Hello, everybody, and thank you for joining the 2022 Marks & Spencer results. I'm gonna say a few words, then Steve Rowe and Eoin Tonge are going to take you through the results. Then there's gonna be a brief sort of cameo appearance from the new leadership team, Stuart, Katie, and Eoin . They'll be reappearing in a few weeks' time to take you through their plans to accelerate progress as we move into the Shaping the Future phase of our transformation.
Now, the most important thing is this is Steve Rowe's last set of results, and I wanted to say a few words just to thank him and his family for the enormous dedication he's shown to M&S, not just in the last six years during his tenure as chief executive, but of course, over a career spanning nearly forty years and his father before him. He's been truly a dedicated servant of the business. He's always been, in my time, pragmatic, you know, great to work with, open-minded, fearless in making his decisions. You know, he was the guy who got up and presented the Facing the Facts presentation four years ago, which taught the business as well as the markets that we'd really woken up to smell the coffee. A huge thank you to Steve.
Just to say one last thing, one of the things I really like about Steve is that he's never been one of those chief executives who's sort of full of bombast or self-proclaiming. He's been humble in his approach, but he's been terrific to work for, and we owe him a great debt. Thank you, Steve. If I had a live audience here, I'd be saying three cheers to Steve. But there we are. Now, the results. This is a strong set of results, almost on every dimension. All our major businesses are performing well, not just in their profit performance, but also in what I call their change performance. As you know, what I'm interested in is not really the bottom line.
I do care about the bottom line, but is the business changing fast enough, you know, given where we started and where we want to get it to and the potential in our global brand? We've now had, in the last year, the top-performing stores-based food retail business. We've had a more or less doubling against four years ago of our online share in Clothing & Home. We're seeing market share growth in areas like womenswear that we haven't seen for a long time in Clothing & Home. International, when you take out all the pandemic and Russia and Ukraine, actually had a strong performance, too, and global online is growing quite rapidly. A lot to be really encouraged by.
Perhaps the last thing to say is that the balance sheet, which in all honesty, was looking a bit wobbly two or three years ago, and as you know, we lost investment grade. The balance sheet is now looking remarkably strong, and that gives us confidence because it gives us firepower for the future and for the changes and the investment ahead. Now, of course, the results are the results, but it's all eyes now on the coming storm, the consumer crunch. We've been planning for this now for a little while. There's some things you can't do. I mean, it's going to happen. It's going to affect all U.K. retail businesses, and the cost of doing business in the U.K. has gone up, not just because of inflation, but also because the tax of taxation. We've got other regulatory impacts. Brexit, you all know about.
That's hopefully behind us now. All these things are affecting the way we do business. The most important thing for us is to keep the pace of change because there's so much scope for improvement that you've all seen in our business. With that, we do think we're, how to say, well-placed. Who's well-placed when you get a consumer crunch? We're better placed because our value position in our major businesses is very strong. There's lots of scope for productivity and efficiency improvement. Our online businesses and digital businesses got huge potential. We're excited about the future and I'm personally excited about the prospect of seeing the pace of progress accelerating in the three years ahead. That's all from me. Now, for the last time, over to Steve Rowe.
Good morning and welcome to the M&S full-year results presentation. I hope that you and your families are well. This morning's presentation is split into three parts. Firstly, I will talk about the performance that we've delivered over the past year. Eoin Tonge, our Chief Financial Officer, will then talk you through the financial detail and outlook. Finally, Stuart and Katie will join Eoin to talk about the new team's approach for the next phase of the transformation as we begin to Shape the Future. Five years ago, I spoke to you frankly about where we were. I set out a three-phase strategy that began with fixing the underlying issues in the business that corroded Marks & Spencer unchecked for too long. Today isn't a victory lap. You know me, I've never overclaimed our performance, and that doesn't change today.
This short clip outlines some of the changes we've delivered. In terms of in-year performance, while there'll always be a list of things to sort out, we've delivered strong results. We have maintained the underlying improvements in performance we saw at the half year across all main businesses. We've continued to gain market share with improving customer metrics on quality, style, and value. Now looking ahead, more remains to be done, particularly the store estate, supply chain, and systems, where the program improvement needs to accelerate. However, I believe the changes we've made position the business well for the next phase. The trading environment is tough, but we are in the next stage of our transformation, shaping the M&S of the future and our path to sustainable growth. Onto the detail of the results this morning.
