Cool. Good to see you all, and it's really great you're all here in person. And of course, a very warm welcome to everyone online. And welcome to this Unilever Investor Event for 2024. Look, it was already great to connect with many of you over lunch, and I hope that you also got to meet some members of the team. And I hope that you have detected from those encounters a surge of confidence and some momentum that's currently running through the company. Now, obviously combined, I would say, with a sense of humility, because we are still at an early stage of the transformation of Unilever. Today, we want to update you on that transformation.
We will share progress that we are making against the Growth Action Plan, or the GAP that we launched a year ago, where we are on track, and probably more importantly, where we have real work to do. The Growth Action Plan was a targeted intervention at the time, an operational plan to improve our growth. It was underpinned by a strong focus on building back the bank of gross margin. Now, it was not a new strategy at the time, and I said that we probably needed a bit more time to accomplish that. I'm pleased to say that today, that's why we're here. That work is now complete.
So we want to share that new strategy with you, and you won't be surprised to learn that it actually builds very much on the existing strengths in the business and on the strong progress that we have made as a company over the last 12-18 months or so. In fact, we'd like to think that what we are sharing with you today is a strategic embedding of that Growth Action Plan. And therefore, the title that we have chosen for the route going forward is Our Growth Action Plan 2030. And what I will do now is to spend about 10 minutes or so to update you on the progress that we have made. And then I'll take about an hour, so please hang in, to walk you through the different elements of the Growth Action Plan 2030.
Videos from some of our senior leaders who are here; they will appear, and they will help to bring certain priorities in that plan to life. Then we'll take a break. After the break, Fernando will pick up on ways in which we are accelerating the transformation and what the Growth Action Plan 2030 will mean in terms of value creation and the financial algorithm. After that, we're very keen to hear from you, your responses, as well as questions, as we have an hour for Q&A. That's how the afternoon will look like. Now, as you can see here on the chart, hey, there's been a lot of activity over the last year or so, organizationally, operationally, and financially. We have also made significant choices to accelerate the Growth Action Plan.
I want to go through some of the elements now, but I think very importantly, at this stage in the game, I think it suffices to say that we are ending 2024 with a better operational grip, a stronger organization, and a sharper portfolio. I think as a result, a positive momentum in our business. The last year has also seen a significant refresh of our leadership team, new faces, and I'm sure you've met a few of them, new roles, and of course, new expectations. In fact, it started with the appointment of our new chairman in December of last year. Subsequently, we have changed five positions in the Unilever board, with the sixth one actually coming up with the appointment of Benoît Potier in January 2025.
At the executive level, 60% of the Unilever executives are new to their roles, and a quarter are actually new to Unilever, and I believe that this injection of external talent will remain an important element going forward for us, obviously ensuring as well that the leadership remains diverse in all other respects as well. Now, I will come back to talent and to culture later, but for the moment, I can tell you that with everyone here on the first row, I feel very good about that quality of leadership that we have in place, and together, we are going to take the strategy forward. A year ago, when we launched the Growth Action Plan, we said that we would fix the fundamentals of our performance and of our business, and that we were going to focus on essentially three things. One, improved volume-led top-line growth.
Second, building back the bank of Gross Margin. And thirdly, an improved competitiveness, i.e., better market shares. And we see that increased focus is resulting in an improved performance. So, as you know, in quarter three, we presented our fourth consecutive quarter of volume growth. And importantly, at that moment in time, all business groups were delivering those positive volumes. On Gross Margin, we did achieve our initial aim of returning to pre-pandemic levels. And we did it a bit earlier than we anticipated. And that was largely due to a refocused prioritization on the concept of Net Productivity, more about that later. And with that Gross Margin improvement, we have reinvested behind our brands. So important. Our brand, our marketing investment, is on track to be the highest in percentage terms in more than a decade in the company.
Following that, we were able to boost our profitability, and EPS growth recorded was 16%. Now, a key element, as you know, in this journey is a rigorous focus and through that increased investment behind our 30 Power Brands. We see that focus paying off. Year to date, these Power Brands were growing 5.6%. They were ahead of the company average, and with a healthy volume growth of 4.1%. Power Brands represent 75% plus of our turnover. Very importantly, that is not a zero-sum game. Other brands have a distinct and an important role to play. Our commitment to these brands was also demonstrated by the fact that also these brands have returned to volume growth in the third quarter. It's very clear that that strong focus on the Power Brands is very important.
And that includes as well that we ensure that these brands drive fewer, bigger, and of course, better innovations. And that's such an important part of our story. Because from the moment that I arrived, I felt that our innovation delivery was actually not matching the strength of our brands or the quality, the fantastic quality that we have in our R&D. And I feel that that is changing. We have a very clear framework now and some ambitious goals. And I specified them, I think, to quite a few of you last year. We want to build on an annual basis, 10 to 15 platforms, each generating about EUR 100 million of incremental turnover over time. And we wanted to double the average size of innovation with a base year of 2021 in the company. Now, look, that is what we are doing.
And it's still, of course, early days, but we are seeing encouraging results. We have defined for 2024, 12 of those platforms, and we are on track for all of these platforms to indeed become a EUR 100 million platform. We have also reached in 2024 already a doubling of that average size of innovation versus that base year 2021. But I should say that is a positive, and we're encouraged, but that still needs some further improvement. I think over time, we need to go to almost quadrupling the average size of our innovation versus that base year. So we've really started good stuff, but we have much more to do. Now, getting back as well to the third area of focus, which is improved competitiveness, i.e., market share.
And the first thing to note is that our coverage of market share and the way we report about it with turnover-weighted market share comprises about 70% of our portfolio. And some of the faster-growing parts of the portfolio are actually not included in the metric. So these are prestige beauty, well-being, food solutions, and our out-of-home Ice Cream business. That still means, though, that we need to make progress, of course, on the 70%. No doubt about it. I just wanted to make the caveat because there could be a disconnect sometimes between reported numbers and the reported share numbers. And we are seeing ongoing improvements, though, on that 70%, as we have committed to for the second half of 2024. And we're seeing improved readings for the trends, particularly over the last three months.
And therefore, on a moving annual basis, which you see here on the chart, it will take a bit before we get into real positive territory. But I'm positive that we will get there also on that basis in 2025, based on the recent results. So all in all, encouraging progress. But as I said a few times, we're under no illusions. We have a lot to do. For example, the concept that we have introduced to drive a much greater discipline on execution, Unmissable Brand Superiority. It's a rigorous process that we have in place, and we feel good about it that it can be a game changer. But it also reveals some gaps that we definitely need to close. The good news is we are now looking at the gaps, and we are closing them.
Another point that we need to improve on is premiumization, such an important global trend. And we are still under-indexed in that segment, making progress, but under-indexed. And I'm confident that also here we can make progress. And we're going to talk about that this afternoon. In implementing the Growth Action Plan, we have followed some very simple mantras. And I think you get probably bored of me saying it. But first and foremost, and I will continue to hammer it, it is doing fewer things better and with greater impact. It also means, as a result, that we need to scale our strengths and replicate our successes faster across the company.
Third, it means, as I said, Unmissable Brand Superiority. When we have areas of underperformance, when there are gaps or whatsoever, we need to address them and move on, put them on the table, make it transparent, and move. And as a result, and that's fourth, making Unilever, through doing all of that, a more performance-oriented business. And I think we made progress against these objectives, enough to give us confidence now to move to the next stage of the transformation of the company. And as you would expect, in considering the next stage, we've actually done our homework. We've been looking at trends. We've been looking at data, consumer data, category data, channel data, and so forth. We've also considered a wider macroeconomic context and the impact that it might have on our key markets. And here you see the trends.
And I'm sure since it's capital market season, you'll probably recognize quite a few of the trends here. So I'm definitely not going to belabor them. But I would highlight in particular, because that has come so much to the fore when we were looking at it, the speed of change taking place in the way consumers behave, including in how and where they shop. And of course, the dramatic advances in digital and in AI. And you will see that these themes, particularly these themes, play out a lot in our plans going forward as we go through this afternoon. So we need to get in that. But before I start, let me just reiterate that the new strategy in itself builds very directly on the Growth Action Plan. But the Growth Action Plan 2030 is more comprehensive in its approach. And we've looked at all the constituent parts.
As you can see here on the page, and I'll walk you through a bit. I'll start here and I'll come back on the top side, but I'll start with the strategic goal that we are setting, the strategic choices that we are making, and the elements that will underpin the kind of company that we want to build, i.e., sustainability and a winning culture. Of course, it starts here at the top, and it starts with our purpose. What kind of company do we actually want to be? Now, I'm just taking some water here. Talking too much, and it will go on for a bit. When I joined the company back in 1997, I was 10 years old at the time. The company's purpose then was, and I remember it very vividly, it was to meet the everyday needs of people everywhere.
And somehow, that phrase resonated with me. And since then, of course, many things have changed. For one thing, sustainability has, of course, grown in importance since then. And my predecessors have worked very, very hard to establish Unilever as a leader in this field. And in fact, if you look at our previous purpose, it was framed in that context, making sustainable living commonplace. Now, on this, let me be clear, sustainability will remain of significant importance to Unilever. But equally, I felt, we have felt as a leadership that it was right to make a shift and to reorient ourselves purpose-wise back to the consumer. And we will do that going forward with a new purpose that was shown in the video, which is brighten everyday life for all. And it builds on the purpose that first resonated with me in 1997.
But it takes it beyond a sort of a reactive meeting of everyday needs to a greater focus on creating demand and on making markets. And that's something that you will hear a lot more when we go through the afternoon. And I believe that in anchoring ourselves back with the consumer, our new purpose also speaks to making those moments that define people's everyday lives a bit more joyful, convenient, more efficient, as well as more sustainable. And whether that is through elevating the taste of a meal and making the preparation a bit more convenient, or cleaning your homes or your clothes and making it a better, a quicker, and a more sustainable experience, or bringing superior beauty or personal care products and regimes to people.
And once that, as you know, and that fits our brands, boosts confidence and self-esteem, and hopefully delivering, of course, to better results. Now, we unveiled this new purpose last week with our people through a similar very significant event. And it created a lot of excitement and anticipation. And I feel that the Unilever community is ready, and the time is right for a refreshed expression of our purpose, a new purpose for a new era. Now, let me go through the other elements of the Growth Action Plan 2030, and it's starting with some of the strategic choices. And there are three important pillars here: where we have chosen to focus to get our biggest returns, where we want to excel when it comes to demand creation, and what capabilities that we need to accelerate to stay ahead in that fast-moving world.
As I've said, doing fewer things better with greater impact has been very key. We have started to see what happens when we put the full might of the company behind that more focused agenda. We're going to continue in that vein. In practice, that means a focus on 30 Power Brands and 24 markets. The reason here is quite compelling because 30 Power Brands constitute more than 75% of turnover, and 24 markets constitute around 85% of our turnover. Now, it's important, so let us dissect this a little further. Because post the separation of Ice Cream , which we are, by the way, confident that that will be completed by around this time next year, we will have four Business Groups. These Business Groups will make a broadly similar contribution to our turnover, but they each play a distinct role in the portfolio.
Fernando is going to talk about that in more detail. As you can see from the visual here, after the Ice Cream separation, we will be left with a simpler and a more coherent business. The business will be anchored in those 30 Power Brands. These brands drive the overwhelming majority of turnover as well as profit. Power Brands have characteristics that they can be scaled regionally or globally. Power Brands can benefit first from interventions that we are making as a company, for example, through the implementation of Unmissable Brand Superiority. We think that around 30 is the right number here. Once Ice Cream separates, then we will add four brands that fit these criteria. They're all from Beauty & Well-being, and they're all brands that premiumize our portfolio, an ambition that I called out earlier in this speech.
Brands that will be added are OLI, K18, Hourglass, and Nexus. The business groups are anchored in the power brands, and we will manage these through 24 markets, again, representing approximately 85% of the business. The nature and the scale of the changes that we are making here are quite significant in the way we operate the company. I want to take a moment to explain how this new operating model will actually work in practice. Let's start with the top 24 markets. We refer to these markets internally as business group-led markets, and they have four characteristics. One, they will be run by the business groups who have end-to-end decision rights and responsibility for the P&L. The model has been designed in such a way that it delivers on business group strategy.
And therefore, these markets will be design markets for global innovation and for the use of new technologies. Third, frontline resources, sales, will be segmented by business group, which ensures that a seamless integration between category strategy and in-market execution. And finally, four, because there is an end-to-end P&L responsibility, the supply chain as such will be managed by business group. By contrast, the remaining markets representing 15% of turnover will be managed as what we call One Unilever markets. And this part of the business will be run in a separate P&L. And there will be one customer development team per country, and that customer development team represents all the categories vis-à-vis the customer. And these markets, these One Unilever markets, will be takers of global innovation that will first be rolled out in the business group-led markets.
Therefore, in these smaller One Unilever markets, resources will be deliberately lean. So these markets will be the recipient of more off-the-shelf infrastructure solutions like in the IT domain. Now, if we do that, we will reduce complexity in these markets, and we will avoid duplications in parts of the business that aren't big enough to warrant, for example, for four separate sales forces that represent a massive costing if we do it in that way. And it will therefore simplify our operations in the smaller markets. Now, that said, very importantly, even though the One Unilever markets won't be principal focus for investment and innovation, they do remain critically important. And we cannot deliver the plan without them, but we actually believe that by simplifying the model, they can actually thrive and grow faster.
And this focused approach to running the business by four Business Groups, 30 Power Brands, 24 markets, has enabled us to identify where we have the biggest priority opportunities. And these are, first of all, doubling down in India. And that builds on a significant presence that we already have in the country, which is in itself Unilever's second biggest geography. Fernando will talk more about that. Secondly, it's about accelerating our fast-growing well-being and prestige businesses. And that includes the international rollout of some of the very successful brands. Third, about premiumizing and accelerating our business in the U.S. Fourth, through growing select emerging market powerhouses. And you should think about, for example, Brazil being an obvious case in point, or the Philippines, or also Indonesia, where we have a lot of work to do that is currently going on, but where our long-term commitment is very strong.
And then finally, shifting our portfolio to a more premiumized portfolio, more specialty channel-geared portfolio in Europe to build on the progress that we have made in this part of the world in 2024. Now, in the interest of time, I want to focus on the first two. So I'll start with that doubling down in India. And that perhaps represents our single biggest opportunity over the next couple of years. Later, as I said, you will hear more from Fernando on some of these priorities. But let me start with India and why it's so important to us. India has always been a Unilever stronghold, but its performance over the last decade has brought this into even sharper focus, as you can see, because by any measure, HUL is a fantastic business.
