Good morning, welcome. If we could all find our seats, please, for our next presentation. It gives me great pleasure to introduce Kerry's presentation, which we always look forward to. Kerry is a global leader in the B2B specialty ingredients market, with a consistent, strong track record of growth. In fact, you've heard a lot about reformulations this week. These are one of the leaders doing it. They've just posted another year of strong volume growth, probably not coincidentally, and market outperformance just last Tuesday, and this is underpinned by their unique positioning as an innovation and renovation partner for customers across food and beverage. Under CEO Edmond Scanlon's leadership, they've transformed into a pure-play taste and nutrition company, which has driven significant margin expansion. Joining Edmond today are Chief Financial Officer Marguerite Larkin, Vice President of Marketing for North America, Elizabeth Horvath, and William Lynch, Head of Investor Relations.
Edmond, welcome. Thank you, and take it away.
Thanks, Jonathan, and good morning, everybody, and thank you for joining us and for the people online dialing into the webcast, thank you for taking your time, and thank you for your interest. So what are we gonna look at here today? I'll begin with an overview of our business and what strategic execution means for Kerry. It boils down to two things: One, delivering on our high single-digit plus earnings algorithm through consistent volume growth and margin expansion, while at the same time, two, continue to strategically develop our business. Simple, clear, and this is what we are laser-focused on at Kerry. Next, Elizabeth will share a deep dive in our markets, which today remain highly dynamic, with a significant opportunity, not just in the innovation space, but also in product renovation, and this has increased in importance in recent years.
Following this, Marguerite will outline our financial model, our strong track record, and how we strategically deploy capital across our business to support consistent earnings compounding. Now, moving to Kerry today, where we hold a unique position in the food and beverage industry globally. We do this through our global scale and market access, our broad technology portfolio, and our customer innovation business model. First, in terms of scale, we're one of the largest players when it comes to B2B specialty ingredients for the food and beverage industry, with EUR 7 billion in revenues. We have phenomenal market access through our global footprint, with 119 manufacturing facilities across 34 countries and supporting our nutritional reach to almost 1.5 billion consumers globally. Next, we have the industry's most relevant technology portfolio.
Our broad portfolio spans taste and biotechnology and is underpinned by our biofermentation and biotransformation capability. This is a key differentiator when it comes to solving our customers' and the industry's most complex challenges. We do this through our dedicated customer innovation business model, with 60+ technology and innovation centers, 1,200 scientists, and a cumulative investment of EUR 3 billion in science and technology over the last decade. It is this combination that we believe distinguishes and differentiates us in our industry. So spending a moment now on our track record of business development and growth over the years. Starting with business development. We've shown before how we have evolved, and in recent years, how we've transformed our business through the development of our biotechnology platform, while also disposing of non-core businesses.
Then on growth, we've grown from EUR 4 billion in revenue in 2017 to EUR 7 billion today. Our target is to be a high single-digit+ earnings compounder. We have a track record of double-digit adjusted earnings per share growth on average since 1986, and we have delivered high single digit or greater constant currency adjusted EPS growth in eight of the last 10 years. This moves me on to the drivers of our earnings growth algo. Firstly, volume growth, where we have consistently outperformed our markets by more than 300 basis points over the past number of years, supported by strong growth in areas such as food service, emerging markets, and sustainable nutrition as we support our customers to improve the nutrition, taste, cost, and sustainability aspects of their products.
On margins, we've expanded our EBITDA margin by over 300 basis points in the past four years... and we're on track to deliver our margin target of 19-20% by 2028. These drivers are supported by our high single-digit constant currency, adjusted earnings per share growth in 2024 and in 2025, and we're expecting another year of high single-digit growth in 2026. As I mentioned earlier, our strategic execution is about growth and business development. Recent business developments include our new biotechnology center in Leipzig, in Germany, geographic footprint expansion in Egypt and East Africa, new customer innovation and co-creation centers in Dubai, in Frankfurt, and Jakarta, and a range of new innovations from our biotechnology expertise, which I'll elaborate on shortly. We look at our business through five dimensions.
