Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us. I am pleased to present Tate & Lyle's results for the year ended the 31st of March, 2023. Before I get to the details of the presentation, I want to briefly reflect on what has been an excellent first year for the new Tate & Lyle as a growth-focused specialty food and beverage solutions business. Our financial performance was strong, delivering on all our key measures with double-digit revenue and EBITDA growth. At the same time, we significantly progressed our growth focus strategy. We acquired a high-quality dietary fiber business in China, significantly increased our solution selling capabilities, and made a commitment to reach net zero by 2050. We also launched a new brand to better reflect the Tate & Lyle of today. Our balance sheet remains strong, fueling our ability to invest for growth.
As we set out at our capital markets event in February, the transformation to reshape our business over the past 5 years has put Tate & Lyle right at the center of the future of food. Finally, our outlook for the coming year, which I will talk to you later, is in line with our 5-year ambition. Tate & Lyle is now a growth-focused specialty food and beverage solutions business, a global leader in sweetening, mouthfeel, and fortification, creating high-value specialty ingredients and solutions that meet growing global consumer demand for healthier and tastier food and drink. It is a focused, agile, and purpose-led business with a clear strategy for growth. The agenda for today's presentation is on the screen. I will begin with a brief overview of the year.
Dawn will run through the financial results, and then I will come back to update you on our strategic progress and talk to the outlook. Finally, Dawn and I will be happy to take your questions. Starting with the financial highlights. Group revenue was up 18%, and EBITDA was up 22%. Return on capital employed improved by 100 basis points to 17.5%, and we delivered productivity savings of $21 million, well ahead of our targets. Overall, strong financial performance and very encouraging in the context of our strategic transformation and a challenging external environment. Core to our new brand and to everything we do at Tate & Lyle is our commitment to science, solutions, and society. This commitment is driven by our purpose of transforming lives through the science of food.
We made strong progress last year, delivering on our purpose targets and on our commitment to science, solutions, and society. Let me briefly explain how. Starting with science. Science and innovation are at the heart of how we deliver our strategy. Our customers increasingly rely on our innovation expertise to solve the challenges of food reformulation and to deliver both nutritional improvement and taste. We have invested over $250 million in R&D over the last five years, and last year, we increased investment in innovation and solution selling by 11%. Building our patent portfolio is an important part of our scientific backbone, and during the year, we had more than 70 patents granted, largely in our sweetener platform for ingredients such as stevia and allulose. We now have over 500 patents, with around another 300 pending.
We continue to conduct and publish clinical research to provide key scientific knowledge about our ingredients. During the year, we published six scientific papers, including one on the potential public health impact of fiber enrichment in the U.K. and another on the potential impact of fiber fortification in the Chinese population through food reformulation. Turning next to solutions. We continue to make good progress, building stronger solutions-based partnerships with our customers. During the year, the value of our new business pipeline increased by 13%, and the value of new business wins coming from solutions increased by 2 percentage points to 18%. We also undertook three targeted campaigns in some of our key categories to drive stronger solution-based relationships with customers and to develop new ways of working with them.
These are building greater awareness of our solutions capabilities, and we are looking to launch further targeted campaigns in the coming year. I will talk more about our progress towards becoming a more solutions-based business later in the presentation. Finally, turning to society. In the third year of measurement against our purpose targets for 2025 and 2030, we continue to make good progress. Over the last three years, our no and low-calorie sweeteners and fibers have helped to remove 6 million tons of sugar from people's diets. That's 24 trillion calories. With the cost of living crisis, increasing food insecurity in many of our local communities, I am very proud that over the last three years, we have provided over three and a half million meals to people in need through our food bank partnerships. That's well ahead of our original commitment.
We are making good progress on reaching gender equality in leadership and management roles, with 44% of these roles now held by women. Turning to sustainability, over the last three years, our Scope 1 and 2 absolute greenhouse gas emissions have reduced by 6%, and our Scope 3 emissions by 13%. Our Scope 3 emissions are benefiting from the significant investments we made to reduce emissions in Primient before we sold a majority holding in the business, by replacing coal boilers with more efficient gas-fired systems in its three largest plants. We continue to perform strongly on waste management, with 92% of waste beneficially used, and our sustainable agriculture programs for corn in the U.S. and for stevia in China both performed very well.
In China, our program achieved a 55% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions on participating farms, while at the same time improving yields by 6%. Sustainability is built into every aspect of our business, including our innovation and capital investment programs, while also improving our customer offering. A great example is work completed during the year by scientists and engineers at our plant in the Netherlands to develop a new manufacturing process for our CLARIA clean label starches. While our next generation CLARIA has the same functionality as our existing CLARIA, we have developed a new, more sustainable manufacturing process, which results in 34% lower greenhouse gas emissions and 35% less water use. We are reviewing our entire starch portfolio to see how we can deliver similar benefits to other ingredients.
Overall, I am delighted with our financial performance and the progress we are making, delivering on our strategy and our social and environmental commitments. I will come back to talk more about our strategic progress, but for now, I will hand over to Dawn to talk you through the financial results. Dawn, over to you.
Thank you, Nick, and good morning, everyone. As Nick said, it has been a year of strong delivery for Tate & Lyle. I will now take you through the financial results. In line with previous presentations, I will focus on adjusted measures. Items with percentage growth are in constant currency, unless I indicate otherwise, and pro forma financial information for the comparative period has been used to calculate growth rates. I am pleased that we have delivered against all our financial goals. We have continued to grow our business in line with our strategy, successfully navigating a challenging external environment. We continue and have increased our investment across all three pillars of science, solutions, and society.
