thank you.
Yeah. Good morning, Jon. First on the rest of the world, and the volume decline, you are absolutely right that as Russia has a significant weight within that zone, and with Russian volumes declining significantly, that it's weighing a lot on the total reported numbers. This is why I was mentioning that in the vast majority of our geographies, and this includes the rest of the world, volumes are holding very well. We have a few exceptions, and namely our Russia, Turkey and Brazil, where volumes are going down. In the vast majority of other countries, we don't see that. We see that volumes are particularly robust. I think that that's a good sign.
Still we are very vigilant, monitoring the situation, moving forward. When I say that Q1 is very much in line with the strategy unveiled at the CME, I think that when you look at the growth and the way we have been focusing our resources, I think it's extremely consistent because we have been focusing on boosting the winners and I think that's playing out very well for us and it's demonstrated in the fact that the mix is contributing, building very strongly. By the way, when I talk about mix, I speak really about product mix, which has been the main driver. Here product mix is contributing positive in each of the categories, in each of the zones.
This is not only one zone or one category which is pulling product mix. It's really across the board, and this is also I think because we are refocusing our resources where they have the biggest impact. At the same moment, we are obviously working very actively on fixing the underperformance. We have been discussing that at length a couple of weeks ago. Obviously, we take the necessary time in order to find the right solutions, fixing the business models or finding alternative solutions, and we will update you as soon as there should be something new to say.
Thank you.
Next question from Warren Ackerman from Barclays.
Morning, Juergen, Mathilde, Salim. Warren here at Barclays. Also got a couple as well. First one, Juergen, can you talk about inflation on COGS? You say in your slides mid-teens, but can you break that out? I mean, Dairy prices have surged in recent weeks. Plastic hedging, I think, has rolled over for you, but you're not changing the mid-teens guidance. So what is compensating? Related to that, can you discuss the moving parts to margin phasing H1, H2? 'Cause it seems consensus is quite even H1, H2, but I thought it would be more unbalanced in H1 versus H2. Can you help us a little bit on the moving parts? Secondly, can we dig into China infant nutrition? I mean, this is the third consecutive quarter of double-digit growth, which is very impressive.
How much of that is due to kind of channel mix benefits moving away from Daigou versus underlying share gains? You know, you are taking share. Where's that share coming from, and how long can you keep growing double-digit in China? If I can just squeeze in a third one quickly, just on supply chain challenges, are you able to say that the issue has troughed in Q1? What indicators do you have or visibility do you have that is the case? Thank you.
Yeah, good morning, Warren. Let me start with inflation. You are absolutely right that we continue to expect the COGS inflation at mid-teens level. When we were together 3, 4 weeks ago in Evian, we said in the corridor between low to mid-teens, but at the higher end of this corridor, and yes, we confirm basically that we are at the higher end of this corridor at mid to teens level. We have seen a lot of volatility in the market, in global commodity markets, a lot of ups and downs. When you look where the US dollar has been at the moment of the capital market, even I think it was more than $120. Today, we are below $110.
When you see how the SMP, so milk powder prices have evolved, even strongly up straight after we've been discussing at the CME, and now they are down exactly to the level of four weeks ago. Volatility is extremely high. Yet net-net in the moment we see our expectation are exactly the same as the expectations we had a couple of weeks ago. Highest pressure continues to come from material cost, and here especially from milk, but also from some specific ingredients like starch, and as you say, from packaging of these plastics, but also from aluminum and paper-based packaging. I would say there's not a lot of news on that front. When it comes to margin evolution H1, H2, look, we do not guide on a particular H1 margin.
From what we know today, there's a few elements. There's probably two elements which are important. One, we have on one side a tailwind from a positive category mix, and you saw a very strong performance of specialized nutrition in Q1 which we had. On the other side, we have a clear headwind. There's a progressively increasing pricing effect, especially because of Europe, where the pricing is just hitting our P&L basically from Q2 onwards. Net operating margin could be a little bit more skewed towards H2 with what we know today. So I think that's where we are today.
On your question on China, IMF, I would say indeed a very strong performance and a very strong performance in the two channels we are focusing on, which is the China label, where we are growing double digits, and we are winning in market share in very strong continuity to what we have seen in the last couple of quarters. Also very good performance in the controlled channels on e-commerce for international labels, which is, and this is the good news, offsetting the further decline of the informal channels, which is getting to a smaller and smaller weight in our total IMF net sales in China, which is now below 20%.