We have a well-balanced, diversified business, which you can see here on the page. The Americas and APMEA regions are our two largest regions for Kerry. I'm going to go into a little bit more detail on these later on. We have a strong presence and are well spread across all food and beverage markets, customers, and channels, allowing us to allocate resources to fast-growing areas with agility. Our technology comprises of, firstly, integrated taste technologies across a range of application areas, and secondly, biotechnology solutions, which we have significantly invested in recent years. I'll touch on now for a moment. Why biotechnology? Because the food and beverage industry is facing new pressures that are only getting more complex. We're trying to feed a growing population with less reliable supply, greater climate volatility, and a finite pool of raw materials.
At the same time, consumers are demanding simpler labels, better nutrition, functional benefits, and authentic taste experiences, all delivered more sustainably and, of course, at a competitive cost. Biotechnology and biofermentation is the unlock. It allows us to create new, scalable, resource-efficient solutions that aren't limited by traditional agriculture. It gives us the ability to deliver cleaner labels, improve nutrition, and consistent taste, while also reducing the environmental impact. Going forward, biotechnology solutions will need to be bigger and bolder, and it is key to solving the industry's supply challenges and enabling the next generation of sustainable innovations. So what does all this mean for Kerry? For Kerry, biotechnology is not new. We've been purposely building out this portfolio for more than a decade now.
We have invested heavily in leading science and technology capabilities, and today we're at the forefront of creating the next generation of solutions for our customers. It starts with our natural taste portfolio, one of the most extensive in the industry, and we use natural taste building blocks. And importantly, about 40% of our taste solutions are already enabled by fermentation. On top of this, we've been layering in dedicated biotechnology portfolio, from enzymes for active health solutions to biopharma technologies and food protection systems. What is critical is that all of these capabilities are powered by biofermentation and biotransformation processes. That's what allows us to create integrated, scalable, sustainable solutions that directly address the increasing challenges facing our customers today. And the areas we're investing in are already accelerating and generating new innovations and new opportunities for our business, which I'll touch on next.
So over the past year, we delivered a number of breakthrough innovations powered by our biofermentation, biotransformation capability. We launched our next generation of fermentation-derived TasteSense, sweet and salt reduction technologies, introduced a new prebiotic, postbiotic for digestive and skin health, and we developed a new breakthrough enzyme system that delivers significantly more natural sweetness. We also expanded Kerry expertise with a new fermentation-based solution, which delivers premium, natural, savory taste experiences. These are just a few of the examples of how biotechnology is becoming a key differentiator for Kerry... and helping us solve our customers' most pressing challenges today and those that they're going to face into the future. When we look at the food and beverage market, despite the subdued overall data coming through in the market, our markets continue to remain highly dynamic.
The opportunity in front of us is very real, and there are two sources: innovation and renovation. On the innovation side, growth is happening, and it is concentrated in areas where we play. I'm sure none of this is going to come as a surprise to you after being here for the last couple of days. Firstly, high protein. Products with protein claims are growing at double the rate of those without. Ready-to-drink coffee is growing at high single digits or low double-digit rates. Poultry is the fastest-growing protein source, and supplements are growing at almost 10% year-over-year, with four out of five people taking them daily. Equally important is renovation. Over 60% of all food and beverage activity now involves product reformulation, and the drivers are clear.
70% of developers call out cost reduction, with nearly two-thirds looking for clean label as consumers are actively cutting back on artificial ingredients. Simply, innovation is expanding the market, and renovation is reshaping it. At Kerry, we are at the intersection of both, with the ability to help our customers create what's next while transforming what already exists. That's why we feel there's huge runway for growth ahead of us, and why we believe we're uniquely positioned to capture it. You'll see this come to life when Elizabeth shares some product examples shortly. I'd now like to talk about the three areas where innovation and renovation are driving growth. First is the Americas, where we have a winning model. Second is the APMEA region, where we're looking to accelerate our growth agenda. Third is regulation, which is increasingly driving renovation activity.