As you've seen, we've reported strong results with profits before tax and adjusting items of GBP 522.9 million. Net debt reduced by more than two-thirds to GBP 420 million. This ensures the business has the resilience to face into the inflationary headwinds that are in our markets and to invest in the next phase of the transformation. I will now take you through our progress in each area in a little bit more detail. Our mission in Food is to protect the magic of our product and brand innovation while modernizing the infrastructure supporting it. Across the year, the business delivered very strong sales growth of 10% and profit before adjusting items of GBP 278 million.
M&S Food was the best performing UK grocery chain despite the market headwinds and the exclusion of online grocery sales, which are reported through Ocado Retail. Growth was driven by larger basket sizes as customers chose M&S for more of their weekly shop. While this started to normalize towards the end of the year, core basket sizes remain well above pre-pandemic levels. This reflects the investment made in categories such as produce, meat, and grocery, and the substantial program of product innovation focused on mainstream ranges with family appeal. The Remarksable Value range and Fresh Market Specials, which have been relaunched, offer products with the M&S quality differential at everyday low prices. Around 1 in 4 baskets now includes one of these lines. As a result, both value and quality perception are now at their strongest in many years.
We rolled out the food renewal format to over 40 stores, meaning customers can access more of the M&S range in a format we believe is really distinctive. The new stores have generated strong sales growth compared with control stores, and we've recently implemented a new lower cost format which we can extend into much more of the estate. During the year, we launched a groundbreaking partnership with Costa Coffee, offering over 30 M&S Food on the move products available in more than 2,500 coffee shops. Over the past 2 years, we have implemented the Vangarde trading model across the whole Food estate, making stock management and replenishment processes more efficient and supporting improved availability. However, waste and stock loss remain above our targets, and we believe our supply chain remains less efficient and higher cost to serve than our competitors.
This remains a core area of focus for the new team in the next phase. Our ambition for Ocado Retail is twofold. First, to achieve a market leading online food retail position, and second, to act as a brilliant showcase for the M&S food range. As expected, last year saw increasingly normalized post-pandemic metrics, with basket sizes reduced and a more traditional shape of trading week. As a result, Ocado Retail revenue declined by 4%, and we saw a reduced share of profit. That said, we were able to substantially increase the number of active customers compared with the prior year as trends normalized and more capacity came on stream. With substantially larger market opportunity as online grocery penetration still remains higher post-pandemic, we are investing in strong capacity growth.
Bicester CFC opens in the current year, and Luton is due to come on stream in 2023. A few weeks ago, the team also opened an additional Zoom site in Canning Town. However, as a result, we have a higher than normal level of immature capacity against a backdrop of well-telegraphed industry cost pressures. The strength of the M&S products and brand remains evident in our sales participation in Ocado, which is over 25% and has generated substantial buying gains to date. We also believe there is unexploited potential in making better use of the M&S brand and data capabilities as the businesses work even more closely together. This includes the benefits of replatforming from the legacy operating system to the Ocado Smart platform later this year.
Our core objective in Clothing & Home has been to create a contemporary M&S range brought in greater depth to offer improved style and value. In addition, we've begun to supplement this with a curated range of internal and external partner brands to provide more choice and reasons to shop. A more sustainable, profitable model is beginning to emerge. The Clothing & Home business delivered a 3.8% growth on 2019/20, and we've generated a 28.5% growth in full price sales. Online sales were up by 56%, and we're now over one-third online. It generated a profit of GBP 330.7 million compared with GBP 224 million in 2019/20. Over the past three years, we've reshaped the product offer to focus on contemporary wearable style and a greater depth of buying.
Option count is now down by around 20% on 2019. As a result, stock into sale is down by 1/3, enabling a simpler, more profitable operation. At the same time, we've used the pandemic period to accelerate change. Blanket promotions such as friends and family are gone, and we now have a clear pricing architecture with strong value positions at entry price points. Recently, we extended Remarkable Value from food into home. As a result of these changes, we are beginning to see improved customer style perceptions, increased confidence from the buying teams, and a sustained leading customer value proposition. As you may remember, last year we launched MS2, which is the internal project which brings together the data, digital, and online teams across M&S.