We have maintained strong financial discipline and a focus on cash generation, which means our balance sheet remains strong, providing significant flexibility for further investment. As a result, we are generating strong returns for investors. In terms of financial highlights, group revenue was 18% higher as a result of solution selling, mix management, and pricing.
EBITDA was 22% higher as we managed to drive margin accretive growth, despite the twin challenges of inflation and supply chain pressures. Profit before tax was 13% higher, reflecting strong performance in the core Tate & Lyle business and weaker performance in our minority holding in Primient. Earnings per share were 10% higher, and 100 basis points, benefiting from higher profits and the disciplined use of capital. Free cash flow was GBP 47 million higher despite the challenge of inflation in working capital.
Before I move on to the performance of our three operating segments, I want to remind you that each has a distinct role in our business. Food & Beverage Solutions is our growth engine, and its role is to drive margin accretive growth. Revenue is expected to grow at high single digit % per annum, which is ahead of the market. It's also the largest part of our portfolio, comprising over 80% of our revenue and EBITDA.
Sucralose, which represents 11% of group revenue, is a strongly cash generative business. Its role is to provide attractive returns. Our strategy is to maintain a strong customer base and not pursue increased demand if that erodes margins. Reflecting this, revenue is expected to remain broadly flat over the next 5 years. Primary Products Europe is the smallest segment, comprising 7% of our revenue.
Set out at the capital markets event in February, we expect revenue in Primary Products Europe to decline low each year as we execute a planned transition away from these lower margin products and use the capacity to fuel growth in the higher margin Food & Beverage Solutions business. Let's dig deeper by looking at the key performance drivers of each segment. Let's start with Food & Beverage Solutions.
Revenue growth was strong at 19% due to 3 factors: increased solution selling alongside strong price mix, lower volume, which I will talk to on the next slide, and a small contribution from acquisitions. Price mix contributed 25 percentage points of revenue growth. This was split into 12 percentage points of pricing from inflation pass-through, and 13 percentage points from focus on higher margin business through price mix.
The price mix component is split equally across gains from solution selling, customer mix gains, and the exit of low margin business and product mix. Finally, acquisitions contributed 1 percentage point of revenue growth. Turning now to our regions, where we saw double-digit revenue growth across every region, along with consistent drivers of strong price mix, offsetting lower volume. In North America, input cost inflation and therefore revenue growth was more moderate.
We saw good gains across beverage, confectionery, and soups, sauces, and dressings, particularly with our larger customers. In Asia, Middle East, Africa, and Latin America, revenue growth was strong. In Asia, this was assisted by the acquisition of Quantum, and in Latin America, we saw good progress in sweetening solutions, particularly in Mexico. In Europe, where inflation was highest, revenue growth was strongest, with growth across all our core categories.
EBITDA grew ahead of revenue in line with our strategy by 21%, benefiting from increased solution selling, customer and product mix, as well as contributions from productivity and operating leverage. We continue to take actions to intentionally reset Tate & Lyle as a growth-focused specialty business by focusing on revenue growth and margin expansion through solution selling, mix management, and the pricing through of inflation.
In doing this, we are prioritizing revenue and margin expansion ahead of volume growth. During the year, this approach led to strong price mix driven revenue growth, as we also navigated a challenging external environment and input cost inflation. Volume was lower for two other reasons. Firstly, one-off factors from supply chain disruption, the exit of low margin business, and the impact of industrial action in the Netherlands in the first half.
Secondly, some demand softness in the fourth quarter from customer destocking in North America and increased competition from imports in Europe. The recovery of inflation was managed in two main ways: through supplementary pricing and the annual pricing round to renew calendar year contracts in North America and Europe. In these contracts, we applied our revenue-focused approach and intentionally did not renew the lower margin business we exited last year.
We also built additional flexibility into the contracts, both for us and our customers, to manage future periods of changing input costs. Looking forward, we expect to continue to execute our strategy to prioritize solution selling and the sale of higher margin products. We anticipate this, together with some demand softness, will lead volume in the year ahead, being lower than the 2023 financial year.
This is consistent with our approach to enhance the quality of our business and to deliver on our long-term financial ambition. Let's move on to Sucralose. Revenue grew by 2%. This reflected 4% lower volume and 6% improved customer mix. Production costs were impacted by inflation across a range of inputs.
The existence of multi-year contracts with our larger customers limited our near-term ability to recover these inflationary cost increases, and as a result, EBITDA, at GBP 58 million, was 5% lower. Industry demand for Sucralose remains robust as consumer demand for sugar-reduced food and drink continues to increase. We continue to see good demand from our larger customers. In Primary Products Europe, revenue was 25% higher, reflecting more favorable market pricing conditions.
Lower volume reflected both the impact of industrial action at our facility in the Netherlands and the planned transition of capacity to specialty ingredients. EBITDA losses improved to GBP 9 million. Pulling this all together, we delivered strong profit growth. Food & Beverage Solutions increased EBITDA by 21% or GBP 43 million. Sucralose saw a decline in EBITDA of 5% or GBP 3 million, and our small Primary Products Europe business increased EBITDA by 57% or GBP 12 million. These combined results led to an increase in absolute EBITDA in constant currency of GBP 52 million or 22%. The impact of foreign exchange was to increase EBITDA by a further GBP 35 million to GBP 320 million. This was driven by the average U.S. dollar exchange rate being 12% higher than the prior year.
Turning to productivity, we delivered $21 million of productivity savings in the year, more than double our target, demonstrating the strong productivity culture we have built across the business. Looking ahead, our target is to deliver $100 million of productivity savings in the five years ending the 31st of March, 2028. We expect cash costs to deliver this program to be in the range of $80 million-$100 million, delivering a payback over three years. Productivity in our operations comes from a range of areas, including capital investments to increase efficiency and reduce energy costs and supply chain efficiencies. A key focus in the coming year will be to leverage digital to improve our end-to-end customer and employee experience.