As we have been discussing at several occasions, we would expect that to further decrease. So net, we are winning on China labels, we are winning on international label, and we are reinvesting to making sure that the Actimel brand remains one of the key and leading brands in the market. When it comes to your last point, which is on the supply chain challenges, look, that's something where the recent weeks have been going better. When I mean going better, I think that we are back to a more competitive situation, especially in North America. However, the situation remains extremely tense, which is true on some availability of materials, but also on transport.
The recent city lockdowns in China may not have neither the global supply chain, so we are monitoring that with a lot of care. I would expect that the next couple of weeks will stay with a number of ups and downs.
Okay. Very helpful. Thank you, Juergen.
Thank you, Warren. The next question from Bruno Monteyne, Bernstein.
Hi, good morning. My first one, Juergen and Mathilde, is about the sort of pricing in Europe, which is still much below the other ones at 2.6%, well below where you'd expect it to be. Now, clearly commodities started rising a year ago in March last year, and so somehow your ability to pass through pricing in Europe seems to be well delayed. I know pricing contracts are different in Europe, but still, we're now already sort of April 2022, more than a year behind the commodity increases. Is it simply. Has something changed in Europe that simply makes it so slow to pass through pricing. Is it a change to what it would've been years ago. Are they simply refusing more because there's more private label and better discounts in Europe?
Can you sort of comment a bit more whether the level of delay in passing the price in Europe, you know, what is causing that and what has changed over time? My second question is, I think you did say somewhere during your prepared remarks that EDP Europe is off to a good start. Now, obviously at around 0% organic growth, I wonder what a bad start would have been. Given where the U.S. is in EDP Europe and versus EDP in Europe, what would be the timeline you think you would need for your innovation, you know, your restructuring plan to work to get Europe sort of out of the 0% organic growth despite having all the inflationary potential tailwinds in there? Thank you.
Yeah. Good morning, Bruno. Let's start with your first question on pricing in Europe. It's true that in Europe, we materialized a pricing of 2.5% for Q1. The reality being that this does not yet really reflect the price increases we implemented in the course of this quarter. As I said, most of the price increases will just hit the P&L from Q2 onwards. To that extent, it's not a surprise that we are below what we see in other geographies, and that we are, for example, below what we see in North America. Because in North America we implemented our price increases already at the back end of the last quarter.
I would say we are very much in line with our internal expectation of price increase in Europe. What is, I think, important to note on top of the price increase, is that we are making very good progress on driving the mix in the right direction, and this is what we are seeing in all the categories in Europe. As we are investing into our winners, we see also market share evolving in the right direction. I think there's a number of elements which go in the right direction. Yes, there are still a lot of elements to do, and we are obviously very careful and mindful of the competition from private label. When you look at the year-to-date performance of private label, interestingly, private label is not winning in the market.
Neither in most of the European market, nor in North America. As much as inflation is a topic for the industry, it's a topic for private label. As private label is usually running at very tiny margins, they have even more need of increasing their prices than branded products manufacturers. On your second question on EDP Europe, I said indeed we are off to a good start in Europe, but not in EDP Europe. I would not dare to say that with a flattish performance in Dairy. Here I think it's really a mixed bag. This is what I was mentioning. I think there's a number of good elements.
We are making good progress on boosting a number of our winners, including Actimel and including especially our high protein products, which are really delivering again a stellar performance. At the same moment, we still have homework to do, and this is not surprising. This is what we discussed at the CME on our indulgence platforms and on Activia. Here we are, we are reworking the mixes in order to make sure that we can accelerate as we go through the year.
Thank you.
Thank you, Bruno. The next question from James Edwardes Jones from RBC.
Yeah, thanks, Mathilde. Morning, Juergen. How do you assess the reputational risk that you're running by continuing to do business in Russia? Secondly, can you quantify the mix? Give us some idea of the contribution of mix in Q1 and how that compares with recent years. Actually, if I can just slip in a third one cheaply, were you surprised at the strength of Q1's performance, especially the volume performance?
Good morning, James. First, I think that we are going in the reverse order on Q1 volumes. I think it's confirming, especially for Europe and North America, that we have very strong brands and categories which are relevant to the consumer also at that moment. As we are increasing the price, it's very important that we are reinvesting into our brands. Right? This is what we have started in Q1 in order to make sure that we maintain and we get to a product superiority, and that we are supporting our brands and categories in this very inflationary environment. I think indeed a good start into the year also from a volume standpoint.