It's strong, it's resilient, and it has very enviable market shares that have actually grown considerably over the last three years, and in 2024, our focus remained on driving competitive volume growth, and yes, we've seen some ongoing recovery from a volatile period, but importantly, we have continued to first stabilize, but also continued to grow these market shares into the latest reach, and I think that is super important after a period of strong growth that we continue to remain very competitive, so whether it's on the long term or the short term, we believe our HUL business is a phenomenal strength to the company, so it's a good place to start, but we're not complacent here. We're actually very much on the ball to continue to play that important role in India because in itself, it is evolving fast as an economy.
Annual household incomes are going up, as you can see represented here. And that in itself is a change that opens up significant opportunities for us in the years ahead. So let's talk about that. India is going to be important for all the four business groups because all of them have big opportunities. So if you think about it, if GDP per capita rises, so does GDP, so does per capita consumption growth. And this gives essentially that upside for each of the business groups. And that's through unmissable superior brands, through premiumizing the portfolio, or through digitizing our entire value chain. And as you can see, the opportunity reflected in the example here. GDP per capita in India today is the equivalent of about EUR 2,400. We expect, and sort of that's a broad consensus, that that will go up to EUR 4,500 by 2033. That's an 85% increase.
Now, when that happens, the spend in fabric cleaning, and that's just to take one example, looking at the averages around the world for that per capita increase, increases by EUR 8. Leaving everything else constant, that upside for us in this scenario is EUR 2 billion. And that is just getting a fair share of that increase. Now, understandably, you may well say that's just modeling, but the reality is we have seen this before. If you think of the Philippines, and I mentioned the Philippines before, that had a similar GDP dynamic. It started in 2008 with per capita consumption and fabric cleaning rising to with approximately EUR 9 as well. And that contributed significantly to our business growing from 500 million at that time to now a 1.4 billion business in the Philippines. So India is an enormous opportunity for the company. And we will use it.
We will pull all levers to make sure that we benefit from that growth. You will hear more about that on the HUL Investor Day that will take place on the 29th of November. The second area of focus I wanted to touch on is the acceleration and the internationalization of our prestige business and our well-being business, and as you know, these parts of the business have enjoyed actually very high growth rates, so over the last 15 quarters, the combined business of these two has consistently grown double-digit, and the combined turnover is now close to EUR 4 billion, so together, these two businesses represent a quarter of our Beauty & Wellbein g business, so there's no doubt that we have built up some critical mass in this attractive part of the market with a strong focus on the United States.
In that country, we see plenty of headroom for further growth because there, the brands are obviously very investment-ready. At the same time, we see opportunity for selective international expansion. In fact, if you think about it, our prestige business is already for 40% in international business, so 60% United States, 40% international. From our well-being business, 10% is international, 90% is in the US. At the time when these brands were acquired, they were all acquired with the idea of geographical expansion in mind. We need to be very sharp, and we need to be very selective in our choices. With our commitment to premiumizing Europe, we see Europe as an important destination geography. The same goes for China, again, selectively.
In addition, because we're doubling down on India, India will be an important destination market as well, mostly for prestige beauty brands. And this will allow us to enter that prestige beauty market in India exactly at the right time. We will not be too late. Priya is going to talk about it a little more when she talks about B&W a little later this afternoon. All right. Now, that covers focus. Let me now turn to excellence because this really gets to the heart of our 2030 growth action plan. And that is why it's obviously represented also on the page in the center of it. And as I said, this is the consumer-facing side of the strategy. And we have identified five areas where we believe that we need to excel to win. First, by creating that unmissable superior brands.
Two, through multi-year and scalable innovations, fewer, bigger, better. Three, through premiumizing our portfolio. We're very clear that we want to do that, going to see that in the plan as well. Fourth, anticipating the trends that we talked about by a significant boost in social-first demand creation. Finally, tapping better and faster into those channels where the growth is. Now, what I want to do is to go through each of them very briefly in turn. Several of our leadership team will show how some of these concepts are coming to life in each of their businesses. The first is making our brands unmissable superior. I talked about that already last year in the Growth Action Plan. We've spoken about this before and how we are approaching superiority in a more holistic way.
We're using a very structured and a very granular approach across the six pillars with 21 input metrics. They're all weighted according to their significance in the category. Now, in truth, look, we don't start off in a bad place. When we introduced Unmissable Brand Superiority last year, around 70% of our brands already achieved superior scores in the eye of the consumer. The challenge was that we didn't have enough brands that were actually growing in superiority. First of all, we need to get to at least 80% of our portfolio being superior to competition. We need a bigger percentage of our portfolio to be flat or growing and, of course, not declining.
Hey, we are well on the way because this is a journey that has started for a while ago in embedding this model across the company with now coverage of about two-thirds of our turnover. That work has helped us to identify areas where we needed to step up. I'll give you two where that was most pronounced. The first one was on the P of proposition, where some of the brands are not perceived to be sufficiently differentiating vis-à-vis the competition or not perceived to be fully on trend. This is where we had to make a change, and we're working that through. The second area where we saw the biggest gap was on packaging and including the need that we have for improvement, particularly when it comes to a more premium packaging, again, in the view of the consumer.
Now, we're going to listen in a bit to Eduardo, who is going to talk about it, Nuria Hernández, who is our Chief Marketing Officer for Personal Care and in charge of the Dove brand. And she will talk about how we are addressing those points, proposition, as well as packaging, for example, in Home Care and on the biggest brand in the company, Dove. But before we go there, let me just illustrate this a bit more with an example in foods, for example, with Hellmann's in Brazil. And you can see it here on the page. The beauty of the UBS approach is that we are finding is that there is a clear link between the cause and effect. So in the case of Hellmann's Brazil, we had three limiting factors.
First, the quality of the packaging, the superiority of the product itself, and what we call the salience of the product. And that salience means showing up in the right moments and in the right way. I'll make it sort of simple. Now, those have all been addressed in this particular case. And you can see a very different-looking product right now on the right side of the page and with a new range that we have launched since that we started the framework. And since this change was made, our value share on Hellmann's has jumped in Brazil by over 250 basis points. And the brand has now continued that growth momentum. The second area where we intend to excel, so besides unmissable brand superiority, so I parked that now. And again, you'll see more of it in the video.
But the second area is on multi-year and scalable innovation. And as I said earlier, the level of innovation has not properly done justice to the strength of our brands, but also not to our world-class science and technology, I think. And I think we have failed somehow to produce enough market-making innovations in those high-growth premium spaces. And that is something that we're changing. And we have built a very clear agenda, making our innovations bigger and bolder, and I mentioned that, and better exploiting our deep expertise in cross-cutting R&D platforms. We have a few very important platforms that fuel multiple brands and multiple business groups, like Microbiome, for example. And these ensure that our brands become unmissably superior. And an increasing R&D investment year on year, which will happen and which I think we've indicated before, gives us the kind of accelerated innovation that we need.
We are quite confident here because we do see progress. We've had that 12 innovations for this year, as I mentioned, and they are becoming a 100 million platform. Here you see just some examples on the screen here across all business teams, all business groups. The common themes are that they are all supported by science and technology. These are good products. They address core benefit spaces, and they give us the potential to own and to grow key segments in premium and over a multi-year period. Let me turn it over to Edu now to bring the themes of multi-year scalable innovation and unmissable brand superiority to life in his business in Home Care .
Hey, everyone. Good to be here. Just doing a little bit of laundry today. Good to be on top of it.
Anyway, Unmissable Brand Superiority and multi-year scalable innovations are two areas where we want to excel in Unilever and also in Home Care . They are fundamental in winning versus the market competition, but also for market-making. So I want to show you what that looks like in our business. But first, let me give you a quick overview about our business in Home Care . We are a EUR 12 billion business with leading brands like Dirt Scout, Comfort, Sunlight, Domestos, and Cif. We are the second biggest player in market by value and the number one by volume. 80% of our business is in D&E markets where we have strong citadels like India, Brazil, South Africa, and Vietnam. Now, back to the excellence pillar, most specifically, Unmissable Brand Superiority, or UBS, as we call it, it's a critical shift on how we look at our brands.
It's a totally new approach that brings greater rigor to how we think about and measure superiority, making our brand unmissably superior, not just superior on its formulation, but actually across all of the six pillars. So in line with the GAP, we are focused on fewer but bigger innovation projects. We can therefore focus on better projects that are truly multi-year platforms. And in Home Care specifically, we are also making a decisive shift from renovation to innovation. Our Home Care business has historically outperformed the market in driving renovation. And although it's very positive to keep our core up to date, renovations are by design less incremental as they have further cannibalization. Our focus now is therefore in big and bold moves that have multi-year supports and drive real portfolio transformation.
A best-in-class example of it is Wonder Wash, the first real big bold innovation in the liquid detergent market in more than a decade. It was built on very strong consumer insights and changes in laundry habits. A massive change in consumer habits led to the majority of the clothes not having visible stains. As a result of it, 78% of people were already using a short cycle at least once a week to do their laundry. There was no product specifically designed for short cycles until we launched Wonder Wash, our most patented product ever that was carefully designed to drive unbeatable performance in the shortest of the cycles. Available now in more than eight markets, but with another 20 markets to come next year, it's a true winning combination of where a big consumer insight meets products that are superior across all of the six pillars.
As we were talking about UBS, it plays a role here again. The superiority does not stop at the great mix, but it also extends to how we land it with consumer fast distribution with more than 80% in only three months. We are also on the ruthless execution on driving trial, trial, trial with sampling, promotion, lots of activities to make sure that consumers try our products. In-store execution that consumers really can't miss, driving consumer awareness of the big bet we are bringing to the market. Who better to front all of this than the fastest man on the planet, Usain Bolt? I am Usain Bolt, and I like to do things fast. And now fast. Just got there. The results speak for themselves. More than 40 million already this year, and we plan to make it more than EUR 100 million next year.
With this innovation, we gain a strong triple-digit share in the market we launched, and more specifically, in the UK, France, and Turkey, we became market leaders. In addition to Wonder Wash, we have more great innovations that allow us to premiumize our portfolio as we drive superior benefits and real differentiation in the market. We launched the first liquid boosters in the fabric enhancer category, and we continue to roll out Domestos Power Foam that's premiumizing the toilet shelf. These big bold moves are not just taking market share, but most importantly, they are helping us to grow the market as well as to play in new category spaces.
That's how we are bringing Unmissable Brand Superiority and multi-year innovations together to drive growth for Home Care , for Unilever, but also for the market and our customers, while at the same time bringing exciting new innovations to our consumers that are turning household chores into really unmissable moments. But that's enough from me. Oh, every time I forget a sock.
Thanks, Edu. Well done. Hey, the third area that we're talking about under Excel is premiumization, and I mentioned it already a few times, and we are under-indexed here. So there's a lot to do, and there's a lot to go after, and we are going to do that by applying essentially three principles or three ways to do that. The first is by improving our core business. So think of innovating on our core brands in developed markets.
A good example is, for example, Dove's scalp-less hair innovation, as it uses skincare ingredients to strengthen hair fibers in a clinically proven way, or by developing our core business in emerging markets through innovation and market development, and that goes often by conversion for evolving applications, so think of here the conversion in fabric cleaning from bars to powders to liquid. The second lever on premiumization is to scale our prestige and well-being businesses across the Unilever world. And I've already talked about that, but that in itself will bring premiumization. The third is to continue to evolve and rotate the portfolio more towards premium brands. And we've done that in the last year with the acquisition of K18 and with, for example, the divestment of some of the mainstream brands like Suave and the Elida brand portfolio.
We will continue to pull all these three levers to drive premiumization. I think the message here is that is not an overnight fix, but we are determined about the path that we have taken. Now let's turn to the fourth element, and that is social-first demand generation. Social media, as you know, continues to explode. Don't need to convince anyone, I think. There's now estimated to be about 4.8 billion users worldwide. Social media is not just providing information or entertainment. It's effectively driving purchase. 56% of Gen Z say they did buy a product after watching an influencer.
And this is causing us to look, to relook at marketing in an entirely different way and to move away from the traditional or even more modern forms of marketing to a social-first marketing and ensuring that our brands are embedded in those channels where people are actually spending their times these days. And this change directly aligns with our new consumer-centric purpose as we look to integrate our brands more deeply into that modern and social culture. And obviously, this is a very big change. And looking at where we currently sit with respect to social-first, it's clear that we need to make some important shifts. But we do know what it takes to be done. And we are taking our learnings not only from external, but I think this is having a huge impact also from our acquired digitally native brands in the prestige and well-being portfolio.
So the value from that portfolio is not just financial, but actually it's a great inspiration for our core business. And of course, it does mean that we need to invest more in that social domain, which we are doing. And we need to grow there from approximately 30% of our spend today to more than 50% in the near future. But apart from spend, I believe there are actually other important shifts. For example, we need to increase our content engine for the social channels. We need to empower our teams with better and AI-empowered capabilities. Otherwise, you simply cannot deliver the amount of content. We need to build new expertise and skills, obviously, in our marketing and our customer development organizations, which we're on. And we're putting a structured process in place now to manage these three shifts.
Priya will say more on that shortly about social-first in her business group, Beauty & Well-being. But first, the fifth area in which we need to excel, and that relates to channels. And those are the channels where we need to step up our execution and where we actually need to close a gap since we are somewhat under-indexed in DCOM as well as in specialty channels like health and beauty. So there we have a gap to close. And it's going to take a very tailored approach, depending, of course, on the channel and the retailer. But if I sort of take a bit of distance and strategically, we will be focused around, A, in modern trade, a flawless integration with the data sets of our largest customer and thereby significantly improving the planning and forecasting and delivery processes.
When it comes to general trade, traditionally a stronghold for Unilever, it's all about digitizing that traditional trade. And we're doing that already successfully in Southeast Asia with our own app in India to the Shikhar app and to the ComprAgora environment in Latin America. And we will continue to pursue those three regional strategies. We're investing to close the gap in DCOM, and we are stepping up our presence in the fast-growing area of health and beauty through that more dedicated sales efforts to the business group in the 24 markets where Beauty & Wellbeing will drive the presence in those channels. So summarizing, these are the five areas where we really need to excel. The next film will, I think, help to demonstrate this a bit further. And Priya will talk about premiumization, social-first, and what growth channels mean to Beauty & Wellbeing .