We will also look for synergies across productivity and sustainability projects, like the CLARIA example Nick talked about earlier, where we not only reduced our energy and water use, but also reduced costs. Let's move on to talk through tax, exceptional items, and dividends. The adjusted effective tax rate for the year was 19.9%, 60 basis points higher than the prior year. The increased tax rate reflects higher profits, with more profit taxed at higher rates, alongside the inclusion of the Primient joint venture. We anticipate the adjusted effective tax rate for the 2024 financial year will be 1-2 percentage points higher than the 2023 financial year. The key drivers of this are the increase in headline U.K. corporation tax from 19% to 25% and the expected stronger profits in Primient.
In terms of exceptional items, net pre-tax exceptional costs were GBP 28 million, the majority of which related to the separation of the controlling interest in Primient. From a cash flow perspective, this translated into a total exceptional cash outflow of GBP 59 million, again, mostly related to the separation of Primient. Turning now to dividends. Within the context of our growth-focused strategy, the board operates a progressive dividend policy, with the overall aim of balancing growing the dividend with further strengthening dividend earnings and cash cover over the medium term. The board is therefore proposing a final dividend of 13.1 pence per share, an increase of 2.5%, which brings the full year dividend to 18.5 pence per share.
Total dividends paid to shareholders last year were GBP 570 million, including a special dividend of GBP 497 million from the proceeds of the Primient disposal. We have built a positive relationship with KPS Capital Partners. The 20-year agreements put in place to provide supply and economic security for both businesses are operating effectively. We are already seeing the benefit of cash dividends from Primient, with $76 million US dollars received in the year. Of this amount, $30 million US dollars relates to distributions for the 2023 financial year. $31 million US dollars relates to profits earned by a former joint venture prior to disposal, and $15 million US dollars was to settle tax obligations on Primient's profits. Primient had a difficult year due to some operational challenges in their plant network and the impact of inflation.
Interest costs were also 47% higher, reflecting higher U.S. interest rates. As a result, our share of profits was 64% lower at GBP 24 million. There is a strong team in place at Primient, and the operational challenges which impacted the business last year are being addressed. Alongside this, the 2023 calendar year pricing round returned unit margins to pre-inflation levels. As a result, we expect stronger profits from Primient in the 2024 financial year. Moving now to free cash flow. Adjusted free cash flow was GBP 47 million higher at GBP 119 million. This was primarily driven by GBP 80 million higher profits, alongside GBP 10 million higher interest income on deposits. This more than offset a GBP 37 million increase in working capital, where optimization efforts helped to mitigate a large proportion of cost inflation.
We continue to invest in capital expenditure, which was GBP 3 million higher at GBP 78 million. Looking ahead, for the 2024 financial year, we expect capital expenditure to be in the GBP 90 million-GBP 100 million range. Overall, cash conversion was strong at 62%, and we are on track to deliver our ambition to increase cash conversion to 75% over the next five years. Let's move on to the other items on the balance sheet. In terms of net debt, this decreased by GBP 388 million to GBP 238 million. This was driven by three significant one-time factors: the GBP 1 billion consideration received from the Primient transaction, the payment of the special dividend of GBP 497 million, and acquisitions of GBP 192 million, mainly for the purchase of Quantum.
As I mentioned previously, we also received GBP 66 million of cash dividends from Primient. Our net debt to EBITDA ratio is 0.7 times. We continue to have strong liquidity headroom to invest for growth, with access to around GBP 1.1 billion through cash on hand and our undrawn revolving credit facility. There are three key messages I want to leave you with. The first is that we are delivering on our growth strategy, successfully navigating a challenging external environment to deliver strong financial performance and meeting all of our financial measures coming into the year. Secondly, we are investing for the future across our pillars of science, solutions, and society, alongside continuing to demonstrate a strong culture of productivity and cost discipline. Thirdly, we have maintained our strong balance sheet through financial discipline and a focus on cash generation.
This gives us flexibility to continue to invest for the future, both organically and inorganically. It provides a solid platform on which to execute our growth strategy. With that, let me hand you back to Nick.
Thank you, Dawn. I'm now going to give you a brief update on our strategic progress and talk to the outlook. At the same time as delivering strong financial results, it has been very pleasing to see significant progress delivering on our strategy. During the year, we completed the separation of the Primient business that repositioned Tate & Lyle right at the center of the future of food.
We grew solutions revenue from new business wins and continued to build stronger solutions-based partnerships with our customers. We increased investment in R&D, innovation, and customer-facing capabilities and strengthened our portfolio with two high-quality acquisitions. As we explained at our capital markets event three months ago, we see a number of structural mega trends which are impacting the consumer landscape, which Tate & Lyle is well positioned to capture.
Population growth, people living longer, climate change, and the fast adoption of technology are all driving consumer purchasing and consumption patterns. In short, consumers are looking for healthier, tastier, and more convenient food that's both sustainable and affordable. With our capabilities in sweetening, mouthfeel, and fortification, these trends play directly into our areas of expertise.
We are experts in taking sugar and calories out of food, enhancing texture and mouthfeel experience, as well as improving the nutritional profile by adding fiber and protein. We also have the capabilities to help our customers reformulate products to optimize cost as required. In February, we set out 3 metrics we will be focusing on over the next 5 years to accelerate growth from innovation and solution selling. Let me take each one in turn. The first is to continue to grow new products as a percentage of Food & Beverage Solutions revenue.
