Mr. Chairman, dear shareholders, ladies and gentlemen, it is a pleasure for me to give you an update on Huhtamäki's performance and strategy. First, a couple of words about our core business and organization. We have a complementary packaging portfolio serving both food on the go and food on the shelf. We serve consumers through different channels: quick service restaurants, food delivery, fast-moving consumer goods, and retail. Our products offer food safety, food availability, food waste reduction, and convenience, which all are important attributes for today's consumer. Our portfolio is based on three main packaging technologies. First, the paper conversion. This is particularly for the food service packaging with products as diverse as paper cups, plates, folded cartons, wraps, bags, paper straws. Our second technology is molded fiber packaging.
Rough molded fiber to produce eggs cartons and cup carriers as examples, and then smooth molded fiber technology to produce Chinet plates, the fresh ready-meal trays, and fiber lids. Our third technology focuses on flexible packaging with expertise, particularly in demanding barrier structures that extend the shelf life of human food, pet food, and hygiene products. Huhtamäki has grown fast into a large global player in food packaging, reaching consumers across the globe from the U.S. West Coast all the way to New Zealand. We reached EUR 3.3 billion in revenues in 2020, and an adjusted EBIT of 9.1% with an operational base in 36 countries, supplying our customers from 81 factories, thanks to the great work of our 18,227 employees around the world. I am pleased now to introduce our global executive team, which has gained in diversity, including gender diversity, geographic diversity, and background diversity.
The team is composed of Arup Basu, President of Flexible Packaging, Ann O'Hara, President North America, Eric Le Lay, President Fiber Foodservice Europe-Asia-Oceania, Thomas Geust, our CFO, Thomasine Kamerling, Executive Vice President, Sustainability and Communications, Marina Madanat, Executive Vice President, Strategy and Business Development, Sami Pauni, Executive Vice President, Corporate Affairs and Legal, Teija Sarajärvi, Executive Vice President, HR and Safety, Antti Valtokari, Executive Vice President, IT and Process Performance. I'm very pleased to be able to count on this strong team to drive the business and the execution of our 2030 growth strategy. Let me give you now a quick overview of our 2030 strategy, which we launched in March 2020. In 2020, we celebrated our 100 years anniversary, highlighting an impressive legacy since 1920.
At the same time, we started our 2030 transformation journey and renewed our core values, Care, Dare, Deliver, which are true to our legacy and drive a forward-looking mindset. Going forward, as a foundation of our strategy, it is important that we recognize that the world of food packaging is facing a number of transformative trends. There are four big transformative trends that give us opportunities in food packaging: the next billion consumers, the future consumer, digitalization, and sustainability. When talking about the next billion consumers, it's good to know that the global population and global urbanization is continuing to grow. During the next 10 years, the global population will grow by 1.2 billion people to 8.5 billion people in the world. At the same time, the middle class will grow by 1.8 billion people, so more rapidly than the global population.
The next billion consumers will come from China, India, Southeast Asia, and also from Africa. All these people will need safe access to affordable food every day, and this access is enabled by food packaging. This means that being able to provide cost-competitive food packaging locally will become even more critical than today. The second trend is related to the future consumer. Consumption patterns are changing rapidly, and this will impact the types of packaging that are needed. For example, the consumer of the future will want more convenience and is very conscious of personal and environmental well-being, which means that packaging needs to be innovative, individualized, and sustainable. The third trend is digitalization. Digitalization will influence packaging and the way we do business.
Digitalization will happen in the core business, in operations and sales management, but it will also touch packaging itself. Digitalization will allow our customers, brands, and retailers to engage directly with consumers. It allows for the traceability of products and more efficient management of the end-of-life cycle of packaging. Digitalization will shape the evolution of business models. Lastly, sustainability. This is probably the most extensive and immediate transformation. Sustainability will drive innovation and collaboration through the value chain. The demand for solutions in circularity and plastic substitution are growing fast. We need to think more about circularity, as well as collection and recycling. Keeping these transformative trends in mind, we have launched our 2030 strategy a year ago. Our strategy reflects our belief in our role in protecting food, people, and the planet.
Our ambition is to be the first choice in sustainable packaging solutions, enabling wellbeing and convenience to billions of people around the world. Our strategy focuses on growth, competitiveness, and talent, while embedding sustainability in everything we do. We believe that all these strategic priorities will be driven and accelerated by digital technologies and data. Going forward, to drive sustainable growth, we will focus on four main areas, which are strongly connected and enable growth. These four pillars are competitiveness, talent, sustainability, and digitalization. We will improve our competitiveness by pursuing a world-class operational and process performance at a global and local level by creating efficient structures and by driving scale in our core business. We will develop talent. This is key for our success in the future.