In that same movie, Nuria, our Chief Marketing Officer for Personal Care, as I said, will talk about how all these five excel areas will help to build Dove, our largest brand in the company, and to make that an even stronger platform. Priya.
Hello. I'm Priya Nair, President of Beauty & Wellbeing . Premiumization, social-first demand creation, and a strong presence in growth channels are the three areas of excel. Today, I will bring those to life for you through Beauty & Wellbeing . But first, let me give you a quick overview of our Beauty & Wellbeing business, which accounts for approximately 21% of group turnover. We contest for global leadership in hair care and hold strong skincare positions, particularly in Asia, and are emerging challengers in prestige Beauty & Wellbeing , which combined are now more than 25% of our business.
Geographically, Asia-Pacific and Africa represent 50% of our sales, while the U.S. is now nearly 35%. We have grown over 5% for 15 consecutive quarters, with volume growth exceeding 5% in the last four quarters. Like many of our categories, the beauty industry is constantly evolving, premiumizing, segmenting, and shifting to specialist channels, which is why we are making radical shifts in superior aesthetics to drive the shift from value to premium, social-first marketing to enable engagement at scale, increased exposure to high-growth channels such as DCOM and specialist channels. Let's first talk premiumization, as we are shifting our portfolio into premium demand spaces. In 2015, 98% of our business was focused on the mass segment. Today, it's 74%. Firstly, we are leveraging differentiated science and technology to bring premium benefits to customers, as well as elevating our core through superior packaging.
A good example of this is our Vaseline business, a 150-year-old brand that in 2023 became a EUR 1 billion brand and continues to grow double digits. We have launched cutting-edge premium innovations such as Vaseline Gluta-Hya that are light-sensory body serums. And we are now bringing this disruptive technology to sun care with the first-ever Serum Burst SPF 50, a water-based sun care serum. Vaseline Gluta-Hya is now in more than 20 countries with successful launches in the U.S. and China this year. Do treatments really help to brighten your skin? Try the new Vaseline Gluta-Hya Serum Burst lotion. Secondly, we're accelerating the geographical expansion of our prestige and well-being brands. This segment has grown from under EUR 1 billion in turnover four years ago to now around EUR 4 billion, having delivered 15 consecutive quarters of double-digit growth. One of our fastest-growing brands is Liquid I.V., growing over 20% year-to-date.
Liquid I.V. is a key pillar of our international expansion strategy. In the last 18 months, we have launched Liquid I.V. in seven new markets as we build the functional hydration market outside the U.S. As our portfolio evolves, so must our engagement and marketing strategies. We're not just adapting. We're revolutionizing how our brands connect and resonate with communities and culture to generate demand. We're learning from our digitally native prestige and well-being brands. In our core business, we are accelerating our move from traditional TV-centric plans to social-first demand generation of high engagement and reach. A good example is Tresemmé in Thailand. New Tresemmé serum with Keratin Bond Plus tech works deep into the core. We have more than 200 assets which have been created with an always-on marketing approach, with AI supporting up to an 87% reduction in content creation costs generated two times faster.
Those assets have delivered four times the consideration on YouTube, five times the purchase intent, and 23% brand lift versus norms. As a whole, we are increasing our total digital spend in social from approximately 20% of media investment to 50%. Behind this is also a step change in our core capabilities. We're building an expert demand generation marketing team and an agency ecosystem, all enabled by strong data, cutting-edge technology, and insights powered by AI. As we elevate our portfolio and lead with social-first demand creation, it's crucial that we win in existing channels and high-growth channels of the future. Modern trade remains our largest channel, but distributive trade, we continue to leverage Unilever's scale to digitize our operations across DT-heavy markets.
To scale our presence in digital commerce and specialist beauty channels, we're investing in profitable shopper-led pack price architecture, people capabilities, and ecosystems to enable seamless brand experiences across all touchpoints. We're seeing our premium portfolio starting to drive a shift in these channels with double-digit growth and share gains in DCOM. In India, we have set up an exclusive route to market to deliver executional excellence in a highly fragmented online beauty shelf in health and beauty. We went live in 2023 with this approach and have gained over 400 basis points of share in the last year alone. In October 2024, we went live in 75,000 outlets with the Beauty Premium Retail Organization in India, an exclusive route to market for offline beauty with 75% coverage of health and beauty channels.
The Premium Retail Organization brings a curated portfolio of our premium mixes to specialized channels with the objective of landing our future-facing portfolio in market. Premiumizing, segmenting, and shifting to specialist channels together with unmissable brand superiority and multi-year scalable innovations are how we will excel and build brands that win on every dimension.
H`i, I am Nuria Hernández Crespo, Chief Marketing Officer of Personal Care. We all know Dove. In fact, one in three households around the world use a Dove product. It's a brand present in 150 countries and the global leader in personal care. Dove is today over 10% of Unilever's turnover and growing double-digit. So, to extend our leadership, we are building in all Excel pillars with clear priorities too. First, leverage our thought leadership in beauty, real beauty, transforming our demand generation through social-first.
Second, execute on a rich pipeline of innovation driven by science and technology, ensuring every touchpoint combines a premium. And as a result of these two priorities, we increase Dove's presence in fast-growing emerging channels. Did you know that women today recognize Dove as the most meaningful and different brand to them? Let's hear why. Beauty can be in different shape and form. It's about how you feel. When I think of Dove, I think inclusivity. See yourself represented. It makes me more comfortable in my skin. If we could just encourage people to be more accepting of their differences, we'd be a happier place. Dove is iconic. Real beauty has become a way to express, and it has inspired the entire industry. Real beauty helps us ignite social conversation, which is really powerful.
We are driving our demand generation to be even more culturally important through social-first, fueling a meaningful difference that the brand can lead in beauty. This is supported by a significant step up in digital media spend from 45% today to nearly 70% tomorrow. Next, we are building an unmissably superior, more premium brand for the future. A few years ago, this was how Dove packaging looked on the shelf. The quick expansion of the brand created some inconsistencies. But our vision for today and the future is simple. Stay true to Dove real beauty, enhance consistency, and command premium in every touchpoint. This is what tomorrow will look like. Getting desirable and aspirational goes to all dimensions of the brand, from product to shelf to social. And as a result, Dove builds a premium that the brand already has the equity to support.
As our recently launched Dove Serum Infused Body Wash at a 160 price index shows to us. Many of these changes are built on superior science and technology, which is driving a step change in the depth and the quality of our innovation pipeline. Let me take you through the changes made to the brand through the lens of some multi-year innovations that we have already deployed in market. Dove Serum Body Washes incorporate active ingredients used in face care like niacinamide, hyaluronic acid, vitamin C, or retinol for all over skincare in the shower. New Dove Serum Body Washes. This innovation delivers a superior solution for consumers, first in the U.S., our largest market, with a model that is replicable across the world. Dove Whole Body Deodorants, our new multi-year innovation, delivers odor protection to the whole body with care.
He brings it down onto his chest. Nice footwork. He found the gap. He's just outside the area.
The all-over-the-body deodorant segment is expected to become a EUR 1 billion category opportunity by 2030. In hair, the Dove new DermaCare Plus is the next frontier in hair repair. DermaCare Plus is driving Dove's premiumization with this mix anticipated to reach a price index up to 160. These are just some examples of many that I'm excited to bring to the market. Truly premium, market-making game changers. And by delivering these strategic choices, we can leverage our credentials to succeed in growth channels, thereby expanding our brand footprint and global distribution. Through this plan, you've seen how we are touching all the Excel pillars to drive the brand to the next level. A social-first demand generation brand rooted in our brand's strength in culture. A cohesive aesthetic brand that conveys our credentials and value to command a premium.
With multi-year scalable innovations that will drive category growth across channels. The strength of Dove brand combined with the buzz-on-top potential we are now unlocking positions us well for the next wave of growth. It opens a future with a more aspirational and joyful expression of real beauty that will truly brighten everyday life for all. Let's change beauty.
Thank you, Nuria and Priya. That takes us to the third area where we are making some clear strategic choices. And that area is what we are terming accelerate. So here we have identified areas that are going to be critical to the success of the 2030 Growth Action Plan. And where, although we start off from a good position, actually, the pace of change is such that we need to accelerate to stay ahead. And these are science and technology.
We already talked about it, but we'll come back to that. Making our supply chain more agile and lean, driving net productivity, and scaling artificial intelligence, scaling AI. Now, let me start with science and technology. If you look across our business, we do see three broad platforms with a potential for wider application. And I think we talked about it with you before: microbiome, biotechnology, and the use of next-generation materials. So keep those in mind. And an increasing number of our big multi-year and scalable projects are powered by these three platforms. This is what binds our company in many ways together. And actually, we are already seeing those benefits. So let me give you an example. So on microbiome, by the way, the first one, Richard, our head of R&D, will talk to you in a moment about Dove's new serum shower range that Nuria also showed.
So he will talk about that. But I'll talk about biotechnology. For example, Sunlight Dishwash is benefiting from the superior cleaning and moisturizing that our biosurfactants, Remnotec, are bringing to our products. You should try it, and you feel it. You can feel it on your hands, certainly for hours after you've used it. Next-generation materials, a good example is the Glutathione or the Gluta Glow technology that brings 10 times antioxidant power to skincare, as in Vaseline's blockbuster innovation, Glutathione that Priya showed. So to ensure that we continue down this path, we are building our R&D capabilities in a number of ways. And I want to call out two. First, that is the digitization in which we work very closely with some of our very large tech partners. We've recently concluded a cooperation with Microsoft.
We've been public about that, but we're also working with others on the West Coast. And second, through a big investment that we are making in packaging, and particularly in premium packaging, as said, that is needed because we felt we had to close some gaps there to become unmissably superior. It also means unmissably superior we needed to up our game on fragrance. And frankly, that was an area where we had to make some improvements. Well, that is really about to change. And in this video, Richard, our Chief R&D Officer, will talk to you about how R&D and science and technology are powering innovation, including through the building of a world-class capability in fragrance ourselves.
Hi, I'm Richard Slater, Unilever's Chief R&D Officer. Now, I'm here today from our fantastic India R&D lab.
At Unilever, we aim to lead and shape our markets with real innovation supported by breakthrough science. With 5,000 R&D experts, including more than 500 PhDs in our key labs around the world, hundreds of innovative partnerships, and more than 20,000 patents, we're well equipped to achieve this. While we have world-class R&D, science, and technology capabilities, we've not always leveraged these hard enough in market with our innovation efforts at times fragmented and not always focused on the biggest growth opportunities. Now, as part of the GAP strategy, we've been bringing more focus to our best science, technology, and innovation. We've prioritized 12 key innovations for our power brands in 2024 that have received significant focus and investment support. These include Vaseline Glutathione, Liquid I.V. Sugar Free, Persil & Omo's Wonder Wash, and Magnum Pleasure Express.
Behind this, we've freed up resource by halving the number of projects since 2021, while more than doubling average size and the in-market sales from innovation. Now, this focus is starting to pay off with key launches delivering a head-of-business case year to date. When we focused our best differentiated science and technology on the most important growth spaces for our Power Brands, we see big impact. For example, leveraging the superior Invictus anti-perspirant technology into more than two billion of sales across Rexona, Dove, and Axe deodorants. Now, this was years in the making. It's a breakthrough microtechnology protected by 16 patent families and backed by more than 200 clinical and consumer studies. We've rolled this out across more than 40 markets, and it's been a key driver of deodorants' growth over recent years.
And it's going to continue to support multiple formats and benefit innovations in the years to come. So we can see the impact when we really bring a superior technology to market. Now, as well as leveraging what we have today, of course, our key role in R&D is to develop the next generation of technologies, products, and innovations, really to drive category and market growth in new and incremental benefit spaces. Take, for example, Wonder Wash, specifically designed for the consumer trend for short and cold wash cycles. Here, we used advanced robotics, predictive modeling, and AI capabilities to develop the Pro-S technology behind Wonder Wash in just 15 months, a project which would have previously taken us years. Another good recent example is Dove's Serum Shower Collection using our patented MicroMoisture technology.
And this technology ensures that skincare ingredients like collagen and vitamin C are locked into the skin, continuing to work long after the shower has ended. Now, behind all of this, one of the biggest shifts we're making in R&D is the digital transformation agenda. Now, this is delivering significant productivity, but also leading to new and faster discovery. We are radically changing how R&D is done, moving from physical experiments in the lab to AI-driven predictive modeling and simulations. Our strategic partnerships are a key driver of this digital transformation. And a key example of this is Microsoft, where we are together accelerating digital science and engineering. And this is really enabling our scientists to develop models to identify new molecules and ingredients with target properties that will drive superiority, sustainability, and affordability into the future.
It also allows us to optimize our formulations and our processes without the need for physical testing, speeding our time to market. The collaboration between Unilever and Microsoft is unique. Unilever is very keen to push the boundaries of innovation. We are enabling them on this journey by providing them with AI tools and with a fantastic platform that harnesses the power of the cloud. It essentially enables high-performance computing and AI, and when we couple both of these together, we are able to dramatically accelerate the way we figure out which chemicals and which compounds best react together. Unilever touches 3.4 billion people every single day. That scale will change lives for the better. To further enhance our capabilities and drive both innovation and unmissable brand superiority, I'm really excited today to announce a significant investment of EUR 100 million to build a new world-leading digital-first fragrance house within Unilever.
Now, this investment will see us hire expert perfumers across key markets, build state-of-the-art new fragrance development facilities, and partner with some of the most innovative companies in fragrance creation. Now, this will not only enable us to create and develop our own winning fragrances, but also to work more effectively with our important existing fragrance house partners, which will continue to be a key part of our model and our approach. So across R&D, by doing fewer things better and with greater impact, we're maximizing our best science and technology and innovation. We've begun to see the fruits of this in 2024, but I'm even more excited by the strong pipeline of innovation we're set to deliver in 2025 and beyond.
Thank you, Richard. An exciting development, as you heard, in fragrance.
Hey, the next two areas under acceleration are to build a lean and an agile supply chain and to continue to drive net productivity. And we have shifted to net productivity to emphasize what really impacts the P&L. And that implies material savings to beat market inflation by around 1% and a 2% per unit reduction in production and logistics costs. Now, the good news is that we are delivering that in 2024. But more important is that we are now looking to deliver these improvements consistently in the future. So savings will be delivered largely through procurement and value chain interventions. And to ensure that we achieve our goals, we are increasing the level of CapEx that's earmarked for savings to more than 55% of the total capital expenditure of the group. Beyond that, we're also doing some sizable network transformations.