So firstly, on the Americas, where we have a strong track record of volume growth. In a region where underlying food and beverage markets have been growing at more modest rates, we've delivered consistent volume growth in that 3-4% range across pretty much any timeframe you can choose. This strong market outperformance is a result of clear differentiation, anchored in, firstly, our unmatched customer and channel access. We operate right across the food and beverage ecosystem, from global CPGs to emerging brands, from QSRs to fast casuals, beverage to supplements, serving in excess of 20 routes to market. Second, our go-to-market innovation models, which are tailored to each channel and customer segment, allowing us to engage directly, deeply, move faster, and scale alongside our customers as they grow.
And third, our ability to layer our global taste leadership, combined with deep biotechnology expertise, tailoring those capabilities to the specific needs of each individual customer, whether that's innovation, reformulation, cost management, clean label, or functional performance. You'll see how we do this through a number of examples here shortly, showing how we continue to deliver strong growth ahead of our markets in the Americas, and you'll see why we're confident in our ability to continue outperforming for the years ahead. Moving now to the APMEA region, where, again, we have a strong long-term track record of growth and business development, and where we are looking to accelerate our growth agenda. In less than 30 years in this region, we have grown our revenues to over EUR 1.6 billion, close to doubling our sales in the last 10 years alone.
In this period, we've more than doubled in size in Southeast Asia, with the Middle East and Africa being the top growth driver, especially in the last five years. Consumers in this region are modernizing, not Westernizing, looking for innovation while remaining rooted in local culture, authentic cuisine, and familiar flavor cues. Our extensive in-market capabilities, combined with our ability to connect global food science and technology with deep local expertise and taste, allows us to innovate in ways that are meaningful, trusted, and locally relevant. Some high-growth areas where Kerry is strategically positioned to win include food service in the Middle East, given our expertise and given our presence in a market that's growing at 7% per annum.
Our presence in the rapidly evolving refreshing beverage market in Africa, where 60% of the population is under 25 and per capita consumption is less than half the global level. Reformulation for cost and efficiency is also a driver of our growth here, and the new front-of-pack labeling requirements expected in Southeast Asia, in China in the coming years, this will support a step up in product nutritional reformulations. So to summarize in APMEA, our local investments, technology, scale, and customer partnerships give us a structural advantage, positioning us to outperform across the medium long term. So finally, for me, I'd like to spend a moment on reformulation and renovation, which is increasingly becoming a driver of our consistent market outperformance. Let me first paint a picture of the regulatory landscape.
If we look back to 2015, front-of-pack nutritional labeling, these regulations were relatively new and limited predominantly to Australia, a few countries in Europe, with many of them voluntary. Fast-forward to today, and front-of-pack labeling is truly global, including in Canada, several countries in Latin America, where mandatory labeling is being implemented. There are further policy updates expected in the U.S., in India, in China, in Southeast Asia in the coming years. Each of these changes drives opportunity for Kerry. When you combine this with the tailwinds we have in other areas of renovation that I mentioned earlier, like reformulation for cost challenges, supply chain shortages like the citrus situation or what we've seen in cocoa, or improving sustainability credentials of products, we feel renovation will be an underpin of our growth for many years to come.
With that, I'll now hand you over to Elizabeth.
Thanks, Edmond. You've just heard Edmond talk about where Kerry is going. You'll hear from Marguerite shortly about how we're delivering disciplined, profitable growth. My role this morning is to talk about why the market itself is working in our favor globally, because the global food and beverage market today is anything but static. It is large, it is complex, and only becoming more dynamic. Change is accelerating. Consumer expectations are shifting faster. In fact, more than 70% of global consumers say their food and beverage preferences have changed in the last three years, and over half expect brands to adapt faster on health, sustainability, and value. That kind of environment rewards capability, agility, and relevance at scale. That's where Kerry thrives and what our portfolio is built for. Now let's go to where growth is truly happening, why Kerry has a unique scalable advantage.