We will develop the required strategic capabilities in answer to the transformation I mentioned before, such as digital business intelligence and long-term innovation. We will promote a high-performance culture. We will also develop something that we believe is extremely important, a zero accident safety culture. In this, we will be guided by our values in the way we work every day, all the time, and across the entire organization. We will embed sustainability in everything we do and in all our business decisions. In particular, we will focus on becoming world-class in ESG. We will also prioritize innovation for sustainable products. We will increase further the use of renewable materials, and we will improve our operations' carbon impact. Finally, and probably most importantly, we will drive circularity. The fourth pillar of our growth strategy is digitalization. This is the enabler and connector of all strategic initiatives.
We will accelerate the digitalization of our operations, focusing on the shop floor digitalization and all commercial processes. For this, we have a modernization plan for our IT system and infrastructures. We will also focus on digitizing our packaging with the vision that a digitalized packaging offers greater value for the value chain. It enables consumer engagement for brands and retailers, it enables product traceability, and it will enable efficient recycling at scale. Executing all these strategic priorities, we are confident to deliver on our long-term ambition, which is about creating value, both from an economic perspective and a sustainability perspective.
We aim to grow 5%+ our net sales per year, reach an adjusted EBIT margin of 10%+, keep our net debt over EBITDA ratio in the corridor between two and three, maintain our dividend payout ratio between 40%-50%, and reach our very high sustainability ambition reflected in key goals by 2030. Those key goals are 100% of products will be designed to be recyclable, compostable, or reusable. More than 80% of our raw materials will be from renewable or recycled source. 100% of fiber will come from recycled or certified sources. More than 90% of non-hazardous waste will be recycled or composted. 100% of electricity will come from renewable source, and our production operations will be carbon neutral. Our overall ambition is to be the first choice in sustainable food packaging solutions.
Let's now have a retrospective look at our performance 2020, which in the context of the pandemic crisis, has been strong. The year 2020 has been a year of external disruption and internal transformation for us. In terms of external disruption, there has been a strong disruption of the macroeconomy linked to the COVID-19 crisis. At the same time, there has been continued geopolitical tensions creating disruptions for the business in 2020. Secondly, the sustainability legislative agenda is gaining momentum across the world, and particularly in the EU, and that creates some uncertainty as well as lots of opportunities. Third, the consumption is shifting with some underlying structural shifts which have to do with increased convenience lifestyle, and as well with the search for more innovative, customized, and sustainable solutions. In this context, we have initiated some internal transformation. We have renewed our 2030 growth strategy.
We presented it early in the year 2020 and rolled out this strategy internally. There is an adaptation necessary of our product portfolio due to these consumption changes and the increased focus on sustainability. At the same time, we have been preparing for the new normal after the pandemic. This means implementing actions to improve our competitiveness, as well as investments for expansions and automation. In this context, together with our long-term strategy, we have renewed our purpose that is inspiring our day-to-day business. We believe and act to protect food, people, and the planet. 2020 has tested the resilience of our business, organization, and management, and we are happy to say that during last year, our industry, and particularly the fact that we are in food packaging, has been recognized across the entire world as an essential industry.
This has allowed us to maintain our operations open for most of the year. Our factories have been open and running 99% of the time on average in 2020. In this context, we have delivered a solid performance. With a minor decrease in net sales following the COVID-19 pandemic, however, excluding the unfavorable currency differences, our sales remained flat compared to the previous year, 2019. We increased our adjusted EBIT by 0.5 percentage points. The improvement in earnings came particularly from North America and the Fiber Packaging segments. Despite the challenging environment, we continued with investments and actually increased our investment into future growth by 10%. Our balance sheet continues to be strong, which supports our growth plans going forward. Looking at the different segments, the overall driver is the growth in the food-on-the-shelf packaging, whilst food-on-the-go was affected by the pandemic.
In North America, the development in 2020 was mixed. COVID-19 increased the demand for retail tableware and decreased the demand for food service products. Comparable growth was 1%, while the margin improved significantly, driven by a favorable sales mix, a favorable cost environment, and further operational improvements. In Flexible Packaging, the overall demand in Europe was good. However, we saw volatility in demand and disruption of the value chain in India and in the Middle East, which partially impacted growth and also earnings. For the Foods ervice Europe-Asia-Oceania segment, the impact from COVID-19 on the demand has been significant. We saw net sales decreasing 10% in 2020, and the lower level of sales and asset utilization has of course impacted earnings. We have seen a continued preference for fiber-based packaging solution, driven by sustainability considerations reflected in a trend towards plastic substitution.