These are currently going on in Europe and in North America to automate and to optimize our supply chains and further accelerate on productivity. To show how this works and how it actually comes to life, I'll turn it now over to Reggie, our Chief Business Operations Officer.
In a rapidly evolving world, we are accelerating the capabilities needed to deliver operational excellence by driving net productivity, maintaining a lean and agile supply chain, and identifying and harnessing the transformative power of AI. Unilever operates 280 factories, 440 finished goods warehouses and distribution centers, and collaborates with around 1,000 third-party manufacturers to ship our products to 250,000 customers worldwide. We have agile models as well as seven global operational hubs that ensure operational rigor, resilience, and cost efficiencies across the full value chain, from master data and customer service to cash collection.
Driven by the Growth Action Plan, we have shifted our focus from a gross savings to a net savings approach to shine the light on what's actually landing in the P&L. First, let's look at material savings. Competitive buying is the biggest driver of our material savings. We are negotiating differently, like running a global tender for plastic flexibles or using regional tenders across several materials where better price transparency leads to better results. We are developing new capabilities powered by AI to enhance buying and negotiation tasks such as Forecaster and Optimizer. These tools provide accurate market price forecasts and AI-based sourcing scenario projections, significantly improving procurement efficiency. And we are simplifying, having reduced over 20% of our SKUs and nearly 20% of our specifications over the last 18 months. The other key pillar of material savings is value chain interventions.
We have completed backward integration projects in palm oil and palm kernel oil, which give us competitive costs while also improving our sustainable sourcing. We have also invested in new sulfonation units to manufacture surfactants. Investing in upstream capabilities through collaborative partnerships drives higher quality and lowers costs, and we are looking to extend these to a further 10 to 12 materials. Next, production and logistics savings. We are creating a lean, agile supply chain powered by advancements in data, tech, and AI. In our distribution network, we are enhancing efficiencies through our Travel Less and Load More program, leveraging automation initiatives to optimize routes and load capacities. We have already reduced the average distance per dispatch by 15% and increased truck utilization by almost 10%, good for our customers and the environment.
Across our talent pool, AI initiatives like AI labor planning and generative AI diagnostics are driving significant labor efficiency gains. In 2024, we achieved close to a 4% increase in labor efficiency measured by tons per FTE. Lastly, in several markets, we are transforming our network with cutting-edge AI and technology. A key investment is future-proofing our European and North American networks, and we are not building alone. Advancements in AI, production automation, and labor productivity come to life in collaboration with our tech partners like Accenture an d NVIDIA.
AI is powering productivity and growth across every part of the enterprise, and Accenture and Unilever are working together to unlock productivity gains and efficiencies and accelerate groundbreaking innovation.
At Unilever's Doom Dooma factory in India, we implemented a new AI-powered batch health monitoring system using cutting-edge technology to predict optimal batch performance based on cycle time, quality, and utility cost, resulting in reduced cost per ton. We are also partnering with Unilever's global AI lab, Horizon 3, which recently opened in Toronto and is the first of its kind in the consumer packaged goods industry. Leveraging Unilever's AI research and Canada's research ecosystem, we are exploring and developing innovative AI applications to drive Unilever's next wave of productivity and growth. These are just a few examples of the exciting work that Accenture and Unilever are doing together to continue to shape a smarter, more efficient, and more sustainable future.
Combined, our efforts move us closer to the most groundbreaking development, which you call the Dark Factory.
Imagine a facility so autonomous it needs just one operator to monitor prescriptive insights from a control center. This vision is already a reality that we've just seen in our personal care factory in Cu Chi, Vietnam. In 2024, we've made significant progress driving net productivity, enhancing our lean and agile supply chain, and harnessing the power of scaled AI, and we are just getting started as we remain at the forefront to accelerate Unilever today and tomorrow. That's it from me anyway. I'm going dark.
Thanks, Reggie. Hey, the fourth area where we intend to accelerate is in scaling AI, and you know, I so hope it has already become apparent that scaling AI transcends, in a way, everything that we are doing in almost every part of the business.
You see that reflected here in the six big tech and AI investments that we are making and that cover two verticals. You know, we've been experimenting, by the way, on AI across the enterprise in many different ways. At some point, 500 different smaller experiments. But we're bringing it down to six key investments: fewer, bigger, better, and with greater impact. Now, on the first side is the demand creation side of the business. Their AI is all about, one, as I said, connecting with customers better, and that leverages the data sets on both sides to come to better forecasting, planning, and delivery. Two, to support that whole social-first transformation, i.e., a new marketing model in a, you know, and making use, obviously, to drive content, but also making use of consumer data. Third is the acceleration in the pace of innovation.
Richard also talked about that. On the second column, the second set of the six relates to productivity and savings. Those are, for example, these autonomous operations, or as Reggie called it, the Dark Factories. It's a bit of a funny word, but the Dark Factories, autonomous operations, or driving competitiveness in, for example, procurement, where you can actually significantly benefit from the large number of data, but also in contracting in a much faster and in a more efficient manner. Now, you heard from both Richard and Reggie referring to today's importance of these programs, but those are the select set of investments on AI that we are intending to scale up.
To briefly sum up this part of the Growth Action Plan 2030, we have distilled our strategic priorities into three core elements, focusing on where we can reap the biggest rewards: two, excelling in the drivers of demand creation, and third, accelerating the critical capabilities that we need to succeed in this fast-changing world. I hope that the videos that you have seen, they help to illustrate a bit in what these strategic choices actually mean in practice and within our company. And of course, we will be very happy to talk more about it during our Q&A. Underpinning the new purpose and the strategic priorities are two areas that are so important that we have called them out separately: sustainability and winning culture. And I want to say something about each before the break. And it's starting with sustainability.
You know, we have successfully rallied and mobilized the business and a wider industry in the past around the sustainability agenda, starting in 2010, really. And then we integrated all of that good work into our operations somewhere in 2020. But now we've moved on to the next stage. And that is a ruthless agenda which focuses us on those areas that pose the biggest risk to our operations, but also where we can make the biggest impact on the world, the biggest positive impact, in fact. And to that end, we've set out, I believe, very stretching, ambitious, but also measurable and highly transparent targets across our four priority areas. And those are climate, nature, plastics, and livelihoods. And these areas, or the targets, are focused on what we need to do this year, what we need to do next year, and what we need to do towards 2030.
Of course, as I've said before, long-term goals are very important, but they are nothing without a short-term delivery. Delivering on these goals is not only dependent on what we do, but also on how successfully we work with others to create the right conditions. They are captured here in points two and three on the chart. You know, on the two, as you can see, we will work with legislators, with regulators, and opinion formers to create the right policy frameworks. For example, plastics is a very good example of that. We cannot reach our targets if we don't play this as an industry and with regulators and governments. We will also work with our key retailers and our partners to maximize impact. I believe that we've got some really good collaborations on that already going on.
I'm very encouraged on what we can do together beyond the commercial terms and the AI integration. There's also considerable joint sustainability programs that we can embark on. I see a lot of appetite from our largest customers on that. Here we have a significant head start. Now, let me turn to the second key element underpinning our strategy. That is what we term our winning culture. Culture is obviously a very broad topic. We think of it essentially in the context of values, of people, and of behaviors. I think those of you who have observed us for quite a long time will probably agree with me that, you know, we start off from a position of having very talented people, very committed people, a company that thrives on strong values and high levels of integrity.
You know, of course, these are all strengths. Our values, in that sense, remain untouched. So we haven't changed them. They're super important. But we are introducing new behavioral aspects to shift the dial on performance. Calling out behavior is something new for the company. We haven't done that before. There's a whole program of work that sits behind this. It's led by our new Chief People Officer, Mireille. She's here. I can't do justice to really talk at a long time now about behaviors in the time that is available today. But let me just say that these will be built into all our people processes and in our assessments. There's a big comprehensive program underway. These behavioral shifts come on top of a reward framework that is now more incentivized and closely linked to performance.
We've started that a year ago already. So we've taken steps, as you know, with changes to our remuneration framework. I talked about that. You know, directors' remuneration is more closely linked to shareholder interest, including, for example, measurement on after-restructuring profit delivery for executive directors. Long-term incentive plans have been altered, including alignment to shareholder value creation through the introduction of TSR again. There is a greater line of sight for employees when it comes to, you know, when it comes to rewards. There is a greater level of forced differentiation between employees. So that's stuff that we have underway. As we've gone into Growth Action Plan 2030, we are finding further ways in which to dial up that performance edge within our culture. First, making sure that we have new, simplified, but very stretching goals. Those are max three per person.
We want to be very clear on that behavior that you saw, focus on what counts, that, of course, is very much linked to fewer, bigger, better, and that those goals need to be fully aligned to our GAP 2030 in-year performance expectations. Secondly, we're driving performance through more differentiation, but also more stretch, which we're introducing, and that means that we're going from prior bonus stretch from 0 to 150% to now between 0 and 200% below executive level to drive a greater level of outperformance and to reward that more so. We'll also be focusing the Unilever executive team short-term bonus plans on financial goals, just the way that Fernando and myself are measured, and therefore, we'll be structurally aligned between, you know, all members of the Unilever executive team. Individual performance will be amplified or discounted by the personal goals.
And we will be increasing performance visibility and evaluation versus competition, of course. I talked about improving competitiveness. So all the presidents of our business will have market competitiveness, i.e., market share or equivalent as part of their personal goals. So let me just sum up briefly before we have that break. Under the new leadership, we have come a long way, I think, in a relatively short amount of time in changing the company. The Growth Action Plan, we believe, is working. And we've made a good start. But truly, that's all it is. I want to be humble. It is a start. But from that start, we do have an increased level of confidence to look further ahead now. The next few years will for sure be challenging for markets everywhere.
We believe that the new purpose and the strategic choices and the priorities that we've set out reflect the big shifts that we need to make as a company. All of the elements that we have talked about are captured here in full on this one-page version. As you will see, we have set ourselves the goal of delivering nothing less in our strategic goal than best-in-class performance. It's time to raise our sights as a company from middle of the pack to a best-in-class performance. That is our ambition. We will do that by prioritizing and by investing behind market-making unmissably superior brands. We believe that is the best route to take to unlock value on Unilever. Fernando will pick up this theme after the break. Hey, thanks for staying with us. Thank you for taking the time.
Thank you for your attention so far. Enjoy the break. Take an ice cream and be back in 15 minutes.
Só falta isso farelar. Falta! Cremosidade é o que falta. É só a Hellmann's que salva. Passa Supreme pra cá. Hot Dog ou pão com ovo. O Supreme é mais cremoso. Espalhando o que se faz. Lanche seco nunca mais. Experimente Hellmann's Supreme, a maionese mais cremosa do Brasil. I'm walking on sunshine. Whoa! I'm walking on sunshine. Whoa! I'm walking on sunshine. Whoa! And I feel good. Hey! Oh, I feel good. Whoa! The taste of happiness since 1922. Do treatments really help to brighten your skin? Try the new Vaseline Glutathione Serum Burst Lotion. Combines GlutaGlow and Hyaluron with 10 times the power of Vitamin C. Glow into your bright and dewy skin in five days. New Vaseline Glutathione. New Comfort Scent Booster Elixir is here.
Now you can boost the fresh feeling of comfort to the next level. Use Comfort Scent Booster Elixir with your Comfort Fabric Conditioner for up to 10 times more fragrance. Yep, 10 times. New Comfort Scent Booster Elixir. Now that's next-level fresh. I've always been prone to hair thinning. I'm genetically predisposed. I just gave birth. I was under a lot of stress. I started taking Nutrafol. We test our formulations with the highest rigor of clinical trials, and we're the number one dermatologist-recommended hair growth supplement. I noticed it becoming stronger and thicker. Nutrafol has taken me back to the hair I was meant to have. I am back to me. Start your hair growth journey at nutrafol.com. Yaz en güzel armağan. İlk ısırıkla başlayan benzersiz yolculuk. Nefis kaymaklı dondurması, üzerinde fındık parçaları ve mükemmel çıtırtılı kürahıyla Cornetto Classico kaymak. Cornetto'yla aç kalbini yazar.
Sorry, body, for knowing about active ingredients, but giving 100% of them to my face. Sorry for never checking the temperature first. For replacing sunlight with blue light and denim with no stretch. Sorry for dry shaves, dry days, and fast fashion that makes you crawl. Sorry for all the picking, popping, and rinsing off, but never giving back. But fear no more, body. All those ingredients you've been missing, you can now get. Dove body washes with active serums. Get Dove or get FOMO. I am disabled, and I like to do things fast. And now fast just got better. Fast just got better. Fast just got better. New Persil Wonder Wash. Blast away invisible dirt and sweat even in 15 minutes. Our first-ever detergent designed for shorter cycle. Better on odor, better on fragrance. New Persil Wonder Wash. Fast just got better.
Once you find pleasure, make it go on. And on. And on. Loop your pleasure with a new Magnum Bonbon. The perfect bite-sized combination of ice cream, cookie sauce, and cracking chocolate. Magnum, true to pleasure. Da đẹp quá! Dùng sữa tắm đẹp da nào vậy? Sữa tắm đẹp da á? Không! Lifebuoy Thiên Nhiên Mới. Với chiết xuất 100% từ thiên nhiên, giúp detox sạch sâu, loại bỏ vi khuẩn gây vấn đề về da, cho da trông khỏe đẹp sau 7 ngày. Lifebuoy Thiên Nhiên Mới. Para falar de Cif e limpeza milagrosa, chamamos suas testemunhas. Eu tenho esse ressuscitou depois do show. Uau! Limpou até a alma da panela. Uma gota fez milagre no meu fogão. Novo Cif e limpeza milagrosa. Quem conhece, ama porque remove 100% da sujeira difícil sem esforço. Parece milagre, mas é Cif. New Axe Black Vanilla, yeah. He like with no stress.