I'd like to share a number of examples of these growth drivers across channels and categories where the food and beverage landscape is being reshaped, starting with high protein. Protein is no longer a trend in food and beverage. It's a design requirement. In the United States, foods with protein claims are growing at over 7% CAGR, while non-protein products remain in the low single digits. Protein has moved far beyond sports nutrition into snacks, beverages, bakery, meals, and even food service. GLP-1 adoption is accelerating this shift, but protein is hard. It stresses taste, texture, shelf life, and processing, often forcing trade-offs that limit scale. While we don't specifically produce protein, we integrate and layer our taste and biotechnology solutions to unlock potential of protein and help customers deliver high-protein products without compromise, turning protein into great-tasting, everyday nutrition, no matter the protein source and at scale.
A great example is meat snacks. Meat snacks are one of the fastest-growing protein segments, and clean label products are driving this growth. We were given a challenge, an emerging meat snack brand on the verge of national breakout, scaling rapidly as consumers leaned into high-protein snacking. To sustain that growth, they needed a clean label preservation solution, offering longer shelf life and zero impact to taste at speed while maintaining their premium brand equity. Kerry delivered a biotechnology-based preservation solution that allowed this rapid scale, unlocked national distribution, and created a platform for the brand to fully participate in the category's growth.... Next, we couldn't talk about high protein without talking about beverage. Protein has transformed beverages. Consumers want more protein than ever before. 20 grams in one serving isn't enough.
We partnered with a market-leading brand as it moved its core products from 20 grams - 30 grams of pea protein per serving to stay competitive. For this type of beverage, that kind of protein increase puts taste and texture at risk. Kerry solved that challenge by masking protein off-notes and delivering a premium, indulgent chocolate experience. Clean label, cost-effective, and consumer-preferred, raising the category bar on taste. The next major growth engine is reformulation, and it may be the most underestimated. As Edmond articulated, in North America, over 60% of new food and beverage activity today is reformulation. That is not defensive, it is strategic. Customers are reformulating to improve nutrition, simplify labels, reduce environmental impact, and manage costs, often all at once. That level of complexity demands a different kind of partner. I'll give you one example on a global scale.
We are enabling one of the world's largest bakeries as it executes sweeping change, cutting sodium and sugar by more than 50%, removing artificial ingredients, shifting to clean label preservation, and replacing egg to reduce supply chain risk. Each move impacts taste, texture, shelf life, cost, and operations. Kerry solved those challenges through integrated taste and biotechnology, enabling reformulation at global scale without sacrificing consumer preference. A second example, reformulation for modernization. Working with one of the largest global food companies to modernize an established condiment and sauce brand in a mature mainstream category. The objective wasn't nutrition first, it was taste, delivering a more premium, savory experience that could re-engage consumers for the brand. Kerry applied its deep, vertically integrated fermentation expertise to develop natural umami taste solutions that deepened flavor, enhanced richness, and improved mouthfeel without relying on artificial ingredients.
The result was a differentiated, renewed, premium taste experience in a category primed for evolution, for a brand that will now maintain its identity as a market share leader. Now, let's move from macro trends into categories that are outpacing the market and why we are set up to succeed. If you want to see a truly dynamic pocket of growth globally, follow chicken. It's affordable, versatile, and growing faster than any other protein source. Consumption is shifting rapidly towards value-added formats, emerging fast-scaling restaurant concepts, cleaner labels, reduced sodium, and improved nutrition without sacrificing taste. Chicken innovation today is not about a single attribute. It's about the entire eating experience. Kerry delivers that experience: taste, texture, yield, shelf life, color, and nutrition. These integrated, layered capabilities are what allow customers to win in one of the fastest-moving categories in food and beverage. For example, more protein into chicken.