Its goal is to prioritize the best online offer to act with the speed of a pure play, to leverage the store estate to offer great customer service and personalize the shopping experience. It's been a strong year. Within Clothing & Home, we delivered online growth of 55% and an operating profit margin consistent with store sales. Website improvements have included upgraded imagery, increased user-generated content, and more shop the look options. At the same time, we've introduced over 60 digital hubs in stores to enable rapid click and collect. Availability was step change through the increased use of in-store fulfillment of online orders, which were around 11% of all orders taken last year. We're making great strides to better leverage customer data to improve the shopping experience.
Over the past four years, we've created a single customer data platform, consolidating all of our data and attributes in one place. We've relaunched Sparks as a digital-only personalized loyalty program and grown it to over 15 million members. Accessed through the M&S app, this provides the gateway to delivery of our further services such as credit, loyalty rewards, and payment. Bringing this together, we've begun to personalize elements of the customer experience, although we remain in the early stages of this. Moving on to brands. Marks & Spencer has a strong and trusted brand, which together with our Sparks members and customer data, creates scope to bring brands both onto our platform and into stores like here at Stratford and drive significant revenue streams. Last year, we established around 40 pilots with a combination of partnerships, owned or invested brands.
This has included the purchase and relaunch of Jaeger, a 25% shareholding in Nobody's Child, and the majority acquisition of The Sports Edit. Just this week, Goodmove launched on its platform. The expanded offer brings broader choice, premium price points and additional expertise to M&S. In total, brands across Clothing, Home and Beauty generated GBP 100 million of orders. At this stage, the business largely trades through a wholesale commission model with product flowing through the M&S distribution network. We expect to evolve the model to add drop ship capability, enabling the sale and fulfillment of orders from partner stock. Last year, we set out the objective of evolving our store rotation program, and the aim is to have a modernized estate of less than 180 full line stores and a growing program of bigger, fresher food stores.
Sitting behind this is an increasingly active asset management and disposal program to fund the exit costs of the legacy stores. To date, we've closed 68 full line and 19 small food stores and implemented 40 food renewals. In April, we extended the food renewal concept onto Clothing and Home with a trial at a newly opened store in Stevenage on the former Debenhams site. It's early days, but the customer response is encouraging. We're now developing a growing pipeline of store relocations, moving to modern, well-located sites. These are often in the renewal format and all with omnichannel capability. Our priority is to make sure we have the right stores in the right places, not to move away from town centers. We recognize that in an omnichannel world, easy shopping and fast access is critical.
The full line store pipeline already has around 15 new stores planned over three years, including 7 former Debenhams sites, and we expect this to build further. Good recent examples of rotation include the following. In Leamington Spa, the closure of town center stores and relocation to a full line edge of town Debenhams is expected to pay back the net capital invested in 3.6 years. The relocation of Thurrock to the former Debenhams site by the bus station with extensive parking is expected to pay back in 2.6 years. In addition, we currently anticipate opening around 40 new food stores in the next three years, largely in the 12,000 to 15,000 sq ft renewal format. One of my first actions as CEO of M&S was to restructure our international operation to focus on a capital-light partnership model.
We've really cemented this over the past four years, and our partnerships are strong. We are building on this solid foundation with the addition of a multi-platform global online business. International sales grew by 1.7% on 2019 to 20. An operating profit before adjusting items of GBP 74 million included over GBP 40 million of cost and trade impacts, largely related to Republic of Ireland following Brexit. We undertook a number of actions in the year to mitigate Brexit-related headwinds. These included withdrawing from the French high street franchise operation and stopping the export of chilled food to our Czech business. We expect to partially mitigate the cost of exports to Ireland through local sourcing and are shortly opening an EU hub for Clothing & Home orders. Despite these headwinds, we see many opportunities for growth.
Our partnership with Reliance in India has a strong store opening pipeline and is building sales through its own website and platforms. We saw strong growth in the year with Zalando and are expanding the range available. We expect to roll out Sparks in a number of international markets. Before I move on, a moment on the war in Ukraine, which has been a huge shock to all of us. While M&S does not operate stores or have employees in Russia, our Turkish franchise partner has held the rights to trade under the M&S banner in Ukraine and Russia. M&S is a values-led business, and so we took early action following the invasion. We ceased shipments to our franchisee's operations in Russia on March the third. As you will see today, we've provided for our contribution to their full exit from the operation.
Our colleagues and customers expect us to do the right thing, and we will do so here. Sadly, the 10 Ukrainian stores our partner operates have been partially closed due to the war, and we're working with them to reopen them as and when it is safe to do so. We've also taken steps to support the people of Ukraine. Following our donation to UNICEF's Ukraine appeal, we've given an additional GBP 1.5 million pound package to support UNHCR. M&S customers always amaze me with their generosity. They've donated over GBP 1 million at till points and online. In 2007, we launched our industry-leading sustainability program, Plan A.