He said that's my best flex. I hopped on a big plane, said I'm doing big things. Open up the champagne. Yeah, baby, I'm cool. Yeah, you know what to do. Yeah, we got nothing to lose. Metro Boomin want some more. With the bosses. I just pull up in a new. New X Black Vanilla. Get closer with the finest fragrances. This is Uno. Yes, Uno. Very Uno. Uh-uh, not Uno. Let's make it Uno. With an irresistible taste that thickens. Yeah, now that's Uno. Don't just cook and jay. Make it Uno with Uno. Só falta isso farelar. Falta! Cremosidade é o que falta. É só a Hellmann's que salva. Passa Supreme pra cá. Hot Dog ou pão com ovo. O Supreme é mais cremoso. Espalhando o que se faz. Lanche seco nunca mais. Experimente Hellmann's Supreme, a maionese mais cremosa do Brasil. I'm walking on sunshine. Whoa!
I'm walking on sunshine. Whoa! And I feel good. Hey! Oh, I feel good. Whoa! The taste of happiness since 1922. Do treatments really help to brighten your skin? Try the new Vaseline Glutathione Serum Burst Lotion. Combines GlutaGlow and Hyaluron with 10 times the power of Vitamin C. Glow into your bright and dewy skin in five days. New Vaseline Glutathione. New Comfort Scent Booster Elixir is here. Now you can boost the fresh feeling of comfort to the next level. Use Comfort Scent Booster Elixir with your Comfort Fabric Conditioner for up to 10 times more fragrance. Yep, 10 times. New Comfort Scent Booster Elixir. Now that's next-level fresh. I've always been prone to hair thinning. I'm genetically predisposed. I just gave birth. I was under a lot of stress. I started taking Nutrafol. We test our formulations with the highest rigor of clinical trials.
And we're the number one dermatologist-recommended hair growth supplement. I noticed it becoming stronger and thicker. Nutrafol has taken me back to the hair I was meant to have. I am back to me. Start your hair growth journey at nutrafol.com. Yaz en güzel armağan. İlk ısırıkla başlayan benzersiz yolculuk. Nefis kaymaklı dondurması, üzerinde fındık parçaları ve mükemmel çıtırtılı kürahıyla Cornetto Classico kaymak. Cornetto'yla aç kalbini yazar. Sorry, body, for knowing about active ingredients, but giving 100% of them to my face. Sorry for never checking the temperature first. For replacing sunlight with blue light and denim with no stretch. Sorry for dry shaves, dry days, and fast fashion that makes you crawl. Sorry for all the picking, popping, and rinsing off, but never giving back. But fear no more, body. All those ingredients you've been missing, you can now get. Dove body washes with active serums.
Get Dove or get FOMO. I am disabled, and I like to do things fast. And now fast just got better. Fast just got better. Fast just got better. New Persil Wonder Wash. Blast away invisible dirt and sweat even in 15 minutes. Our first-ever detergent designed for shorter cycle. Better on odor, better on fragrance. New Persil Wonder Wash. Fast just got better. Once you find pleasure, make it go on. And on. And on. Loop your pleasure with a new Magnum Bon Bon. The perfect bite-sized combination of ice cream, cookie sauce, and cracking chocolate. Magnum, true to pleasure. Dạ đẹp quá! Dùng sữa tắm đẹp da nào vậy? Sữa tắm đẹp da á? Không! Lifebuoy Thiên Nhiên Mới. Với chiết xuất 100% từ thiên nhiên. Giúp detox sạch sâu, loại bỏ vi khuẩn gây vấn đề về da, cho da trông khỏe đẹp sau seven days.
Lifebuoy Thiên Nhiên Mới. Para falar de Sif e limpeza milagrosa, chamamos suas testemunhas. Eu tenho esse ressuscitou depois do show. Uau! Limpou até a alma da panela. Uma gota fez milagre no meu fogão. Novo Sif e limpeza milagrosa. Quem conhece, ama porque remove 100% da sujeira difícil sem esforço. Parece milagre, mas é Sif. New X Black Vanilla, yeah. He like with no stress. He said that's my best flex. I hopped on a big plane, said I'm doing big things. Open up the champagne. Yeah, baby, I'm cool. Yeah, you know what to do. Yeah, we got nothing to lose. Metro Boomin want some more. With the bosses. I just pull up in a new. New X Black Vanilla. Get closer with the finest fragrances. This is Uno. Yes, Uno. Very Uno. Uh-uh, not Uno. Let's make it Uno. With an irresistible taste that thickens.
Yeah, now that's Uno. Don't just cook and já. Make it Uno with Uno. Só falta isso pra realçar. Falta! Cremosidade é o que falta. É só a Hellmann's que salva. Passa Supreme pra cá. Hot Dog ou pão com ovo. O Supreme é mais cremoso. Espalhando o que se faz. Lanche seco não.
Good afternoon. Thank you. Just one minute. It's great to have you all here in our house here. Let me start recapping a few messages that Hein brought to life during his presentation. We are in a very early stage of a profound change in Unilever, and it encompasses significant areas of the organization, our culture, our ways of doing marketing, and many, many more things more. We know it's early stages. This is a marathon. It's not a sprint, but we believe that we are making progress.
This change has been driven by a leadership team at board level and at executive level that has been significantly refreshed, renewed. There are three key strategic thrusts that are part of our growth action plan. We will focus on the areas of business in which we believe we will get disproportionate returns: our top 70 brands, our top 24 markets. We will excel in five demand creation drivers that will make our brands superior, differentiated for the long run, and we will accelerate critical capabilities that will allow us to stay ahead in a very fast-changing world. In the next half an hour or so, I will try to cover a few topics. The first one is how we are making Unilever a simpler, more focused, more productive, more efficient company.
The progress that we are doing in two fundamental transformation projects: the Ice Cream separation and what we call our productivity program with the aim of delivering EUR 800 million savings. Finally, try to give you confidence about our ability to put Unilever in a consistent path of 2% plus volume growth, plus consistent gross margin expansion that can lead to profit growth in hard currency in line with the best in class in the sector, the ones that have consistently featured in top-tier total shareholder return. Within my presentation, the President of Foods, Heiko Schipper, will show you how we will run our food business. We consider Foods an advantaged food business, and it will be a key contributor to our value creation algorithm in the years to come. I will not go into details in what we are changing in our organization because Hein has mentioned this.
But from the 1st of January of 2025, we will organize ourselves in top 24 markets that will be end-to-end owned by our business groups. In that structure, we will divisionalize our sales force. These top 24 markets are 85% of our revenue, 90% of our profit. The rest of Unilever, the more than 100 markets in which we operate in addition to these 24 markets, are markets of lower scale in general and will be run under what we call a One Unilever model, in which we will use the scale of the enterprise. We will reduce complexity to a minimum, and we will try to structure and improve what has been diluted margins historically. Let me now comment on Ice Cream separation. It's a huge process. It's a huge program.
We are on track in all the metrics, and we will try to deliver this by the end of 2025. Ice Cream is a great business, but it was very clear in our portfolio, and the decision of separating Ice Cream is fundamentally motivated for the goal of having a very coherent portfolio strategy that leverages innovation, marketing, and go-to-market capabilities across what are very complementary business operating models. We are on track, and I will give some color of the progress that we are doing there. Finally, in March, on March 19, when we announced the separation of Ice Cream, we announced also the launch of a very comprehensive productivity program. It's a change of a magnitude that Unilever has never done before: 17% of reduction of our white-collar workforce, 7,500 people, EUR 800 million savings.
We have learned from previous experiences like the disposals of spreads or tea, in which we didn't attack stranded costs with the decisiveness we should, and that problem caught up with us in our margin and with that in the ability to support properly our brands. Let me now go a bit deeper in Ice Cream . Ice cream is a great business in a great category. It will compete in a market that we define as a snack and refreshment that consistently has been growing at 4% in hard currency. We have global leading positions, number one or number two positions in the top 10 markets of Ice Cream . We have a focused portfolio with four key brands that represent 84% of our turnover. We don't depend on licensing agreements, and we have a superior distribution in the profitable out-of-home channels with circa 3 million cabinets.
But it's true that Ice Cream has very limited complementarity with the rest of the Unilever portfolio. And we believe that under a different ownership structure, this business can thrive because we will set up a financial model. We will set up a tailor-made strategy to really give a response of what are very, very distinct features of the Ice Cream category. This is a category of high capital intensity, significant seasonality, in which fixed cost absorption is key. This is a category that is urban-centric. There is not a lot of benefit of our rural presence in India or in Brazil when you run an Ice Cream business. Urban-centricity maximizes the efficiency of your cold chain, and we will define a model for Ice Cream that will take into account that.
This is a category in which there are a significant amount of new fast-growing channels that will increase the frequency of consumption, that will increase the consumption opportunities. Think about quick commerce, for example. And this is a category in which you have an intrinsically expensive cold chain that you have to optimize. We joke with Peter. We always said that Ice Cream requires the marketing of beauty and the operational grief of soft drinks. And we will set up an Ice Cream company to deliver on both. It's true that the business has historically underperformed. When you look at the 2019, 2023, 2023 performance, you can look at underlying sales growth, volume growth, or underlying operating margin, and it has delivered below the sector, and it has delivered below what is the Unilever group performance. But we are starting to see green shoots.
Peter and his team are really making significant operational improvements to the business. On top of that, we are stepping up the investment in our brands. We are launching very, very good innovation like Magnum Bon Bons. There is no Ozempic that can stop that one, I can promise you. Just I have become addictive. And we are gaining distribution. We are having a rigor in our pricing and promotional management that is completely different to the one we used to have in the past. And the results are starting to show. We are improving our share in a significant way, particularly in markets like the U.S. Our nine-month performance now shows positive volume growth, close to 4% underlying sales growth. And we expect to close the year with positive UVG and with a significant underlying operating margin expansion.
While Peter is improving the performance of the business, Peter and many of us are taking care of what is a very, very difficult separation process. We don't underestimate the complexity of this. We are establishing legal entities and tax models in more than 80 countries. We are setting up transitional service agreements to ensure the resilience of this business, the operational resilience of the business during the separation process. We are designing a standalone operating model that should be ready to be executed in the market from July 1st next year. We are doing the financial carve-outs and preparing all our financial positions and our prospectus. So it's a lot of work. I want to give a bit of color about some of the milestones that we will have. We will give you more color in the mode of separation during quarter one, 2025.
On 1st of July 2025, the business will be a standalone organization that will be operating on their own. We expect to report Ice Cream as a discontinued operation from quarter four, 2025. And we expect to complete the full separation of the business by the end of 2025. I know you all read a lot of press also. And recently, there were some news, pseudo-news, okay, saying that we were shelving some supposed plans. You don't shelve plans that never existed. We have been very clear. We said it consistently. Our default mode of separation is a demerger. And it is that because it's the mode of separation that we believe will deliver maximum shareholder value creation and more execution certainty. I want also to take this opportunity to make an announcement of some significant additions to our leadership teams in Ice Cream .
From December the 1st, we will have Abhijit Bhattacharya as the CFO of the Ice Cream business. Abhijit, many of you know, has been the Philips CFO since 2015 until recently. He has an incredible amount of experience. He has led carve-outs of the Philips Lighting and health businesses, very, very successful CFO, and it's a real pleasure to have him with ourselves. We have also already working with us, Ronald Schellekens. He's joining August. He's our new Chief People Officer for our Ice Cream business. He has been the chief people officer for super successful companies like Vodafone and a snack company like PepsiCo, more than over 30 years of HR experience. I believe the fact that we have been able to recruit this kind of high-caliber leaders is a testament to the potential that this business has.
So we are very, very happy to have them with us now. After the separation of Ice Cream, the Unilever portfolio will have very clearly defined profiles for each of our business groups. And we are absolutely convinced that each of these business groups, with different composition, can deliver a combination of top-line growth and profit growth within our long-term guidance range. You will see some of them on the top of the range when it comes to top-line, some of them in the bottom of the range when it comes to top-line. But we believe each of these businesses can deliver in that kind of range. Beauty & Wellbeing and Personal Care will represent 51% of our revenue. And we expect the contribution of these two businesses to continue growing in the years to come.
In Beauty & Wellbeing , the priority is to continue investment, to continue investing, to ensure that we have an industry-beating top-line growth. Personal care is our most profitable business, and keep growing at a fast rate. Our personal care business is a key driver of our value algorithm. We have an incredible position of leadership in Home Care in emerging markets, but we know that should provide us superior volume growth, but we know also that we have a structural margin issue in laundry and in Home Care in general that has to be addressed, and we are seeing already in the first six months this year close to 20% increase in our profit growth in Home Care . In foods, we believe that we have an advantage food business that should deliver more growth and more bottom-line margin than the average of the food industry.
It's a business that is margin-accretive to Unilever and that has a very, very strong cash generation for the business group, and it's a key contributor for the business going forward. Let me give you. Of course, we are working in the financial carve-outs of Ice Cream , but we believe that this is a good opportunity to give you some color in some of the impact in our P&L and in some of our key return metrics of the separation of Ice Cream for the Unilever group. We will have around 20 basis points of volume growth expansion due to the mathematical effect if we look at the last four or five years of performance between Ice Cream and the rest of Unilever.
But we will have a significant change in margin, gross margin, 130 basis points, operating margin, 90 basis points, and ROIC, a super important metric for us, one of the key metrics of our long-term incentive plans that will have another 90 basis points of expansion. Probably the question I have received the most since we announced the separation of ice cream is, what will you do with foods? And I want to be very clear. This is a key integral part of our strategy going forward. Foods, Unilever Foods, is a business with a strong foundation and with very strong economics. We have leadership in three core verticals. We have two brands that represent 60% of the revenue. And differently to what is classic in foods, these are brands with global presence. Knorr is number two brand in Unilever by size. Hellmann's is number five.
Foods is a complementary business synergistic with Unilever in route to market, in business infrastructure, and in many of the capabilities that we are building going forward. The strong economics are very clear. It's one of the top 10 foods companies in the world with more than EUR 13 billion turnover. It has delivered growth and margin ahead of peers. It has margin accretive to Unilever and has a very strong cash generation with a very low capital intensity. We will further simplify our food business. We believe there is around one billion, a bit more than one billion of foods revenue, particularly in non-strategic categories, particularly in Europe, local brands that we will dispose in the probably next 12-24 months. It will not be a fire sale process. We will dispose this business in a value-protecting way. It will not be a single process.
It will be several processes, but we are working on it, and we believe that this further pruning of the portfolio will make our food business and our European business even better, but hey, I'm not an expert in food, so I believe that it's much better to hear from Heiko Schipper, our President of Foods, how he will run what it is, a very advantageous food business. Video, please.