Yes, that's right, more protein into protein. This processor wanted to create a snackable chicken product with 23 grams or more of protein per serving, up from the typical 14 grams today. Their ask was direct: add meaningful protein without compromising taste, texture, or processability. Kerry delivered the solution by integrating our proprietary broth technology, a unique extraction from chicken bones, delivering authentic savory tastes with high-quality collagen and protein. This differentiated protein source was then layered and integrated directly to the Kerry-developed texture system, a strong example of proprietary technology translated into scalable commercial solutions. We also couldn't talk about chicken without talking about chicken chains, the fastest-growing segment of food service. This fast-growing, emerging chicken restaurant chains has been riding the wave of viral demand.
Like many concepts in this space, they hand-coat fresh chicken back of house, which creates real challenges around food safety, shelf life, and operational consistency as the business scales. The ask: extend fresh chicken shelf life by six days without changing the product or the eating experience. Through biotechnology, Kerry delivered a natural shelf life extension solution, allowing the customer to do exactly that. We reduced waste, improved food safety, and unlocked major operational efficiencies, critical for rapid expansion. Now, let's move to our next growth category, coffee. As Edmond mentioned, coffee remains one of the most dynamic beverage categories globally. Nearly half of U.S. adults had a specialty coffee yesterday. Growth is driven by premiumization, rapid growth in RTD, cold brew expansion in food service to drive margins and traffic, and emerging functional claims. Simply put, consumers want coffee that does more but still tastes exceptional.
That creates real complexity. Coffee must deliver premium flavor while managing bitterness, stability, and shelf life. It requires consistent, sustainable sourcing, and it has to work flawlessly, whether it's on shelf or back of house. That is where Kerry stands out. A first example comes from functional coffee. These products sit at the intersection of two powerful trends: premium coffee and high-protein nutrition.... Kerry enabled a leading brand in this space to deliver 20 grams of protein with just 1 gram of sugar and under 100 calories per serving, while maintaining a smooth, premium coffee profile. And that required far more than a coffee extract. That required end-to-end capability across coffee, sugar reduction, masking, and mouthfeel, all under one roof, layering taste and biotechnology in a way that made this product possible at scale. A second example shows how beverage categories are blurring even further.
As consumers look for refreshing, low-sugar alternatives to soft drinks, we are seeing rapid innovation at the intersection of coffee and soda. The challenge was clear: create a coffee-based soda, approachable and on-trend, with a bold, refreshing, and authentic coffee taste experience and under 50 calories per serving. Kerry helped make that possible by combining premium coffee extracts, vibrant, consumer-preferred flavor systems, delivering a refreshing coffee soda as a category disruptor. And finally, supplements. This is one of the fastest-growing global opportunities. Supplements are now mainstream, spanning grocery, mass, e-commerce, and even food service. Growth is driven by science-backed nutrition, targeting specific need states, digestive health, women's health, stress, food, metabolic health. And as format shifts to gummies, powders, and beverages, taste matters more than ever.
This is where Kerry is uniquely positioned: at the intersection of nutrition, clinical science, taste optimization, and regulatory expertise for supplements that are effective, compliant, and consumer-preferred. One example in a quickly accelerating GLP-1 support space. We partnered with a leading brand to develop a GLP-1 support gummy for consumers navigating their weight loss journeys. The objective was simple but ambitious: deliver digestive support, cellular energy, and stress relief in one convenient path. The formulation leveraged Sensoril®, a branded Kerry botanical extract supported by 15+ clinical studies, including one showing a 62% reduction in everyday stress over 60 days. The result is a differentiated, science-led, and meaningful supplement, improving the quality of life for GLP-1 users. A second example shows how supplements and beverages are converging in Asia, even in food service.
We partnered with a leading juice and smoothie food service operator in Asia to launch skin health functional boosters, responding to a rising demand for holistic wellness. Kerry combined collagen with Plenibiotic, our clinically backed postbiotic, supporting both skin and gut health, creating a differentiated, science-led solution. Delivered in just one month, this became the first functional supplement of its kind in regional food service, turning everyday drinks into a new platform for growth. In closing, what ties all of this together is not a single category, it's complexity. Dynamic markets reward partners who can move fast, scale reliably, solve multiple problems at once. Kerry's model, layering taste and biotechnology, is built exactly for this environment. We don't need the market to be stable, and we don't need categories to grow evenly. We win when customers need to adapt.