With the scale of the climate emergency bigger and more urgent than ever before, we've reset Plan A, going again and raising our ambitions with a singular focus on becoming a net zero Scope three business across our entire supply chain and products by 2040. We've set out a detailed roadmap to net zero using Science Based Targets aligned to the UN ambition of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees centigrade. It won't be easy. We need to transform how we make, move, and sell our products to customers and fundamentally change the future shape of our business. Over the past year, we've reintroduced the iconic Look Behind the Label campaign to engage customers in the sustainability stories behind key essentials.
We also delivered new initiatives to help customers lead lower carbon lives, supporting the circular economy in apparel, incentivizing customers to swap pre-loved clothes through Sparks, trialing clothing rental with Hirestreet, and partnering with kids secondhand platform Dotte. In the year ahead, the team are going to build on this and accelerate our programs and make them much more visible to customers. I'll now hand you over to Eoin, who will take you through the financial results in more detail.
Thanks, Steve, and good morning to you all. I'll pick up a little more on those key points as I take you through the financial review. Before we dive in, a quick reminder that given the effect of Covid on last year's results, the comparatives I'll reference this morning will be against financial year 19/20, unless I specify. The group headlines for the year, which we think reflect a strong performance. Group revenue was up 7% on 19/20, and the group delivered an adjusted profit before tax of GBP 522.9 million. As discussed in November, the H1 was partly impacted by Covid as the country reopened. During that period, we still saw impacts in our Clothing & Home stores and our franchise and hospitality businesses in food.
Against which we received the bulk of the approximately GBP 60 million of UK business rates relief in the year. In the H2 , these effects reduced, and we saw strong underlying momentum across all our businesses. Our focus on strengthening the balance sheet delivered great results, with strong free cash flow and a 70% reduction in financial net debt since 2019/20. I'll take you through the results now in a little more detail. I'll start with our food business. Firstly, it should be once again noted that M&S Food reported sales do not include our direct online grocery business. With these sales reported through Ocado Retail instead. Total food sales were up over 10% on 2019/20. As we said previously, we need to dig into the detail here to understand the shape of the performance.
If we exclude the hospitality and franchise businesses, which, as I say, continued to be adversely impacted, core business performance was very strong, with sales up around 15% in the period, and in some core categories like frozen, grocery, and household up 20% to 30%. It was a very strong performance driven by increased basket size as customers used M&S for more of their everyday shop, with footfall and transactions remaining below 2019 to 20 levels. Although there was some normalization in H2. Overall, M&S Food continued to outperform the market, resulting in a 20 basis point market share improvement over three years. Operating profit increased over 17% and margin was up 30 basis points on 2019 to 20. As always, there's some complexity to unpack here. Firstly, we saw an improved gross margin.
Benefits from cost saving programs, including Ocado synergies, as well as lower waste, were partly offset by investment in price, lower sales from our hospitality business, and additional supply chain costs within margin. Within store staffing, efficiencies from the 2020 retail restructure, along with ongoing initiatives enabled by technology improvements in store, more than offset pay inflation and COVID costs such as door hosting. The improvement in other store costs relates largely to government business rates relief predominantly in H1 and lower depreciation charges as legacy store modernizations reached the end of their economic lives. Of course, in our supply chain costs, we saw headwinds from a number of items which we highlighted at the half year, some of which continued to grow through the period. Firstly, the investment in our Milton Keynes ambient depot to support growth.
Secondly, increased pay and incentives related to warehouses and haulage, which increased in the H2 . Also, costs from increased M&S.com orders for hampers, wine and flowers. Finally, inefficiencies from EU border-related processes related to serving Northern Ireland. Central costs reflect investments in technology, data, and digital initiatives, such as our forecasting, ordering, and allocation systems, and increased colleague incentives, offset by a more efficient technology base and lower technology depreciation. Overall, a good performance. Turning now to the contribution from Ocado Retail. In this case, I'll talk to the results against last year, as we did not own the investment for much of 2019 to 20. Last year clearly was an exceptional period for grocery online and therefore we are annualizing against this. This is reflected in the revenue performance, which was also impacted by the fire at our Erith CFC in July.