Delicious. I'm going to have that in a moment. Hi, everyone. I'm Heiko Schipper. I joined Unilever as the President of the Nutrition Business Group in May. I'm delighted to be working in foods and fast-moving consumer goods again. This is where my passion lies. Today, I will bring to life our new business group strategy and how our focus portfolio will contribute to value creation for Unilever. Let me start by giving you a quick overview of our business.
We are a EUR 13 billion plus business representing 22% of the group's turnover and 25% of the underlying profit. These economics are compelling. Underlying operating margin is accretive to Unilever and ahead of most peers. We contributed also disproportionately to Unilever's free cash flow. And underlying return on assets is the second highest of all business groups. Geographically, 54% of our business is in emerging markets, with India, China, Mexico, and Brazil being the largest. Since my arrival in May, I've identified opportunities to strengthen this business and take it forward. From now on, we will call our business group Unilever Foods, which better represents what we produce and sell, and it shows the strategic transition we will embark on. Unilever Foods will become a more focused, simplified foods business, playing in faster-growing product segments compared to being a general foods business.
Our ambition is to deliver consistent top-tier performance in our peer set. So what does a focused foods business look like? We will rigorously focus on three attractive global verticals: condiments, cooking aids, and mini meals, and Unilever Food Solutions. This is where we have proven capabilities to win, anchored in our power brands. We will also capitalize on our leading position in India and accelerate the Hindustan Unilever Foods business. I'm convinced that simplifying where we play allows us to execute with precision and generate greater impact. We will double down on consistent, unmissable brand superiority and multi-year innovations, such as the rollout of our Hellmann's flavored mayonnaise range and the expansion of premium Knorr mini meals. Knorr is a EUR 5 billion brand, with Hellmann's at EUR 3 billion. Together, they contribute to more than 60% of our turnover.
They're complemented by iconic local brands such as Brooke Bond in India, Bango in Indonesia, and Lady's Choice in the Philippines. Unilever Food Solutions, which serves professional kitchens, is a gem and a strong customer-facing brand on its own. We have a good track record in this fast-growing food service channel. In the last five years, UFS grew mid-single digit per annum and is on track to cross EUR 3 billion in turnover. We will widen the geographical scope to fuel future growth. Focus means prioritizing resources. Focus also means exiting some brands and segments that are less complementary to the prioritized verticals through portfolio pruning in excess of EUR 1 billion of turnover. Let's now dive into two verticals.
In condiments, we will make Hellmann's a truly global brand by expanding coverage of the brand, like in India, where we are building the mayonnaise category from scratch and strengthening priority markets with innovation. We will grow through premiumization, such as scaling the squeeze format and flavored mayonnaise range. Our premium-priced flavored mayonnaise almost doubled this year and is on track to become a EUR 100 million range. This is underpinned by superiority across all six P's of the Unmissable Brand Superiority framework. Lastly, we've made good progress on Hellmann's market share, now gaining, including in the USA and Brazil, our two largest markets. In cooking aids, we will modernize Knorr by innovating on the key consumer need of convenience and the love for trending new flavors and cuisines. Knorr is strengthening global leadership in bouillon through convenience-oriented products and its social-first top-dish ecosystem that inspires and enables home cooks.
It accounts for more than half of Knorr's turnover and enjoys a significant gross margin advantage. It is growing high single digits and gaining market share. Knorr mini meals makes preparing favorite meals and trending cuisines easy in ready-to-heat premium pots, which is highly relevant for younger households. Knorr mini meals grew double digit over the past five years, with still lots of opportunities ahead. Now, in short, I am absolutely determined to take foods to the next level. We will reshape the portfolio to focus on three resiliently growing verticals and India foods, where we have proven capabilities to win. Our growth will be anchored in our power brands, Knorr and Hellmann's, as well as Unilever Food Solutions. Future value creation will come when exposure to growth categories in developed and emerging markets meets the attractive economics of our business.
Remember, I'm a foods guy, so here comes my favorite part: a delicious Hellmann's salad. Hey, get your own.
Cool. You know, I'm from Argentina. I have never tried the salad, but I have tried Hellmann's in beef, burgers, sausages. It's spectacular. You know, so hey. We are not working only in portfolio improvements. We are fundamentally attacking what has been historic root causes of inefficiencies in the company. In the last few years, you know, particularly after COVID, our cost base expanded too much. You know, there are many reasons for that. You know, it was a time in which the global supply chain was very, very constrained. Priority was really in ensuring the resilience of the business. But it's very clear that the cost base went too far. And this was not addressed also when we moved from a geographically led organization to a category-led organization.
We have significant geographical complexity. You know, I mentioned before that the top 24 markets of Unilever make 85% of the revenue and 90% of the profit. What I didn't say is that when you look at One Unilever, 15% of the markets, 15% of the revenue, the top 30 markets make another 80% of that block. So in 54 markets, Unilever has 97% of the profit and all 97% of the revenue and all its profit. So the other 100 markets in which we operate is a lot of effort for not significant returns. Does this mean that we will abandon these places? No. But this means that we will manage in a completely different way, with simplified processes, with models that in some cases will not require legal entities, and we will do it fast.
We have 22 processes, transactional processes, that we have identified in the company and that have been progressively moved into what we call operational hubs, usually offshore, usually outsourced. But the truth is that the geographical coverage that we have in the operational hubs for these 22 processes is very limited, and that's the result of a company that has been historically led on a geographical basis. I have said no many times when I was running Brazil to move stuff out. That will not happen anymore. We will do it, and we will do it for the whole organization. Finally, there is an important issue for a company like Unilever that has to drive profit growth in hard currency with a significant exposure to emerging markets.
We have around 10 percentage points of misalignment between the fraction of revenue we have in hard currency and the amount of cost that we have in hard currency. This needs to be addressed. The operational hubs play a significant role in addressing this issue. We are creating a leaner, more accountable organization in Unilever. The change that we are finishing, you know, that we will implement on the first of January, with the business groups being fully accountable end to end for the top 24 markets, from product development to sales. The sales divisionalization was the missing element in our move from a geographical-led company into a category-led company. That basically gives control to the business group presidents of every demand driver and every line of cost and investment.
We are dramatically simplifying processes, and we are aligning the complexity of the process with the risk profile of our geographies. I tend to joke that we run exactly the same process in Serbia and U.K., in Honduras and U.S. That will change. The segmentation between the top 24 markets and One Unilever market is a key enabler to have segmentation of our process and dramatic simplification and removal of duplication. We will more than offset the operational disinergies that are generated by the separation of Ice Cream. These EUR 800 million savings fully mitigate those costs, but give us also additional flexibility to fuel the growth of our brands with more investment. We will reduce the fixed cost base in the company with these changes. And this is very, very important to have additional flexibility.
There are three principles that guide our productivity program: geographical simplification, organizational simplification, and technology transformation. I will not comment anymore on geographical segmentation, but I believe it's very, very important to understand that since we have put in place the category-led organization, the fragmentation of our efforts has been reduced significantly. We have a much more coherent category strategy, much more coherent innovation programs, and we have now a setup that allows trade-offs within a category across geography, and that usually ends in a much more coherent portfolio than when you make trade-offs within a geography across categories. In organizational simplification, in this 7,500 reduction of FTEs, 17% of our white-collar workforce, we are reducing the amount of managers at two times the rate, which we are reducing the base of the organization. This implies less layers, more span of control.
There is more that needs to be done in terms of organizational design, but it's a significant, significant step. As I mentioned, we are moving more transactional activities into offshore outsourced hubs in which we believe we will not have only labor arbitrage, but fundamentally, we will have a standardized process that will make the company much simpler. The geographical segmentation is also a fundamental enabler for our future technology transformation. We believe that technology in the next five years will have probably the change that we have seen in the last 25 years. When you have to implement these kinds of changes in 180 countries, the situation is very complex.
So the fact that we are having now a structure of 24 top markets, probably 55 markets that will represent the core of our business, it will allow us to invest more in technology and to ensure that the implementation is flawless. The program is progressing at pace. We are working with BCG. They are providing us a very valuable support. And they have told us that what we have done between March 19, when we announced the launch of our productivity program, and July, when we initiated the consultation process with the European Works Council, usually takes 12 months in many companies. We have taken some risks, but we are making significant progress. And we can confirm now that from the first of January 2025, the new organization will be put in place. We are also making progress in the reduction of FTEs.
Already, we have reduced one third of the 7,500 that we have as a target. That implies that there will be a restructuring front loading, you know, but we will have the savings also coming faster. Let me now move into long-term value creation, and let me give you a glimpse of what has happened in the last decade. We have analyzed what has happened with Unilever in the last decade, and we define it as a vicious circle in which anemic volume growth, gross margin decline, leading to uncompetitive levels of run investment, resulted in a stagnation of profit in hard currency. This has been the issues. Our average volume growth, what we call underlying volume growth, was 0.9%. The best in the sector was 2.3%. No surprise. That number is 80% of the real global GDP.
We know what it takes to deliver top 30 TSR in terms of the contribution of the top line. In a normalized economy of 3% real GDP, 3% global inflation, that's what we have seen in the last 10 years, and this is what we believe will happen in the future. You need around 80% of the nominal GDP increase as underlying sales growth, and you need 80% at least of real GDP growth in volume terms. We have not delivered that, and I believe this is a shame because we have superior volume growth potential given our category footprint and our geographical footprint, and we are addressing this. Our margin collapsed post-COVID. As I mentioned, there was a serious issue in the global supply chain. We invested a lot in generating extra capacity.
At that kind of moment and with the level of change in the market, we made serious mistakes in terms of the innovation we supported. We were too fragmented in our innovation, and we had to invest CapEx to support this kind of fragmented innovation process. And as a result, we didn't cover the whole cost increase with our pricing. And as a result of that, we have a collapse of around 400 basis points of gross margin. As a result of that, our level of investment went down from levels in 2014, 2015 of around 15% to 13%, despite the fact that our portfolio was rotating into categories that are more demanding in terms of media investment. And no surprise, our profit has stagnated. No profit growth or negligible profit growth between 2017 and 2023, you know, between EUR 9.5 billion, EUR 9.9 billion delivery.
With no profit growth, no earnings per share growth, no dividend growth, no market capitalization increase. What are the pillars of our value creation plan? Our goal is very, very simple. Deliver absolute profit growth in hard currency that is in line with the companies that consistently feature in the top third of the peer group when it comes to total shareholder return. There are two fundamental backbones for that: mid-single digit growth with at least 2% contribution from volume. We believe that the contribution volume price should be in a range of 40%-60%, 60%-40% in that kind of space, in the long run, in the long range, in the long-term guidance range that we have talked about.
If we deliver that and we deliver modest margin improvement, anchored in a consistent expansion of our gross margin, we will be able to deliver top third shareholder return. Let me go a bit deeper in these two things, how we will do it. We believe that our exposure to the anemic markets, to emerging markets, gives us a superior platform for volume growth. We have close to 60% of our business, of our revenue, in emerging markets. Of the total emerging markets, there are eight markets that contribute two-thirds to that 60%: India, South Africa, Indonesia, Brazil, Mexico, Vietnam, and China. For each of them, we have very, very clear roles. We will commit, we will have an unblinking commitment to undisputed leadership in India. Our Indian business is close to EUR 7 billion. It is one of the real jewels of Unilever.
The GDP per capita in India today is at the level that the Philippines was in 2008 when I had the, you know, I would say, fortune of leading the Philippines business. Between 2008 and today, our Philippines business added 9 euros per capita of revenue, different 9 euros to the one that Hahn showed. That was the market growth in the laundry category. But our business in the Philippines moved from 450 million to 1.4 billion in 15 years. Imagine 9 euros per capita in a 1.5 billion population in India. No need to imagine 9. Imagine 5. I'm absolutely convinced that India will be for Unilever in the next 10 years what China has been for some of our competitors in the last 10 or 15. And we know that investors will not reward us for 20, 30, or 40 basis points more of margin in India.
We will invest whatever it takes to defend and expand our leadership position in India, South Africa, Vietnam, the Philippines, Brazil, Mexico, these are some of our most profitable strongholds. We have incredible market positions in all these markets, and these are markets that are attracting a disproportionate amount of our resources. There are good economic conditions in all of them. Consumers continue changing their consumption patterns, adopting more categories, and shifting to premium, and we are in an incredible position to get a disproportionate advantage for that. Indonesia is a particular issue. Indonesia has been an outlier. What happens to us in Indonesia didn't happen to us in Vietnam or in South Africa or in Argentina or in Mexico or in Turkey or in Thailand or in many other cases, you know, and we are working very hard to turn around that business.
But there are some serious long-standing issues that are related with lack of differentiation of our portfolio against a very strong local competitor that tends to operate with a significant discount on pricing. On top of that, the consumer backlash that we suffered to the geopolitical issues by the end of last year in the Middle East, you know, has really affected our business there, promotes some kind of losses of share. And in the attempt to recover some of that share, we have done around one quarter of that. We recovered one quarter percent, one quarter of the share that we lost. We adopted some pricing and promotional initiatives that generated a lot of price instability in the market. And that needs to be addressed. That's the hygiene we are doing in Indonesia business and that you saw in our quarter three results.
But as Hein said, Indonesia is a 6% GDP growth economy. We have an incredible market position, and we will never abandon that market, and we will correct whatever needs to be corrected. Finally, let me say one word about China. We probably got late into China, you know. And when we got into China, we probably didn't have the assets we have today, like the assets that we have acquired in the U.S. in Prestige Beauty or in Wellness. And we tried to really go for an all-in strategy in China, and that resulted in economics that were not really very good for Unilever. We are adopting now a selective growth strategy in China, putting real focus in brands, categories, segments in which we have the channels, in which we have the right to win.
We believe, despite very, very difficult market conditions, we will keep making progress in what is now our fourth largest market. We are absolutely convinced that volume growth for Unilever cannot only come from emerging markets. After the separation of Ice Cream , our North American business will be 21% of the revenue. Our European business will be 18% of the revenue. The situations are different. In North America, we believe, we are very confident that our journey for superior volume growth has started. In the last seven quarters, we delivered average 2.9% volume growth in North America, in the US, not North America, in the US. We believe that this is superior volume growth in that market. I believe it's a testament to the profound transformation we have seen in our portfolio.
North America has been, is, and will remain our first geography when it comes to capital allocation, and we will do that because North America has a feature that no other market has. It has enough local critical mass to build very big brands, and it's a platform for the rollout of global brands. American brands travel, and Unilever, the second source of complexity for Unilever, is the issue that we don't have many brands with global presence. We are probably the global company with the most limited amount of global brands, and we are really committed to change that. We have been doing that in the last few years through a combination of acquisitions and fundamentally putting on top two times that revenue in organic growth.