Last year, this increased by 1 percentage point to 17%. Looking at new product revenue growth, this grew by 17% during the year, on a like for like basis, if you include new products that fell out of the calculation, this grew by 20%. Our innovation pipeline has performed very well over the last 3 years, with new products delivering a compound annual growth rate of 28%. The second metric is to increase investment in innovation and solution selling capabilities, we increased this by 11% in the year. This was in 3 main areas: capabilities, insights, and infrastructure. On capabilities, we strengthened our expertise in areas such as nutrition, sensory, and regulatory. For example, we expanded our nutritional expertise in key markets such as the U.S., China, and Mexico.
In each region, we have consumer insights experts who analyze consumer and category trends by region and by country to identify growth opportunities in our core categories and higher growth subcategories. This insight is a key part of our customer solutions offering. We strengthened our expertise in North America, Asia, and Latin America during the year. Ensuring our solutions can be applied to our customers' products in their local markets is very important, as consumer preferences across the world are different, whether it's the amount of sweetness in a product or the way it feels in the mouth. That is why we continue to invest in expanding our global network of customer innovation and collaboration centers.
During the year, we opened a new center in Santiago, in Chile, bringing the total number of centers to 16, and we are also expanding our center in Singapore to establish a hub focused on mouthfeel solutions. The third metric is to increase solutions revenue from new business wins. While we work with customers in different ways, collaborating on solutions has a number of benefits. The value of the ingredients used in solutions tends to be higher, about two times higher on average, and also is a stickier sale, as the solution directly solves a customer's challenge. Finally, it also builds stronger customer relationships, which often leads to new business. It was encouraging to see an increase in solutions revenue from new business wins of two percentage points in the year, from 16% to 18%.
We delivered growth in all regions, supported by our ongoing investment in customer-facing capabilities and infrastructure. Portfolio expansion, either organically or through acquisitions, is a key part of our growth strategy. During the year, we made two acquisitions to significantly strengthen our fortification platform and enhance our customer offering. Last June, we acquired Quantum Hi-Tech, a leading dietary fiber business in China. This science-driven business, with its prebiotic FOS and GOS fibers, brings deep R&D expertise to the company. The majority of Quantum's revenue comes from within China, where the growth of dietary fibers is estimated at 10%, well above the 6% growth globally. The integration is going well, and the business is performing as expected. The other acquisition was Nutriati, a small ingredient technology business developing and producing chickpea protein and flour.
We are very pleased with this acquisition, which expands our capability to offer customers sustainable plant-based solutions. We have seen strong revenue growth and customer traction for both of Nutriati's product lines. At our capital markets event in February, we set out our financial ambition for Tate & Lyle over the next 5 years. By way of reminder, this is to deliver 4%-6% revenue growth, with Food & Beverage Solutions growing high single digits ahead of the market, and for EBITDA to grow by 7%-9% each year. We also aim to increase organic return on capital employed by up to 50 basis points on average each year, and on productivity to deliver $100 million of benefits over the next 5 years. Finally, we will continue to accelerate growth through value-enhancing partnerships and M&A.
Turning to the outlook for the year ending the 31st of March, 2024. In line with our 5-year ambition, we expect to deliver revenue growth of 4%-6% and EBITDA growth of 7%-9%. We also expect to see stronger profits from our minority holding in Primient. In summary, it's been an excellent first year for the new Tate & Lyle. Financial performance was strong despite significant challenges in the world around us, and we continue to deliver on our growth-focused strategy. We are investing in R&D, innovation, and growth capacity, and building stronger solution-based relationships with our customers. Our extensive portfolio and technical expertise in sweetening, mouthfeel, and fortification has positioned the business right at the center of the future of food, creating solutions which meet growing consumer demand for healthier, tastier, and more sustainable food and drink.
Today, Tate & Lyle is a focused, agile, and ambitious business. While there will be more challenges ahead, we are confident that the strength of our ingredients portfolio across attractive categories and regions, our passion for serving our customers, and the expertise of our people will support the delivery of our growth-focused strategy and our five-year financial ambition. I would like to finish by thanking everyone at Tate & Lyle for their hard work in delivering a strong set of financial results and for living our purpose with great passion and belief. For all their support, as always, I am truly grateful. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining today's presentation. We are now into the live Q&A.
As I said in the pre-record, Tate & Lyle performed very well in the 2023 financial year, as we delivered double-digit revenue and EBITDA growth and made significant progress delivering our strategy. We will now take your questions. Before we start, I just wanted to wish Martin Deboo from Jefferies all the very best in his retirement at the end of this month. Martin has covered Tate & Lyle for over 16 years, and we will miss his in-depth analysis and challenge of our business. Martin, we wish you all the best. With that, we will turn to the questions with the first one. Actually it's coming from Martin Deboo, from Jefferies. Martin, good morning.
Sorry, Nick, just unmuting myself. Gosh, I get the privilege of the first question, do I? It's gonna feel a bit nerdy, I think.
Okay.
I just want to ask on sucralose. I mean, volumes dropped off quite significantly in H2, down high teens, it looks like to me. You did touch on it in the prepared remarks, but I just wanted to sort of drill into that a bit. Secondly, I was quite surprised that sucralose had a cost recovery issue, because I don't think of sucralose as an input-dependent business, but you allude to the constraints of multi-year contracts. Could we just talk a little bit about sucralose? I know it's not the main event, but you did give me the first question.
Sure, of course. Let me pick both of those up, and maybe Dawn can add something on the cost as well. On Sucralose, what we saw, and we said this in the first half, some phasing of volume into the first half. That's the first point is, big customers pull quite strongly on their contracts in the first half. What we also saw in the second half is we're lapping a record quarter in Q4 2022. Two of those things sort of added up to the half one, half two volume imbalance, but actually, in relative terms, nothing too concerning for us. On the cost side, what you do see on Sucralose is, you know, clearly input cost inflation from things like sugar and energy, and that was an impact in the last financial year.