These impacts were partly offset by an increase in capacity in the year. The M&S brand is encouragingly, consistently over 25% of Ocado sales and was even higher over the Christmas peak. EBITDA reflects a reversion to more normal shopping habits, the impact of the Erith fire, as well as the investment in new capacity we opened in the year at Bristol, Andover, and Purfleet. With new CFC sites at an immature level of capacity, the lower operational leverage of fixed costs as well as industry-wide cost pressures are impacting EBITDA. We also had a number of exceptional costs in the period relating to the Erith fire and the development of new technology systems. Overall, M&S group share of Ocado Retail profit after tax was reduced in the period. Moving on to Clothing & Home.
Overall, sales were up on 2019 to 20, and we saw growth in each of the past three quarters. Consistently strong performance from the online business has more than offset the lost revenue from stores. Full price sales grew 28.5% as customers responded to better product in a period where we ran less promotions and reduced overall stock into sale. The stores business continued to recover through the period, but exited the year still double digits down on pre-pandemic levels. City centers and high streets continued to create a drag on sales, albeit a reduced one, with a better performance from retail parks where sales were up. Average footfall and transactions continued to be materially behind pre-pandemic levels, but partly compensating for this, basket size was up, driven by our full price trading performance. As I say, the metrics in our online business continue to be strong.
Traffic increased with traffic through the app up over 200% on 2019/20 following the relaunch of Sparks in July 2020. As anticipated, returns rates normalized to pre-pandemic levels throughout the year. In total, Clothing & Home generated an operating profit almost 50% higher than 2019/20, with a significant improvement in operating margin. Within this, the online business generated an operating margin of around 9%, with a reversion towards 2019 to 20 returns rates, as well as investments in data and digital initiatives, reducing margin as anticipated. Looking at the detail, gross profit was up as a result of strong full-price trading and lower stock into sale, which more than offset buying margin headwinds in FX and freight.
It's a similar story to the food business in store staffing and other store costs, albeit more pronounced with more of the store staffing, restructuring efficiencies, and business rates relief falling into Clothing & Home. Within distribution and warehousing, we see the higher cost to serve online demand, as well as increased pay and incentives relating to haulage and fuel inflation. The increased courier costs as customers opted for more home deliveries was offset by delivery income reported within sales. Within central costs, investments in technology and digital, increased colleague incentives, and higher marketing activity to drive online growth were partly offset by lower depreciation. Finally to International. International Clothing & Home online sales continued to grow as we retained customers we acquired during the lockdowns last year, and we saw strong growth in the Middle East and the Republic of Ireland.
These offset the continued impact of COVID in other markets. India had a mixed year due to COVID, but importantly recovered well when COVID restrictions were relaxed. In food, sales declined, driven by the disruption and complexity of EU border processes, predominantly in France and the Republic of Ireland. Excluding France, however, food sales were level on 2019 to 20. Overall, operating profit was down. Gross profit declined slightly as additional tariffs and waste driven by the EU border-related processes for serving the Republic of Ireland were only partially mitigated by online growth. The improvement in store staffing was driven mostly from efficiency savings from the retail restructuring in the Republic of Ireland. Other store costs improved as we benefited from certain government support and rent relief. Distribution costs increased significantly as a result of EU border-related processes, as well as the growth of online sales.
Central costs reflect the higher marketing costs associated with online sales, as well as colleague incentives. Bringing this all together for the group. As discussed, compared to 2019-20, profit growth in Food, Ocado Retail, and Clothing & Home offset the decline in international profit. M&S Bank contribution declined principally as a result of lower demand for credit card and travel money compared with two years ago. Net finance costs were broadly level. Within this, a lower pension credit reflecting the lower surplus at the start of the year offset a reduction in the net interest payable on lease liabilities. Overall, the group delivered GBP 522.9 million adjusted profit before tax. Adjusting items charged in the period were GBP 131 million, which I will cover next.
That generated a healthy statutory profit before tax of GBP 391.7 million. Within adjusting items, the store estate charges reflect the latest store rotation program assumptions. In response to the strong group performance, we have recognized a reversal of store impairments which were charged in previous periods in adjusting items. Again, within logistics reflects the profit on disposal of 2 warehouses, the proceeds of which net off against CapEx in the cash flow. Franchise restriction costs include the exit from the French high street business from the half year and a new charge of GBP 31 million relating to our decision to fully exit Russia. Details on the rest of our adjusting items can be found within our press release. As we turn to look at cash flow, let's take a moment first on CapEx.