When it comes to mix, when we are saying that volume mix as a total was up by 2.2% in Q1, this volume was overall slightly down. The biggest mix contributor was product mix. I think that's indeed an element which is delivering well as we speak. While in the past it was more country centric and a lot about China and IMF, I think the good element of Q1 is that we see mix coming really broad-based in all categories and all zones, in Specialized Nutrition, a lot from the special pediatrics. I would say in Dairy, a lot through benefit-led products like Actimel. In Waters, a lot through the recovery of small formats.
It's really a broad-based mix contribution, and this is also what we want to focus on as we travel through the remainder of the year by reinvesting in our winners and reinvesting into our scalable premium innovations. When it comes to Russia, there's not a lot to say on top of what we stated already over the last few weeks. Above all, this is a tragedy and something we would hope would never happen again in Europe, and we are very clear that we strongly condemn the invasion of Ukraine by Russia with no ambiguity. I would state that our position is unchanged vis-à-vis what you have seen, and today in the press release, we are also confirming that.
I think you have also seen that we have decided to significantly adapt our operations in Russia. Obviously, we monitor the situation very closely and will let you know as soon as there's something new to say.
Thank you.
Thank you, James. The next question from Pascal Boll, Stifel
Yes. Good morning, everyone. Juergen already elaborated slightly more on the volume mix effect in plant-based. Obviously, like it was down -1.8%, but how does this apply to plant-based overall, and what is your strategy? Because in my understanding, it's a quite competitive market, and do you try to win more market share, or are you aggressively here on pricing? What's your stance? Thank you.
Good morning, Pascal. On plant-based, we are pursuing the strategy which we discussed at the Capital Market Event, which is really going for premium innovations, benefit-led innovations in that category, aimed at not only driving our plant-based mix, but also the adjacencies. Adjacencies in yogurt, in creamers, in ice cream. This is starting to work in North America. As soon as the supply chain challenges were released over the last few weeks, we were able to activate in-store our premium innovations, especially what we did with Wondermilk on Silk, but also activating our restaged propositions on oats. We saw good consumer feedback. We saw market shares going into the right direction. We saw oats growing double digits.
In Europe, on ice cream, as I mentioned, is a more mixed bag, but also because here we were under more supply chain challenges in Q1. Here we are going for the same strategy, which is differentiation and leveraging the power of our brands. I believe we are on a good track, but still there's a lot of things to do to really capture the growth the market is offering to us.
Thank you, Pascal. The last question is from Jeremy Fialko from HSBC.
Hi. Morning. I've just got one follow-up question. Could you give us a little bit more detail on the outlook for the business in China infant formula? Just to give a sense as to what degree you benefited from the low base in Q1. I guess how you think of some of the moving parts going forward in terms of, I guess, sort of pricing, mix, market share gains, but then also the effects of the lower birth rate. Just to get a bit more color on what you see for that business over the balance in Q2 and over the balance for the year? Thanks.
Good morning, Jeremy. You are absolutely right to say that Q1, as much as the last quarters of 2021, we have been benefiting from a relatively low base. This is why also we were in double-digit growth of the last quarter. What is very important is that we are not only technically benefiting from a low base, but that also competitiveness remains very strong, and I was mentioning that we are winning share in the two channels we are focusing on, China label and the controlled international e-commerce label. From Q2 onwards, we would expect a more, let's say, progressive normalization of the base of comparison. You're absolutely right. Hence, probably also a net sales trend for us that we get sequentially closer to the category momentum.
This is what we discussed also in New York a few weeks back, that from a category standpoint, and here there's absolutely no change in our view we see the category, that the category probably this year will be having a rather flattish momentum. For us, the focus is to drive the Aptamil brand and this across different channels, but not only on the core mix, which today works very well for us, but also on the diet nutrition and special pediatrics. In Q1, these two elements, diet and special pediatrics, grew faster than our core mix, and we believe that this is something we can also achieve as we move through the year. Overall, an outlook for the market which has not changed.
Overall, a comparison base which will be more demanding, but also overall, a market where we feel that we have a strong asset, and where we are going to invest as we travel through the next quarters.
Okay. Thanks a lot.
Thank you. With that, I think we end the Q&A session. Thank you everyone for your question and your presence today on that call.
Thank you very much, everybody. Have a good day. Talk to you soon.
Thank you. This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.