Nevertheless, we, you know, we felt good about the overall profit delivery on sucralose. Dawn, anything to add or?
Yeah, I think, if you think about the role of Sucralose in the portfolio, its role is to deliver attractive returns, and it's delivered that in the year, you know, with around 30% margin. The other things to say is the global market for Sucralose remains very robust and continues to grow. It's a choice for us to have long-term contracts because that helps to balance the risk, and actually, as inflation normalizes, we would expect, you know, we would expect the profitability of Sucralose to also normalize. As Nick said, I mean, overall, you know, good performance on Sucralose.
Hopefully, Martin, that covers your key points on that.
It does. I'll just wish you both my very best.
Thank you, Martin.
You, Martin.
My very best wishes for the future. Thank you.
Okay, good luck to you, too. Our next question comes from Alex Sloane at Barclays. Alex, good morning.
Morning, Nick. Morning, Dawn. Thanks for the questions. Two please from me. The first one, just on FBS and the double-digit mix improvement there. I mean, clearly, you know, some evidence from that of your success in prioritizing higher value business over volume. Maybe you could talk about the outlook for mix for the year ahead. I mean, I'd presume we should not be expecting necessarily double digit mix to continue. In terms of, you know, thinking about, you know, potentially softer volume tonnage on continued destocking, can the combination of volume and mix remain in, you know, low single digit plus positive territory?
Maybe related to that, could you give us a sense of where you see customer inventory levels now versus maybe 2019 levels in terms of maybe getting a base case of how deep and long this destocking drag might last? That's the first question. Just the second one. The WHO obviously published a new guideline last week on non-sugar sweeteners use, and I appreciate that's actually quite a controversial guideline, not necessarily endorsed by all health bodies and professionals. Interested if you think that that guideline might have any impact, either near or longer term, in terms of the addressable market that you laid out for your sweeteners pillar at the CMD earlier this year. Thank you.
Sure. Okay, what, why don't I talk about the volume piece and then, Dawn, maybe give the mix story? You know, as you rightly say, Alex, through the first 3 quarters of last year, we saw a really successful reset of the business, where we saw significant revenue and margin improvement as we looked to focus the business on those customers who value doing business with us, higher margin products and just resetting the business for growth going forward. That really played out in a strong financial algorithm. That continued into the fourth quarter, with one other thing flowing through the whole year, which was this sense of, you know, exiting low margin business, particularly in Europe.
What we saw in the fourth quarter, in addition to that, was some signs of destocking emerging, both in customers and we think in consumer pantries as well, as they adjusted to a post-COVID inflationary reworld. We've seen some of that flow into the first quarter this year. The good thing in that is a couple of things. Firstly, we're still seeing a robust financial algorithm. The algorithm in the fourth quarter was as robust as in the first three quarters, despite the signs of destocking, and we've also built an assumption on volume destocking for the foreseeable future into our guidance for this year. We're expecting to see sequential improvement in volume through this year as the destocking impacts subsides. That's what we're hearing from customers as well as we go around the world.
In terms of the nature of the mix and its sustainability, I'll let Dawn handle that, and then I'll come back and give you a perspective on the WHO announcement.
Thanks, Nick. I mean, you know, as you said, a very strong performance in terms of price mix on the FBS business. 25 points of growth in the year. Roughly half of that came from inflation pass-through of price. The other half came from, as Nick talked about, the very intentional reset of the business. There were four key drivers in equal shares that drove half of that total price mix. The first one was solution selling. In line with our long-term strategy and in line growing our solutions business, that became a bigger part of our business during the year, increasing 2 points. We also prioritized strategic customers that will value long-term partnerships around solutions. The other two pieces were prioritization of product mix and new products, higher margin products, as well as the exit of low-margin business.
If you think about those factors, as Nick talked about, we expect them to continue into the first part of this year. The first one, which is the solution selling piece, which is in line with our long-term strategy, that's the piece that we expect to see as we gradually move through the year and we get back to volume growth. That's the piece of price mix that we would look to see ongoing.
Thanks, Dawn. Let me come back and talk about the WHO announcement then. Just to put it into context to start with. There is a huge weight of scientific evidence out there that low and no-calorie sweeteners are an effective tool in helping weight management, alongside a huge number of other lifestyle choices. That's really important in a world where obesity and diabetes is the biggest health challenge facing the world. What we're seeing from customers is massive demand for those products because they're trying to provide consumers with positive choice to reduce their sugar intake.
It's also true to say that, you know, sweetness is a habit for people. Therefore, dealing with obesity and diabetes in the short term is about a growing cohort of grown-ups who are used to high sugar diets. You need solutions today. We also believe that reducing sweetness in diets over time is important, but that's a generational thing with young people coming through. We anticipate continued strong demand for our no and low-calorie sweeteners and all the other sweetener solutions in our portfolio going forward. I think the other thing I'd say is the WHO guidance is conditional, and that means it's based on a low weight of evidence, and therefore, there is a little bit of controversy about it.
For us, we'll clearly watch it very carefully, but we've got a belief that what we're doing is the right thing to help solve the immediate problem of growing obesity and diabetes in the world. Hopefully, that gives you a perspective on all of your, all of your questions for today.
Yeah. Thank you very much.
We're next, we'll go to Damian McNeela at Numis. Damian, good morning.