CapEx levels stepped up a little as we increase investment in the transformation to drive business performance. You can see that property made up over half the spend as essential maintenance and asset replacement normalized. We invested in new store formats or re-renewals and continued to rotate the estate, opening new stores. IT and M&S.com spend includes costs relating to technology replacement and upgrades in stores, the development of the food ordering and allocation system, food buying portals, as well as ongoing investment in digital capability throughout the group. Looking at the full cash flow now. Overall, we had a very good cash generation in the period, resulting in a further significant reduction in our net debt, which is down over 30% on 2019 to 20 levels. Net debt excluding lease liabilities is down over 2/3. I've already discussed the EBITDA drivers.
Actions on working capital have given us strong inflows over the past two years, albeit we are expecting some of that to unwind this financial year. A detailed breakdown on the levers is given in the financial review. Cash tax was once again very low as we utilized brought forward trading losses for UK corporation tax. Investments and acquisitions largely relates to deferred consideration payments for our investment in Ocado Retail and includes other smaller investments in Nobody's Child, The Sports Edit, and our True Capital Fund investment. There are, of course, other ups and downs, but overall, a further financial net debt reduction of around GBP 700 million in the period has resulted in a strong cash position. It is worth noting that our lease obligations also reduced. We continue to do a lot of work on our leases and provide further color in the financial review.
Now, turning to the outlook. Since year-end, overall group trading has been ahead of the comparable period in each of the past three years. We are encouraged by this early performance, but are also keenly aware of the substantial inflation we are seeing, as well as the unprecedented reduction in real incomes being experienced by our customers. We expect the after effects of declining real income to sharpen in the H2 and last for at least the rest of the year. This is the basis for our planning scenarios. We believe our market positioning and business strategy will help us mitigate these effects, and we are also taking specific steps to support performance in this environment and offset inflation. For example, in clothing and home, we are taking a more flexible approach to trading, retaining a substantial proportion of open to buy for the H2 .
In food, we expect further benefits from the lowering cost program. Across the group, we are continuing to drive digital-led efficiencies in stores and are simplifying ways of working in support centers. This coming year, the business will not receive business rates relief, which was GBP 60 million in 2021, 2022. In our international business, we will not have a profit contribution from Russia. As we invest in capacity growth in Ocado Retail, we anticipate a minimal contribution of share of net income to group results. We therefore start 2022, 2023 from a lower profit base. Despite the cost pressures and consumer headwinds, the business is better positioned as a result of the first phase of transformation. However, at this early stage, we do not expect progress from this lower profit base.
Despite the near-term challenges, the business is better set up both financially and operationally to invest for the future. Opportunities to both improve the infrastructure and invest in growth mean that we expect to increase our CapEx to around GBP 400 million in the coming year. Our capital allocation priorities remain unchanged. Given the substantial emerging opportunities, we have prioritized investment in the transformation with an ambition to sustain balance sheet metrics consistent with investment grade. The board will consider towards the end of the financial year the restoration of a dividend, bearing in mind the growth ambition for the business, our investment opportunities, and a commitment to a resilient balance sheet. I will now hand you back to Steve.
Thank you, Eoin. That concludes the formal part of the results presentation. I will now hand over to the new team who are going to introduce themselves and talk about their initial priorities for the coming months. Before I do, some closing remarks, and don't worry, they are brief. When I took over the reins at M&S six years ago, I committed to tackle the underlying issues that eroded the strength of the business and to build foundations for future growth. These results are not just about the restoration of profit and strong cash flow. They demonstrate that the business has fundamentally changed and has moved beyond the need to prove the basis for survival. I'm not forecasting sunlit uplands. The coming years will, I'm sure, bring as many challenges as the past few have.
The business now has the opportunity for substantial future growth. It's been my absolute privilege to be the steward and shopkeeper of this fantastic business and extraordinary brand at such an important stage in its history. The changes we have delivered have only been due to the commitment and hard work of colleagues across the business, and I'm delighted to hand the baton to a strong team in Stuart, Katie and Eoin.
Thanks, Steve, for your introduction. Katie, Eoin, and I would like to thank you for everything you have done as CEO, but also everything you've done in your 39-year career at M&S. You have changed the business while holding true to its values, and you will be missed by everyone. All of us take seriously the responsibility that you have passed on to us. I feel very lucky to be leading the next chapter in M&S's story with two fantastic partners in both Katie and Eoin , but also a team of brilliant, committed colleagues throughout the business. We want to take a few minutes to give our reflections on where we are and our focus areas. Before I do that, quick introductions. I'm Stuart Machin, and I joined our food business in 2018 as managing director.