We have built, as Priya showed, a very, very powerful Prestige Beauty and Wellbeing business that has grown for 15 consecutive quarters at double-digit level. But it's not only that. We have taken very, very decisive actions to prune non-strategic brands or brands in the value segment of our portfolio: Suave, Dollar Shave Club, Elida Beauty, etc. As a result of that, we have a portfolio that we believe has gone a bit unnoticed the growth potential that it has. Of the EUR 11 billion we will have in our US business, more than EUR 3 billion in Prestige Beauty and Health & Wellbeing, EUR 1.5 billion in an incredible Hellmann's business, two times the size of our closest competitor, EUR 1.5 billion in deodorants, more than 40% share, EUR 1.5 billion in haircare, with four brands leading four specific segments: styling, textured hair, professional hair and grocery, etc.
So we believe that really our journey in the U.S. has already started, and we are starting to see consistent results. It's moving. In Europe, the journey is different, you know. Europe is a concentrated retail environment in which Unilever discovered too late that the only relevant profit pools are in the premium segment of the market. And we have not provided to the market the level of premium innovation that we should have. But we have started. This year, I believe, we have deployed in Europe the best innovation program that we have deployed in the last decade. And results are starting to show. Of course, there are low competitors. I get it. But 2.9% volume growth, you know, a significant incremental turnover coming from innovation.
Pretty spectacular performance in Home Care and in personal care, you know. Significant improvement in our share position in Ice Cream . We start to see the benefit of deploying some of the acquired business coming from the U.S. into Europe in Prestige Beauty & Wellbeing . Of course, there are more work to do, particularly in foods, in which, as I mentioned before, a further pruning of the portfolio for around EUR 1 billion will be very, very significant to do exactly what we did in the U.S., improving the growth potential of that business. Let me go now into gross margin. You can see when I remember my first conversation with Hein when he came, he said something like, "Guys, we need to bring the gross margin back to the pre-COVID levels fast," you know. And we are doing it.
MAT gross margin by the end of June this year, you know, we basically came back to those levels. And of course, you know, we will not take credit for what we have not done. We know that of our 420 basis points of margin expansion in the first half, around 200, 250 are industry improvements, you know, the combination of pricing carryover, commodity inflation, etc. But it's true also that we are making serious intervention in our cost of goods sold to improve our gross margin. And this will have continuity. There are fundamentally five key drivers that we're using: volume, mix, better procurement, higher CapEx for margin expansion initiatives, and reduction of complexity. Volume, and before getting into this, volume is very, very important. Our gross margin is 45%.
But when you look at our marginal contribution and the margin of our next unit of volume, in average, it's 55%. And if it comes in some of our most profitable business, it can go to 70%. When we start to operate with 2% or 3% volume growth, the machine starts to work. And the improvement in gross margin is very, very significant. But let me go a bit to the procurement interventions we have made. You know, we are targeting net savings. We are targeting for our EUR 27 billion bill of materials an inflation that should be 1% less than the one of the market. In Unilever now, it is forbidden to talk about gross savings. We only talk about savings that you will see in the P&L. And how are we doing that, you know? We are doing changing fundamentally the way we used to buy.
We are bringing game theory at scale because we appreciate the partnership with our suppliers, but we are absolutely committed to bring competitive tension and time frame tension. We are making serious interventions in the value chain of some materials. We didn't in U.S. surfactants, where we were the only player in the liquids category with not at all vertical integration. We are doing in sales financial plans in many parts of the world, and as Richard showed today, we are starting to do it in perfume, in fragrances, and we will do it, you know, to partner better with our suppliers. They have a lot of capabilities that we appreciate. But we need to improve the way we buy, and we are doing it. We are also targeting a significant reduction in our cost per unit, around 2% per annum in what we call manufacturing and logistics.
And this is fundamentally a byproduct of increasing dramatically the amount of CapEx we allocate to margin expansion initiatives and reducing dramatically the complexity of items in the organization. I was reviewing with Priya the other day how much we have reduced our items in beauty and wellbeing since the end of 2021. 37%. 37%. Let me show how our CapEx has been evolving in terms of allocation. There are fundamentally four ways of allocating CapEx. You do it for capacity, you do it for innovation, you do it for infrastructure, quality, sustainability, safety, or you do it for productivity. And in the last decade, Unilever has allocated very little to margin expansion. We are now committed to improve that level to around 55% or more. And when you do that in our turnover, you are talking around EUR 1 billion of CapEx that you allocate to margin expansion.
Consider three- or four-year payback and major mass. What is the impact in gross margin. I have mentioned many areas in which we have to improve. Let me mention only one in which we want to sustain what has been excellent across time. That is cash conversion, and fundamentally, the impact of negative working capital in cash conversion. We are one of the top five better companies in the sector when it comes to working capital, and when you have a strong topline growth and you have a strong negative working capital, the growth rate of your cash grows exponentially. This is a fundamental element that will ensure levels of cash conversion around 100 in the years to come. A bit of color in capital allocation. There are three fundamental pillars in which we will allocate capital.
We'll allocate capital for growth and productivity to ensure the long-term sustainability of the economics of our business. It is investing in our brands. It is investing in R&D. It is investing in capacity expansion. It is investing in productivity. We will continue allocating capital around EUR 1.5 billion a year to optimize our portfolio, to keep rotating our portfolio into more premium segments. We will do it through selective bolt-on and bolt-on M&A and through the pruning of the portfolio that I have mentioned before. Transformational acquisitions are off the table. Finally, we will deliver capital returns to our shareholders in an attractive level. We want to ensure a 60% payout ratio. We want our dividends to grow in line with the profit growth. And we will not sit in unused cash.
If at one moment of time, as it has happened in the last two years, there is cash available, we will return it to our shareholders in the shape of buybacks. This is not working here. Let me put a few numbers around this. You can see how our BMI is improving. 2022, 13% of the revenue. 2023, 14.3%. First half this year, 15.1%. We expect between 15%-16% for the full year. CapEx, more than 3%. We are investing for the future. Portfolio rotation. Since 2017 until now, more than one-third of our portfolio has rotated. Capital returns, close to EUR 20 billion in three years. With a breakdown in the last two years, 75-25 dividends buybacks that we like. But we will not force it. But we like it. So let me finish with a summary of our value creation model.
We will deliver absolute profit growth in line with the companies that are consistently in the top third of top shareholder return. The backbone of this will be the combination of mid-single digit growth with a strong contribution from volume at least 2% and modest margin improvement. We will deliver cash conversion at around 100 basis points. We will maintain a leverage level of around two times EBITDA when it comes to net debt. This combination of cash conversion, net debt level, that kind of leverage will ensure that we retain what is a strong single A credit rating with financing costs that will be only a very limited fraction of what we expect to be high teens return on invested capital. We want to cement Unilever in the top third of return on invested capital of the peer group.
This is one metric that has exactly the same weight in our long-term incentive plans as the one we give to total shareholder returns. And that shows how important it is for us. Finally, we will allocate capital for growth and productivity to keep rotating our portfolio and to ensure that our shareholders have attractive capital returns. I'm finishing. And basically, I would like to repeat a couple of things. We are in very early stage of a serious, serious profound change in Unilever. But we are doing it at pace. We are stepping up our execution. We are accelerating our transformation. And the Growth Action Plan 2030 is anchored in three fundamental pillars: focus in areas of business with disproportionate return; excel in five demand drivers that deliver superior differentiated brand equities; and accelerate critical capabilities to ensure we stay ahead in fast-changing world.
Our value creation model will be anchored in a 2% plus volume growth. Don't expect from us margin guidance. Expect from us to invest consistently with that ambition. We want to deliver consistent gross margin expansion. And that will be the basis of a modest operating margin expansion. And the combination of all these will deliver absolute profit growth in hard currency in line with our expectations. Finally, we know there is a lot to do. If you ask me, Fernando, what are you guys? Give me a score in a 1 to 10 scale of how good you are. How good is all the stuff that you do? I would probably give me a six. Give us a six. My mom used to say that 10 doesn't exist, you know.
But from six to the eight, nine that we believe should be our ambition, there is a lot that has to be done. Thank you very much. We go into a very short break, two minutes. And after that, Q&A. Thank you.
I'm with my own way and I made it. I'm your favorite. The males of a tropical vacation. You're so inside my Tectonic moves, I'm income shock. You like the fibrillators. No style, no car ma later. Oi! Divino. It never looks better. Baby, sick, sick, sick with the Princess Street. I'm everywhere, I'm so delivered. Cinco vezes tecnologia de remoção de manchas, ele mesmo. Drop down, yeah, yeah. Do I look like Hailey? Yeah, 360. When you're in the mirror, do you know what you see? I'm making my favorite combo, Mary Mee Chicken. Are you kidding me with this Mary Mee Chicken?
Which one are you picking, mine or Cardi's? That the cook. Putty, putty, putty. Hello. Look at the glow. We still smell great. A mí me duele el tétanos, y yo sino. Jadi kan bisa lebih fokus lagi masuk olahraga. Will you either love her or you hate her? Don't you want me like I want you, baby? Don't you need me like I need you now? Say tomorrow. Coleman's mustard rubbed into the calves really speeds recovery. Pero. What do you mean? Yummy. Five, six, five, six, seven, eight. And even your feet. Warum ist deine Riesenkarotte bei dem Zimmer? Vậy là nhà em đãi mày hả? H-O-T-T-O-G-O. Snap and clap and touch your toes. H-O-T-T-O-G-O. TikTok made me buy it. H-O-T-T-O-G-O. You can take me high to go. H-O-T-T-O-G-O. Necesitamos tener TikTok. This thing was blowing up all over a little chick shop.
You can take me high to go. I'll call the cab. La vi bailar.
All right. All right, thank you very much. A short break. We were just saying these armchairs feel a bit too comfortable, actually, for what we aim to do. So I think we would have been a little bit more front-footed. But hey, we'll take it on a Friday afternoon. Look, just. Productivity opportunity. Hey, so just to summarize on the framework, we've talked today about a refreshed purpose. We've talked about our strategic goal. We've talked about three areas of focus, you know, on those areas with the biggest opportunity for reward. We talked about excel in those areas, you know, of demand creation. And we've talked about accelerate capabilities underpinned by a continued commitment on sustainability, but strongly focused. And then, of course, you know, dialing up the performance edge in a winning culture.
We've talked about behaviors that are actually a new phenomenon in the company and that we aim to dial up through a comprehensive program. Fernando, you know, embedded it in the financial algorithm, gave you an update on the current programs and so forth. We look forward now to have a bit of a dialogue and answer any questions that you may have. That's not just for the people here in the room. So also anyone online, please make sure that you submit your question and it will come through via Gemma Spalton, head of investor relations, and she will coordinate the questions. If there is a very difficult question, then we will give it to one of the ULE members here in the front row. But you can also ask, by the way, one of the ULE members directly. No problem with that at all.
All right, I suggest we get going. If there's a question from within the room, the microphones will be given to you. Yep. Here in the front.
Thank you very much, Victoria Petrova, Bank of America, and thanks especially to the IR team for organizing this event. My first question is on organic growth. Apologies if I missed it. When you were talking first about the separation of Ice Cream , you mentioned 4%-6% organic growth of the core business. Now, if I noticed it correctly, you are talking more about 2% volume growth rather than this 4 to 6 algorithm. Are you still sticking to it? Also, just from experience in Staples, once a company went to 4 to 6 guidance, it usually faced some issues. What are your assumptions behind it?
Maybe in terms of category growth, you talked a lot about your bottom-up initiatives, but maybe what the underlying category assumptions are. And also maybe in this context, also what the mix contribution could be, because you had a lot of impressive comments around mix. Maybe any highlights there? That's my first question. Usually, we're allowed to ask two. And my second question would be on the.
Shall we do this first?
Yes.
Yeah, why don't we do that? I'll give Fernando in a second. But first of all, I think the guidance that we've given on the midterm is not changing today, apart from the dialing up on the ROIC, which Fernando has talked about. Right? So that's number one. We've underpinned the midterm guidance with a volume equation that Fernando has talked about, but there's essentially no change.
Look, I mean, for 2025, so before the separation of Ice Cream, we will also stick to our guidance of the 3%-5% top line and modest margin expansion and then the high-teens ROIC. I think, you know, I understand what you're saying. And, you know, since we did change our guidance, a few comments from my side. I mean, first of all, I mean, mathematically, there is a small uptick because of the Ice Cream separation. We also believe that by the time, you know, we should be two and a half years, two, two and a half years in the Growth Action Plan, and the driving of the mix change in the portfolio will help us to achieve that. And we wanted to set the bar simply higher. Fernando.
Yeah, on top of that, a more focused portfolio, we believe that will have a contribution in better execution, and that should help, and I would remind again, this guidance is given in a context of a normalized economy that we expect around 3% real GDP growth, 3% inflation. If there are fundamental changes, you know, we need to adjust that. But you know, in the last 10 years, that has been the real GDP growth and the inflation. Great companies deliver around 80% of that nominal growth, and that's what brings them into the top 30 TSR. That's our ambition. We are confident that we are making the steps to get into there. We have one year more under the old guidance, including Ice Cream , and you know, we expect to continue stepping up our performance, and
Maybe on categories, how do you think your categories are growing?
Or is it only GDP and inflation you're looking at? Of course, you know, there are categories that structurally have exposure to higher growth. We believe that our beauty, well-being, personal care business structurally is exposed to more growth. We have a very good position in Home Care in the emerging markets in which there is significant adoption of new machines. You know, Edu can mention this more, but every time that somebody moves from hand wash into machine wash is three times consumption. You know, there are 30% of hand wash in India. You know, so these kind of things fundamentally transform markets, and of course, we see foods probably in the bottom end of the range. You know, just it's a bit more demanding category, but we believe that within the foods category, we expect to have a performance that is superior to the market.
Thank you very much. And the second one will be very short. You obviously had a very strong margin dynamics in the first half of the year. You are guiding lower margins in the second, as my understanding, operating as well as gross margin. When you talk about your gross margins initiatives, what is your starting point? Is it the exit rate of 24? And what are your cost of goods sold, general kind of five-year assumptions? Is it moderate growth? Do you think about some significant structural swings? And that's it for me. Thank you very much.