Good morning, everybody. Thanks for taking the questions. I guess the first one for Dawn, maybe, is can you give us some color on the degree of cost inflation that we're likely to see in the coming financial year? Whether there's any sort of regional split or regional variances in that expectation? Then secondly, on the solutions side of business, I mean, you're making good progress. Are you able to sort of give us an indication of what the pipeline for solutions looks like as we stand now, and give us sort of a sense of what that might be for the coming year, please?
Great. Thanks, Damian. Why don't you take the first one, and then I'll come back on the solutions piece.
Sure. In terms of inflation, I mean, we've done a really good job covering inflation, and we've covered it through a combination of price, you know, mix management, productivity, you know, very strong performance on productivity in the year, as well as cost management and cost discipline. The four levers that we've pulled to cover inflation, we would expect to use those levers moving forward. We still expect to see inflation, you know, as we move into this year. Remember that we are hedged forward, so when in an inflationary environment, that takes time for inflation to feed through, and similarly, as you're coming down the other side, that benefit takes time to see through. As we move through the year, if we look at the spot price today, the spot price versus our input prices, you know, is lower.
If that continues, you know, then we would expect to see some benefit in the second half of the year. I mean, the reason why we're not guiding to a specific number on inflation is because we expect it. You know, we expect to cover it from a unit margin perspective this year, as we have done in previous years.
Damian, maybe I'd just add one other point to that is, we consciously, when we came into contracting for this year, we gave customers the choice on whether we would cover the inflation we saw for them as we contracted or we'd float. The book is relatively balanced from a risk perspective in that regard. Let me come back to your question about solutions. We saw good progress last year. Let's start with that. Two percentage points increase in the overall mix of solutions in the pipeline, up to 18%. We expect to see continued progress this year. As you know, we're looking to double the pipeline from solutions as a percentage of the mix over the next 5 years. Will the progress be absolutely linear?
Probably not, but there's no reason to assume we're not gonna see progress in this year as well. The question is whether, what's the balance on those solutions from, you know, cost out versus your healthier alternatives? I think that mix may be a little bit different in the near term. There's also a question about how fast products go to market in the current environment. The progress last year was very solid. The pipeline looks good, and we're anticipating making progress this year as well.
Thank you very much.
Very good. Our next question comes from Lauren Molyneux at Citi. Lauren, good morning.
Hi. Morning, both. Thanks for taking my question. Just a couple from me, please. Firstly, on Primient, can you talk a bit more specifically around the improvement that you're expecting in this business in terms of the profit delivery there, and maybe some of the moving parts, and also how much visibility you have into that improvement in profitability, you know, given the pricing and the recent operational improvements? Also, I think there's a sorry, a financial headwind there. Secondly, obviously, good progress against the productivities again this year, so more than doubled your initial expectations.
I was wondering kind of what the expectations are in terms of productivities this year. Can you talk about whether you're actually discovering more opportunities as you move through this program, and whether there's potential maybe to upgrade the expectations there? Just generally, kind of the phasing of those productivities over your midterm target. Thank you.
Sure. I'll cover Primient, and then maybe Dawn, you could cover the productivity piece. The only thing I'd add on productivity, Lauren, before Dawn jumps in is, we've just exited a very successful program. You know, the $150 million that we delivered over the previous 5 years, which was ahead of target and ahead of schedule, and the productivity we delivered this year give us huge confidence in the future program that Dawn will lay out in a minute. We feel that productivity is an engine of the business. In terms of Primient, I think the first thing to say is we're very happy with the progress on separation. The two businesses separated very cleanly. The relationship with KPS is very strong, and let's not forget, we received a $76 million dividend out of the Primient business last year, 'cause they're very cash generative.
They had some operational challenges through the year, which we talked quite a lot about at the half one. The good news is, as we came into the fourth quarter, many of those operational challenges had been addressed, and through the pricing round, we saw a return to more normal levels of margins. We're very positive about the potential of Primient for this year and the relationship that we've developed. You know, if I was to think about it in simple terms, broadly, what we saw in terms of delivery from Primient in the second half was delivered in the fourth quarter. That's sort of quite a good sense of where the business might go this year.
We have very good visibility of performance in Primient, 'cause we talk every month to them about performance. You know, it's a very transparent relationship, we've got this cross-supply agreement that's working well. You know, tough year for them last year, but signs of material strengthening coming into this year, which gives us confidence about delivery this year. Don't forget, also, the demand for bulk sweeteners in the US remains robust. The thing, I think the financing point you're making is, of course, the interest charge in Primient is a bit more of a lag than it would've been when interest rates was when the deal was struck, but that will play out in the numbers next year overall, I think. Dawn, do you want to take the productivity?
Yeah.
Unless you've got anything to add on Primient?
Sure. No, I think you covered it well, Nick. On productivity, as Nick said, we're really pleased with our productivity performance, $21 million delivered in the year, which is above our target going into the year, and I think it demonstrates the culture that's embedded in the business. It also demonstrates the agility to be able to adapt, you know, if higher inflation comes in as well. If we look forward, we've set out a 5-year productivity target to deliver $100 million cumulative savings over the next 5 years. I would anticipate, you know, a similar amount each year in terms of savings coming through.
What we're really focusing on is looking at end-to-end process and really looking at how can we improve both the customer experience and the employee experience when we look across the piece in our business. I think very exciting program. The other thing, if you think about the CLARIA example that we talked, where we talked about the new CLARIA process, where we're reducing energy and reducing water use by around 35%, we will also look to join that up from a productivity perspective as well. Not only does it bring sustainability benefits, but it also brings productivity savings, too.
That's a really good point. Lauren, hopefully that gives you a sense on your two questions. We'll move on to Patrick Higgins at Goodbody. Patrick, good morning.