Over the past 12 months, I've been Chief Operating Officer, and in addition to my food responsibilities, I've also been leading our stores, our operations, our property and store development teams, our IT and technology plan, but also our people function.
Good morning. I'm Katie Bickerstaffe. I joined Marks & Spencer in an executive role in 2020, having previously been a non-executive director. As chief operating officer, my accountabilities have spanned the clothing and home business, including MS2, as well as international, data and digital, and our bank and services operation.
You have, of course, already heard from me today. I'm Eoin Tonge. I've been CFO for the past two years and last year added accountability for group strategy to my remit.
In today's results, we have set out the detail of why we are confident about the potential of M&S. We've also been clear about the short to medium term challenges that the whole market is facing with inflationary headwinds and the biggest squeeze on real incomes for many years. Because of the changes of the past few years, we're facing those challenges from a much more resilient position. We're confident in our ability to effectively trade and at the same time increase the pace of change and invest behind our long-term growth plans for M&S. We will set out our plans in more detail later in the year, but we want to give you today some color on the focus areas to drive long-term growth.
The most important priority we have is to build on the strength of the M&S brand and of course, our product proposition, protecting the magic of M&S across the whole of our business. We will offer style in clothing, in home and beauty, and offering great taste in food, and always underpin that with our commitment to trusted value across all of our categories. This means quality and innovation you can only get at M&S, sourced with care at a great price every day, delivered through our deep supplier partnerships and sold by brilliant colleagues who are passionate about service and the products we sell.
We'll also offer our customers a seamless experience across all our channels wherever we trade around the world. We'll invest continually to improve and innovate the customer experience across both dot com and the app to grow our active users. Integrating and enhancing the links between our store and digital channels is essential, not just in the customer offer and ease of shop, but importantly in how we use our stores for fulfillment. We know that customers with multiple digital touchpoints are the most loyal and spend the most with us, so we'll give them more reasons to shop at M&S. We'll use data and insight to improve our personalization capability, reducing the cost of customer acquisition and importantly, increasing recency, frequency, and spend. We're continuing to invest in growing the Sparks customer base, giving members the very best of Marks & Spencer.
We'll offer our customers curated choice, building our core M&S product while opening up our channels to partners that complement and enhance our range. We're developing an omni-channel platform that can efficiently support a variety of fulfillment models. This will mean we can give our customers the products and service they want and offer our partners access to our scale, customer base, and a profitable route to market. Working with franchise partners and global marketplaces, we can enter new markets and categories online. We're also committed to driving the growth of our direct-to-consumer sites and our franchise stores.
In addition, we will better connect our ambitious net zero plans to our commercial strategy. Doing the right thing is an M&S value, but it reflects a behavior that's deep in the culture of the business, and we will put it into action. Acting with integrity, thinking long term, treating people fairly and with respect, looking after our communities and resources. We will have a singular focus on becoming a net zero Scope three business by 2040, which will be completely embedded in our strategy. Across the whole business, we will maintain the balance between executing our plans day to day and driving long-term growth. We'll be disciplined in the way we manage our financial resources and invest to deliver shareholder value.
As well as what you've just heard from both Katie and Eoin, we will tackle areas of the business that need to be modernized. Modernizing the rest means tackling the areas that we currently lack so we can continue to drive growth. In summary, this means modernizing and focusing on our store estate. We've made progress on this, but we want to go even further and even faster, simplifying and future-proofing our supply chains, no small undertaking, and building a more responsive and agile system across the whole of the organization to improve visibility and insight. Of course, raising the bar in key categories where we know we have significant growth potential across clothing, home, and of course, food. This plan will be just words unless we can engage and energize all of our colleagues and build an open, high-performing culture.
That is what will deliver the thriving, growing M&S we all want to see. An M&S where we protect the magic, the heritage, the history of our brand, and modernize the parts of the business which will support our growth potential. A simpler, faster M&S with a laser focus on execution, closer to our stores, closer to our customers. An M&S which is a great place to work for our colleagues and a great place to shop for our customers, however and wherever our customers choose to shop. We look forward to talking to you in more detail, but thank you for your time.