As you think about the food and beverage landscape, I'll leave you with this thought: Growth hasn't vanished, it has moved. It means selective but scalable opportunity and momentum, and those opportunities reward companies that are technically strong, deeply embedded, and designed for change. Change is not a barrier for Kerry. It's the environment we are built for. I'll now turn you over to Marguerite.
Thanks, Elizabeth. Some really excellent examples highlighting significant growth opportunities and how we've been able to consistently outperform within our markets. Today, I'm going to give you an overview of our track record of strong business performance, our track record of growth-led financial model, and our disciplined and balanced strategic capital allocation framework. To start, I would like to update you on our performance versus our key metrics and medium-term targets. Having just completed the fourth year of our plan, I'm pleased to say we have made good progress across each of the key pillars of growth, returns, and sustainability. Starting with volume, we've averaged 3.8% growth in this time frame, which represents a significant market outperformance of over 300 basis points.
On the EBITDA margins, we have delivered strong progress over the past number of years, and we are well on track to achieve our 2026 target range in the year ahead and our 2028 target of 19-20%. We have a target of high single-digit+ earnings per share growth up to 2028. We have delivered 7.5% constant currency adjusted EPS growth in 2025 and are planning on 2026 being another high single-digit EPS growth year. On returns, we have stepped up our cash generation with cash conversion above 80% and return on capital employed improvements in recent years. On sustainability, we have made great progress against our targets, reducing carbon by 52%, food waste by 54%, and increasing our nutritional reach to almost 1.5 billion consumers globally.
I will now take you through each of our financial metrics in turn. Beginning first with volume growth. Our consistently strong end market outperformance of over 300 basis points highlights the strength and relevance of our business in supporting customers as they adapt to address changing consumer and market needs. On the right, you can see we have delivered strong performance across our key growth differentiators over the last number of years, including average food service volume growth of 9% and average emerging markets growth of 7%, demonstrating how we are effectively executing on our strategy across these dimensions. This strong track record of growth across food service and emerging markets, combined with the increased focus on product innovation and renovation, gives us confidence that we will continue to deliver strong market outperformance over the medium term. Now turning to our EBITDA margin development.
We have significantly expanded our EBITDA margins in recent years, with 320 basis points of margin expansion since 2021, through portfolio transformation, efficiency initiatives across the organization, and through delivering operational leverage and mixed benefits aligned to the growth and development of the business. We have a target of being in the 19-20% margin range by 2028. Our Accelerate 2.0 business efficiency program, along with the continued delivery of operating leverage and mixed benefits consistent with our performance in recent years, underpin the achievement of our future EBITDA margin expansion plans. We will continue to balance our margin expansion plans with our business growth ambitions. Now to take a moment to update you on Accelerate, which has been and will continue to be a key driver of margin expansion.
In 2025, we completed Kerry Accelerate Operational Excellence, which focused on delivering manufacturing and supply chain excellence and efficiencies. The program's successful completion is delivering recurring annual benefits ahead of projections and established a strong foundation for Accelerate 2.0, which will run until 2028, driving continued margin expansion through footprint optimization and embedding digital excellence across the organization. We initiated Accelerate 2.0 as planned during the year, with good progress in both North America and Europe. With the commencement of footprint optimization, including the disposal of some related business activities, we have reduced our manufacturing footprint from 124 facilities to 119 at the end of 2025, and we'll continue to optimize this as appropriate in the coming years. Our digital excellence program is well underway, and we are making good progress.