Good morning, and thanks for taking my questions. I guess a couple from me. Firstly, just coming back to the destocking trends that you've called out, is there specific platforms or categories, I guess, that you're seeing this play out more in? Secondly, you know, you mentioned you're using some targeted programs to develop new ways to work with your customers. Could you give us a few examples of that, or what exactly, what those programs are? Then finally, just on M&A, you know, what's the pipeline like? Is multiples are becoming more reasonable then? Yeah, any update on that side, please?
Okay, let me take the first couple of questions, maybe Dawn can pick up the M&A question at the end. Firstly, on the destocking, we're not seeing anything specific from a platform perspective. I think it's more a customer-by-customer question than a platform-by-platform question as they take a view on how much stock they need to carry going into a sort of post-COVID inflationary world. There's no real pattern on a platform perspective. On the solutions side, this is really important, 'cause this is the future of the business. When we talk about ways of working with customers, we're talking about increasingly taking campaigns to them, where we're taking them potential solutions for what we see as consumer opportunities they might have.
For example, we might create a chassis for a dairy-free ice cream in North America, and we proactively go to our customers with an idea of how they might use that to build a proposition for customers. We've run a number of experiments in that regard in the last year to help strengthen how we work with customers and build stronger relationships and articulate better for them what we can do. What typically happens with those campaigns is, we then get more questions about other potential areas.
The idea is to build a proactive relationship with them through, you know, if you like, marketing of some of the solutions that we can bring, and create a two-way dialogue that shortens the innovation program and allows us to work with them on creating solutions that provide better choice to consumers and growth for them. That's really what it's all all about, and we'll continue to evolve that this year in a way that gives us more ammunition to take to customers. Dawn, with that, do you want to take the M&A point?
Yeah. From an M&A perspective, I mean, we've, you know, we've acquired four acquisitions over the last, over the last three years, and in the last 12 months, we've spent GBP 192 million on acquisitions, so it is a key part of our growth strategy. We've talked about before, our intention is to drive depth, breadth across the three platforms that we're in, so that we can serve our customers even better. If you look at our return on capital employed this year, you know, a very, very strong performance, an increase of 100 basis points, despite the fact that we made acquisitions. We continue. You know, when we look at acquisitions, we continue to use a financially disciplined approach.
I think the other things to talk about, we have got a really strong balance sheet. We have got access to GBP 1.1 billion, very strong firepower. If you look at the market at the moment, you know, we know that sentiment is quite low in terms of M&A. We know that's driven by macroeconomic factors and access to debt financing. If you think about the position that we're in, we've actually got really strong opportunity. You mentioned valuations in public markets have come down, but in private markets, they're still to come down. Actually when, if they do, we're very well-placed, you know, in terms of positioning ourselves against that. The other thing that we're seeing, we're starting to see some companies think about divestments in terms of their portfolio. Again, we're well-placed, you know, to move on that.
I'd say we remain very active in this space. We've got a strong pipeline, and where we've been successful in the past is we've built relationships with people, which has enabled us, you know, to move at pace and move on the right M&A targets as well.
Thanks, Dawn. Patrick, hoping that covers your questions, and we'll move on to Joan Lim at Exane. Joan, good morning.
Good morning. Just to go back on two questions that had been raised, but I'll expand a bit more on. The new WHO guideline. It might be up early days, but has this been a factor in your discussions with customers, regarding product innovation or reformulation? My second question is on hedging. You said you're typically forward hedged. If there's a deflation in H2, will that not benefit you in this case? Thank you.
Let me cover WHO, and then Dawn can cover the hedging point. Look, we're very actively talking to customers continually about reformulation and the use of sweeteners to help with sugar outs, and that's continuing as we speak today. We're also working with them to help them with this body of scientific evidence behind this, behind the benefits of sweeteners, because it's important that as customers, they have that knowledge as well. And those conversations are still continuing. That really hasn't changed post the WHO announcement, which was only a couple of weeks ago. Dawn, do you want to take the hedging point?
Yeah, sure. As we talked about earlier, we do forward hedge in terms of, you know, corn and energy, and we do that in terms of ensuring certainty and managing risk. As Nick talked about, we've been very proactive in working with our customers in terms of how have customers wanted to do contracting this year, particularly in Europe. Customers that have wanted a fixed price for a longer period of time, we've done that. Customers that have wanted a more variable pricing approach, we've also done that. What we've done is we've used our hedging strategy to reflect that. Our hedging strategy reflects the fact of how our customer contracts are organized.
I think, you know, that will play through as we move through the year, both on those two bases.
Joan, I think in summary, we've set the business up in the way that as inflation abates and we see some deflation, we can manage the impact of that with customers in a positive way. Okay, let's move on to the next question, which comes from Karel Zoete from Kepler. Karel, over to you.
Yes, good morning. Thanks for taking the questions. I have a couple. The first one is on guidance. You say a 7%-9% EBITDA growth in line with the medium-term outlook. You also say that Primient will see a bit of a normalization. In theory, that might add GBP 20 million-GBP 30 million or so to profit before taxes. Could organic EPS growth be low to mid-teens% this year? That's the first question. The second question is about European PP business. I think all stars are aligned for an exceptional year if I look to sugar prices in Europe and corn and energy prices being down a lot. Can you speak about your European PP business for HFCS and how contracts work here?
The last question is a bit of a clarification or on the value over volume strategy in FBS. The, the uplift in margins has been exceptional in H2. You kind of indicated volumes will come down further in H1 and value will increase. When I think about conversion of assets that produce more basic food ingredients, and replace that with the assets that can produce other ingredients that have more value, how long does that take? Is that including in the CapEx programs? Thank you.