The demand for fiber packaging has been strong, and the market growth has been boosted by COVID-19. Our comparable sales growth for the full year was 9%, and this was visible in the earnings as well. During the year, we have continued with investments into new capacity, for example, in Russia. As explained before, our strategy supports our ambitious 2030 sustainability goals. We are committed to inform you on a regular basis on our sustainability performance, and we monitor internally our progress on all the areas that matter for the protection of the planet. For instance, we are currently using 67% of renewable or recycled materials, whilst our ambition is to reach 80% by 2030. We want as well to have 100% of renewable electricity, and we have initiated our first activities in 2020. We also plan to increase our industrial waste recycling from 70% to 90%.
We have as well a strong plan to secure the health and safety of our employees. This is absolutely a top priority. Regarding our dividends, the annual general meeting as earlier today approved the board of directors' dividend proposal. This means that we will pay out a dividend of EUR 0.92 for 2020. The dividend will be paid in two installments, EUR 0.46 per share in May and the same amount in October. The full dividend represents a payout ratio of 47%, which is well in the range of our dividend policy, and this is the 12th consecutive year of growing dividends for Huhtamäki. Moving on to 2021, a couple of key points regarding our current trading conditions. What we have seen so far in 2021 is that COVID-19 continues to have an impact.
Following the progress in the vaccinations process and some lifting of restrictions, we have seen a gradual improvement in demand in most markets, but the development continues to be volatile. The currency exchange rate development has been unfavorable for us in the first part of the year. The negative impact from currencies really started the mid of last year, and for now, the headwind seems to be continuing. We also see that demand for food on the shelf remains solid. Our customers are looking to substitute plastic with fiber where possible. At the same time, e-commerce is the channel that drives an increasing demand. This applies to food delivery, partly offsetting the lower consumption in store and restaurants. Another remarkable aspect of the first part of 2021, this is the raw material price environment that is becoming more challenging.
This is mostly seen in polymers, where the prices were on low level last year and have lately increased significantly, but also in recycled fiber where demand has been high, particularly linked to the e-commerce and its increasing demand on protective packaging. We made progress in the first quarter of 2021. Despite the continued uncertainty in the global economy, demand for food service is gradually recovering, although it remained below normal. Our net sales amounted to EUR 802 million for the quarter. Unfortunately, currency movements had a negative impact on sales during the first quarter. Comparable growth, which excludes the impact from currencies and M&A, was flat versus last year. Our profitability improved in the first quarter by 0.9 percentage points compared to the same period last year, and this was driven by a favorable sales mix and continued focus on operational efficiency.
Our balance sheet position remains strong, supporting our growth strategy. Looking to the future, whilst we are conscious that we collectively have a key responsibility to address the overall ocean and landfill littering, we strongly believe that the value of packaging is more than its impact on the planet. This conviction is particularly supported by the significant value of packaging with regards to some critical society challenges. Packaging enables food availability to people around the world. Packaging also enables food safety and hygiene. Packaging enables reducing food waste, which is the most important environmental impact from the food systems. Our strong belief is that packaging has more value than its impact on the planet, and packaging of the future will actually do much more. The additional value that packaging will add is coming from innovation, and particularly innovation for more sustainable solutions.
In that context, we are happy to highlight how our commitment to sustainability helped us accelerate our innovation with, for instance, our Flexibles mono-material fully recyclable packaging that we launched into 2019 and deployed further in 2020. We have contributed significantly to the plastic substitution with paper and fiber-based products, like the high-quality paper straws launched in 2019, and for which we are constantly ramping up the capacity. We have very recently launched the new fiber lids replacing plastic lids. We have as well recently launched the first flexible packaging for pet food made with recycled polymer. We are determined to continue and accelerate our innovation for sustainable solutions. This is particularly important to us and embedded in our growth strategy.
We are inspired every day by the belief that future packaging will be made of renewable materials and will be recycled, and it will be produced through carbon-neutral operations. In the future, packaging will also be smart with a digital identity offering benefits to brands, consumers, and the society, for instance, providing full traceability of products and the circularity of packaging. This is what inspires us day in and day out at Huhtamäki. We believe in protecting food, people, and the planet, enabling well-being and convenience for people around the world. Thank you for your attention. Thank you for your trust.