Some of the digital initiatives we advanced during the year include utilizing agentic AI to expand automated decision intelligence, increasing the use of robotic process automation at our global business centers, delivering efficiencies and unlocking capacity. Rolling out initiatives under Connected Plant in our manufacturing operations, including digitally enabled predictive maintenance and commencing the use of digital manufacturing twins to simulate and standardize execution, reducing variability and increasing production yields and throughput. On commercial, we're continuing to drive improved customer experience, leveraging our Kerry Now customer portal, which provides our customers with real-time 24/7 access. Our continued progress on digital automation and scaling AI across our business is supported by our recognition as a frontier firm by Microsoft. These initiatives are improving our customer and employee experience, driving improved productivity and profitability while supporting growth and business development.
We will continue to update as we progress on Accelerate 2.0, which, as a reminder, is expected to deliver a recurring annual benefit of circa EUR 100 million by 2028 at a total cost of circa EUR 140 million. Turning to free cash flow and returns, and starting with cash, we have consistently achieved our cash conversion target and delivered good free cash flow over the plan. This has been supported by strong working capital management, enabled by our Accelerate Operational Excellence program and the establishment of our two global business services centers in Malaysia and Mexico. We feel confident in our outlook as regards cash, and we are expecting to deliver good free cash flow generation and cash conversion of 80%+ in 2026.
Moving to return on average capital employed, we have delivered a 60 basis points increase in our returns to 10.6% in 2024, and in 2025, we delivered a further underlying improvement of 20 basis points, offset by a negative year-on-year currency effect. We will continue to build on this progress, and we expect to increase our returns towards 12% over the coming years. Moving to our capital allocation priority framework, which is well balanced between reinvestment in our business and capital returns. Our first priority is capital investment, where we will strategically invest 4%-5% of our revenues to support our growth-led approach. Secondly, on dividends, we will maintain our track record of double-digit percentage per share growth. And thirdly, we will continue to evaluate M&A investment opportunities aligned to our strategy that enhance our technology portfolio, strategic positioning, or market access.
Finally, we will continue to balance the M&A investment opportunities with returning capital to shareholders through share buybacks. Our objective is to have an efficient balance sheet while retaining the agility and flexibility to allocate capital to where we believe we can generate the greatest value. Looking at our recent capital allocation and under each of the four areas. On capital investment, we have invested in expanding our manufacturing footprint, as well as our technology and innovation infrastructure and capabilities, as Edmond mentioned, supporting the delivery of our business growth plans across the globe. Next to M&A, where we have significantly evolved and rotated our portfolio in recent years through a combination of business divestments and strategic acquisitions, supporting the build-out of our biotechnology capabilities and further development of our authentic taste portfolio through targeted acquisitions aligned to our strategic growth ambitions.
On dividends, in 2025, we paid dividends of over EUR 200 million and have grown our dividends at a consistent double-digit rate since Kerry went public. And on buyback, since November 2023, we've announced EUR 1.5 billion of share buyback, repurchasing EUR 500 million of shares in 2025. So overall, on capital allocation, we will remain agile and flexible as regards balancing capital deployment between strategic reinvestment in our business and capital returns aligned to market conditions as we seek to generate value and deliver on our medium-term targets. So finally, to recap on the key drivers of our earnings growth algorithm. Firstly, volume growth. We've consistently outperformed our markets by 300 basis points+ over the past number of years.
On margins, we've expanded our EBITDA margin by over 300 basis points in the past four years, and we're on track for our margin target of 19-20% by 2028. On cash, we've delivered consistent cash conversion above 80%, and these three key drivers have supported our high single-digit constant currency adjusted earnings per share growth in 2024 and 2025. And we're looking for another year of high single-digit growth in 2026. And with that, I'll briefly hand you back to Edmond.
Thanks, Marguerite. I'd just like to close by reiterating the three messages that I began this presentation with. Our focus at Kerry continues to be on executing against our strategy, evolving our business while outperforming our markets, where significant opportunity exists, as you have seen from Elizabeth's section, through both innovation and renovation. Combined with the progress we're making in evolving our business, including the next level of digital enablement, driving continued margin expansion while supporting our growth agenda. We believe that the combination of all these factors will be the key drivers of our continued earnings compounding into the coming. Thank you.
Please join me in thanking Kerry for a great presentation. Thank you.