Okay. Let me take PP Europe first and your last question, because they sort of go hand in hand. What are we seeing in PP Europe? Significant progress last year, significant reduction in the drag on the business as we both exit that business over time and also saw sugar price recalibrate in a positive way for us, in a way that we're delivering cash positive outcomes on Primary Products Europe last year. Sugar prices have remained high, we're seeing, you know, some moderating in corn price in Europe as well, which is good. We're anticipating a good year in Primary Products Europe this year. I think the question will be: What happens to sugar prices through the year?
And obviously, they may moderate as well, but it looks well set, and of course, it's consistent with the strategy that we're driving, which is to reduce exposure in that business. That links to your CapEx point, which is, as we said at the half year, we think it's a 3 to 5-year journey to navigate our way to lower volumes on Primary Products Europe, and that'll happen over time, and that's built into the CapEx program today, and we've got capacity ads live today that will help deliver that through the period of our financial guidance.
If I then come back to Primient and guidance, you're right, we're anticipating a stronger year from Primient, and that should lead to the kind of leverage into EPS that you talked about, with one significant caveat, which is the tax rate increasing because of the change in tax rate in the U.K., and I'm sure Dawn can give more color of that. Of course, on Primient, a continued strong demand that they saw in the fourth quarter coming into this year. Dawn, do you want to add anything on Primient before talking about the margin points?
I think we've covered Primient in terms of very strong quarter four run rate, in terms of operational performance, strong pricing round in terms of covering inflation, which should give confidence for the momentum and the run rate as we move into this year, you know, offset by the headwind in interest rates or interest costs. You know, as we've said in our outlook, we expect that to improve. As you referenced, Nick, from a tax rate perspective, Corporation tax rate is moving from 19% to 25%. In addition to that, you know, if we expect Primient to have a stronger performance, both of those factors, we are forecasting, you know, 1-2 points increase in our effective tax rate for the year.
The margin evolution into half two?
In terms of the shape-
Yeah.
you mean?
Actually, Cal, would you repeat your last question for us? We gave a fairly long answer to the first two.
Yeah, thanks. No, yeah, thanks for that. The evolution of... You're kind of indicating that in the first half of the year, we'll still have a drag on volumes, but strong mix headwinds. Should we then also expect that to be reflected in the progress of margin during 2023/2024, or is that difficult to say at this point?
I would say in terms of margin progress, that will sort of depend on how inflation and deflation plays out through the year. What we are saying is that we're going to see volumes improve through the year sequentially, but the financial algorithm actually is pretty similar through the year because of the impacts that we're seeing from Q4 coming into Q1. I think we'd anticipate similar margin profile in half one and half two.
Yeah. Yes, that's right.
Okay. Thank you.
If we move on then to Chris Pitcher at Redburn. Chris, good morning.
Good morning. Thank you. A couple of questions from me, please. Firstly, on Primient, apologies for digging into this in a bit more detail, but obviously, it's been a source of disappointment historically, so gaining confidence in this is important. Based on your comments, it looks like the quarterly profit run rate is now up towards about GBP 40 million, so you're getting back to that GBP 150 million-GBP 160 million of operating profit. Sounds like the pricing discussions have been good. Is the risk now to that just volume, given that you've sorted out your operational problems?
On the interest side, the GBP 45 million in the second half, is that a good annualized number to think about, or is that actually the underlying nearer to GBP 50, given the rates that you're paying, given the shape of how inflation's moved there? My second question, just on CapEx outlook. It was lower this year than certainly I was looking for, and next year's guidance is below what you set in the CMD. Does the extra volume mean CapEx over the next 3 to 5 years isn't the GBP 120 million to GBP 100 million and at above level? I just want to understand CapEx for the next few years. Thanks.
Okay. Let's take the Primient question in 2 parts. Let me take the operational bit, and then Dawn can maybe come back on the interest piece. You're right, in quarter four, we saw a return to normalized levels of performance. As operational performance improved, the pricing round flowed through, and we also saw volumes relatively robust. The thing that really makes the year operationally then going forward is a continued demand for the business, obviously, as you said, and then, you know, continued stability from an operational perspective, which we're starting to see. I think that's the right way to think about it. On the interest charge, I should probably get Dawn to cover that.
Yeah, I mean, I think on the interest charges, as we've talked before, half of the Primient debt is fixed and half is floating. As interest rates move up or down, you know, that will clearly impact the results. If you think about what's been happening with interest rates, in terms of interest rates going up, you're right. The Q4 run rate, you know, we would expect to see as we move through the year. I guess it also depends on what happens on interest rates. I think the other important thing to say on Primient, you know, Primient is a cash-generative business. We saw that this year with the $76 million dividend, you know, that they paid for us.
I think, Chris, your last question on CapEx, as you say, our guidance for this year is a little bit below our medium-term guidance. We'll continue to update you on that as the CapEx program evolves. I think we're still anticipating it stepping up to the levels that we talked about in our capital markets events beyond this year, and we'll continue to reappraise that as we look at the demand for capacity, and also some of the investments that are coming to improve our environmental footprint. I would think about this as a stepping up to those medium-term guidance over the next few years, is probably the best way to think about it, and we'll give more color as the year evolves and we think more about next year.
Thank you.
With that was the last question. Look, thank you, everybody, for watching and for all of your great questions. To summarize, it's been a year of strong performance. We continue to strengthen our scientific capabilities, build stronger solutions-based partnerships with our customers, and we have repositioned Tate & Lyle right at the center of the future of food. Science, solutions, and society is the promise of the new Tate & Lyle, and we're well-placed to continue to deliver our growth-focused strategy and five-year financial ambition. With that, thank you for your time today.