Yeah, if I look at historic commodities inflation, you know, you have around 3% of commodity inflation with around 2% coming from non-hyperinflationary markets.
So basically, if you have to keep your margin stable when you are around 45% or 50%, whatever kind of margin, you know, you have to deliver between 3.5%-4% growth, okay? Yeah, price growth. So the assumption we have, again, is a normalized economy. You know, usually when you have to project the future, you take what has been the norm and not outliers. You know, of course, the last few years, you know, you have had a cycle of spiking commodities and then deflation that is just difficult to handle. But overall, you know, we believe that the MAT margin, so the margin of the last 12 months at June, that when we reported quarter two results, is a good proxy of what we believe is our base.
Here as well on the, oh, yep, maybe you have the mic.
Yeah, hi, it's Warren here at Barclays.
Hi, Hein and Fernando, a couple from me. The first one is, could you spend a bit of time talking about Prestige and Beauty? It's one of your key pillars. It's grown double digit for 15 quarters. It's EUR 4 billion of revenues. But I guess it gets harder to keep growing double digit as the base gets bigger. You've got a new head of Prestige. She's not here to speak for herself, but I'd love to understand what your vision is for this division looking out to 2030. Maybe you can share with us what the gross margin profile is and which of the brands in Prestige and Wellbeing are you most excited about looking out medium term and which of the brands have the biggest potential within Prestige and Wellbeing for international expansion. If you just dive into that, it would be, I think, very helpful.
Sure. Warren, I think it's a great opportunity since Priya is obviously here that she takes that question. Priya?
Yep. Thank you so much, Warren, for the question. For us, firstly, I just want to start with saying we are challengers in Prestige Beauty. Yeah, okay, I can do that. We are challengers in Prestige Beauty, and that gives us an interesting headroom for growth. We've identified our power brands, which we've called out, and you would have seen in Hein and Fernando's presentation, the power brands which include our Prestige power brands. Today, 60% of our revenue, as we mentioned, and Hein mentioned that, is in the US, and 40% is outside the US. We still have significant headroom for international expansion as a challenger into Prestige Beauty, and we're going to be selective in where we expand outside of Prestige, outside of the US.
But we have huge headroom even today in the U.S., and that's probably the biggest part of our growth opportunity for Prestige.
Maybe add a few words to that, Warren, on internationalization. So as I said, 40% of the Prestige Beauty business is international, 60% is U.S. On well-being, that's 10% international, 90% U.S. Well-being, three main brands: Nutrafol, Liquid I.V., and OLI. And Liquid I.V. is something that we are rolling out to seven other markets at the moment. But I do want to be a bit careful because Liquid I.V. is a habit change for many people outside of the U.S., and so it will probably have a bit of a longer burn, but we are pushing it.
Nutrafol and OLLY, basically very strong brands both, would have regulatory limitations to the extent that you can internationalize, and we are working through that because Nutrafol in itself is an incredible growth vehicle. We believe there is a lot of international expansion opportunity, but we do need to overcome some of the boundaries. Prestige Beauty is easier in that sense. As I said already, Europe and premiumizing Europe, selective expansion to China, and being at the forefront and early on in India, I would say are the three opportunities. Which brands do we like? We like all of them. Calling out Dermalogica, calling out K18 for sure, and Paula's Choice. I mean, hey, and Hourglass, in which we actually, Hourglass, you can, I would encourage you for your spouse or yourself to, you know, to buy that here at Claridge's or at Harrods before Christmas.
It's wonderful, and, you know, it's scarcity, and I'm sure you want to be early.
It's not cheap.
Oh, sorry. Yeah, thank you. Yes, Harold Thompson here from Chelverton. A couple of questions. First of all, I guess on your GAP you've thought, Fernando. You know, you've labeled about 100 of your markets into the One Unilever pocket to be managed in a more simple way. I don't know how to say that. But often when consumer goods companies kind of identify an area which is kind of no longer focused, rightly or wrongly, it always goes wrong in a, you know, over a period of time, and then it kind of causes trouble to the bits that are doing really well. So, you know, what will you be watching or changing or monitoring so that doesn't happen?
Because it would be a shame if that happens when the rest is booming.
We differentiate very clearly between business in which we focus, but the rest of the business are not businesses that we neglect. You know, and I believe I have mentioned this to many of you when it comes to power brands, for example. You know, take an example of Brazil, you know, in which we have 65% share in laundry. You know, our power brands represent 50% of the share. But the other 15% come from a couple of local brands that, in times of economic volatility, provide very significant resilience. And you don't neglect these brands. You know, but the focus of the company is in the top 30 power brands that have global and regional scalability.
When it comes to geographies, I believe, you know, the difference in our case with some other multinational companies is that all these smaller geographies are not loss-making. They are profit dilutive. They are margin dilutive, not profit dilutive, margin dilutive, but they are not loss-making. So we will see in these geographies, we want growth, but we want more growth impact than negative complexity impact. They will be fundamentally adopters of innovation from the top 24 markets. We will run this business with processes that are much simpler. We will run this business with technology landscape that will be off-the-shelf, you know, and we will not tolerate deviations to what is our brand strategies for our core brands.
We want also in these geographies a progressive alignment of portfolio into the top 30 brands because the smaller the geography in Unilever, the more you find local brands that have emerged because nobody was taking a lot of care. So that's basically how we will run the business. But hey, these are attractive businesses. I feel it's important to highlight that of the 100 plus One Unilever market, 30 of them make 12% of Unilever revenue. Okay? All the rest from the number 56 onwards, you know, they make 3% of our revenue. So we will adjust our models to that kind of contribution to turnover.
Okay. And then my second question is, clearly we've talked about AI a few times in various of the presentation, and I don't pretend to, I guess, any of us knowing the answer probably thus far, but is it more an industry benefit or actually a company one? And is it more going to add complexity, or is it going to create savings? I mean, how, where do all these things kind of land?
Yeah, we talked a bit about it, and you know, it's almost a philosophical question these days. I think, you know, is AI, I mean, first of all, philosophically, is AI sort of the third wave of productivity after the Industrial Revolution and then digital, and are we now on to the next one?
Look, the way I think about it is, you know, AI will help us significantly to scale productivity in areas where it really matters. Is AI going to be the big cost-saving initiative in itself in the short term? I don't think so for two reasons. One, you do need the investment, and secondly, it will change people's roles more so than that it eliminates, you know, a whole bunch of costs in the short term. But the environment is also asking for AI because otherwise you will not have that license to compete. You know, when we talked about social first, for example, content generation, I mean, we have a lot more content to deliver for social channels than what we've done in, you know, in traditional channels. So you need that AI capability to effectively compete.
I think that companies like ours, where you can actually make bigger bets and where you can dial that up, where you can make that investment, where you have the expertise in-house, I believe we're well positioned to benefit from AI, probably more so than, you know, some of our smaller scale competitors. That said, in this digital environment, will there be digitally native companies quickly coming to? Yes, there will be. We will always have that, and we watch that closely. I think on AI, we're actually well positioned. I think what the message that we've given today is it's a clear agenda. We're making three types of investments on the demand creation side: on marketing, customer connectivity, and R&D cycle time improvement. We're making three investments on the cost side.
And I think if we limit ourselves for now to that, be laser-focused on it, I think it can give that opportunity for us to make it, to make our algorithm that we talked about. But once again, it is not a cost-saving à la productivity. I don't think so.
Let me give another additional angle that I believe is interesting. For example, for a company of our geographical presence, AI in marketing provides a unique opportunity for a consistent and coherent management of our brands in international markets in a way that before it was very difficult to do. So that's clearly, you know, a simplification, but it also should be a way of doing better marketing in our smaller geographies.
We're here in the front. Yep, here it is. Yep.
Thank you. It's Guillaume Delmas from UBS. Two questions.
The first one on premiumization in Europe and North America. Could you provide us with the percentage of your sales roughly today that are from premium products in those two regions? Where do you see that percentage going by 2030? And do you think all your brands can be stretched into that premium segment in both regions? And I guess to follow up on the question from Warren, do you have critical mass today in Prestige outside of the U.S.? And the second question is on CapEx. Fernando, it was great to see the CapEx split. Zooming in on capacity, you are targeting more than 2% UVG going forward, yet capacity, I think, will remain like 1%, maybe less than 1% of sales. So how do we reconcile that? Is it simplification or relying more on third-party manufacturers? Thank you.
I'll start off with the first and then Warren to complement on that. And I'll try to be quite staccato on the premium side. I can't give you an exact percentage of which part of our business is in premium or on super premium. And first of all, it depends on how you define it. Is that above a price point of 120, or is it above a price point of 160, or even 200? So there's different ways to look at it. I think in the way that we've operated, particularly in the North American market, which is super important, we've acquired into that super premium segment, and we've given you the numbers on how much turnover that roughly is. And we are upgrading our current brands and our core portfolio, both in Beauty & Wellbeing , as well as in personal care.
As I said, you know, the premiumization route has three essential levers: improve the core, internationalize our premium business, and continue to rotate the portfolio. You know, that is going to be a journey for years, but if we pull all levers simultaneously, I feel that we're on a very clear path because we're doing it intentionally. And I think that is a difference probably than what I saw 18 months ago, you know, intentionally driving premiumization. Yeah, Fernando, I think, I don't know if you want to, oh yeah, what you asked about Prestige, if we have scale outside of Europe, I don't think so. I mean, we have an opportunity, and where we do it, you know, where we, I mean, we just talked about Hourglass, and I joke to Warren, but the reality is when we internationalize, it looks good. We know where to go.
We're doing it judiciously, selectively, and we're doing it with conviction, but I wouldn't claim that we have critical mass in beauty or pres tige outside of North America.
This being said, the relevance in Prestige is brand scale more than category scale, and we are absolutely focused in selective brands expansion. We will not put our 17 brands of Prestige and well-being in all markets. We will choose the one that has the biggest potential to win. And I believe that's where we are really putting focus. Regarding CapEx, I don't believe that I have not said that we will invest only 1% of our CapEx in capacity. And I know you like modeling, so I will give you some numbers. Our net book value of assets is EUR 10 billion. So if I take 2% capacity growth, I would talk of an investment of EUR 200 million.
Let's put that in gross level. It would be EUR 400 million. So in a EUR 1.8 billion, you know, you can say, okay, EUR 400 million for capacity, you know, that's what you need. Of course, it's not mathematical, you know, because sometimes you need a lot of capacity, and it's not a game of averages. But hey, you know, it's just we believe that allocating between 25%-30% of our CapEx to capacity is enough to deliver 2%+ volume growth. You know, 25, 30 for that, a bit for infrastructure, you know, and then a big bunch for productivity.
Thank you .
Yeah.
Celine Pannuti, J.P. Morgan. So I have a follow-up question on premiumization. Clearly a great driver for mix and gross margin.
At the same time, a lot right here right now. We've seen a lot of new competition from low-price players. Private label in some developed markets are continuing to gain share. So how do you assess your opportunity for premiumization in the mid to long run versus the reality of maybe the market and how you think about it? That's my first question. My second question may be more for Fernando on the adequacy of your cost base versus your footprint geographically from an FX perspective. Again, you are talking about high single-digit hard currency EPS growth. Is that on a yearly basis or there will be year? How do you manage maybe year 2025? I may think where the dollar is strong and some of the currency could be under pressure. Thank you.
Yeah, so first on private label and on premiumization.
You know, they are both right. So what we're seeing is more bifurcation in the market. And if you look at private label, it has been growing, but actually it's sort of stabilizing around the nine and a half, between nine and a half and 10% in categories in the U.S. and around 20-ish% in Europe. So, you know, with values in the categories growing, that percentage sort of stays the same. I mean, it's not hugely changing at this point, but we're seeing some pressure on those brands that are in the middle whilst actually the more premium side of the portfolio is still growing. Now, as I said, premiumization has multiple dimensions. You know, I think it's not only, we shouldn't only think about that high prestige side of the business.
Premiumization is also what we talked about, the emerging markets, the conversion, you know, in applications from, you know, bar soap washing to machine or hand washing to machine washing, for example. That is for us a very important lever for premiumization. And we believe that is something that will continue to evolve in the years to come. So again, developed markets, I see more bifurcation, but I think premiumization remains an important trend, not necessarily at the high end, but also at the 160 price point. And in emerging markets, there is a, there's simply an evolving need and application that I feel we're well positioned for, by the way, to grasp.
Yeah, on negative currency, Selin, our average negative currency effect in the top line is 2% in the last 10 years.
You know, when you look at other multinationals, it's in the territory of 1%-1.5% in most of the cases. I'm not so concerned, of course, you know, in the short term, you know, strengthening of the dollar and whatever can have some impact, you know. I'm usually not very concerned about the magnitude of the negative currency. I'm concerned about the time friction you have to pass through the devaluation to pricing, you know. You know, I'm from Argentina, so it's just I have lived all my life with this kind of situation. But, you know, usually in the, when you look at the long period of time, usually you tend to pass a very significant part of the devaluation into pricing.
But in the short run, when the purchasing power in hard currency of a Brazilian consumer or an Egyptian consumer suffers a collapse, you know, it's very difficult to do it, you know. But things tend to adjust in the long run. So we are looking, of course, at the situation now with the strengthening of the dollar. It's true also that situations like that in a moment, in a period in which pricing has been very subdued in the market, could be a lubricant factor for pricing in the market. So, you know, I always look at these things in a balanced way. It has some negative effects and it has some positive effects. And some pricing good digits, guys? I express a different, I use a different expression to the one you use it.
I'm saying that our model has the ambition to deliver profit growth in hard currency at the level of companies that consistently feature in the top third shareholder return.
All right, so David Hayes from Jefferies, two for me, I guess, at the risk of front-running the Hindustan event next week, India's been mentioned a lot. Can you kind of flesh out what doubling down really means? And I guess putting it into numbers, you know, the growth is slow to low singles. It was doing high single, double digits pre-COVID. So in terms of the four to six algorithm, does India have to go back to a high single digit, double digit range? And then you seem to allude to spending what you need to spend to get the result.
Does that mean the margin in Hindustan is down a little bit as you kind of get that to happen? Again, that may be quite detailed ahead of next week. And then the second question, just in terms of deals, I think you said that if you're looking for new bolt-on kind of deals, it would be US and India that you'd focus on. Why those two markets? What's missing or what do they bring that means that you're saying to your team, look at India and US and forget everywhere else? Thank you.
Thanks a lot. I mean, let's also make sure that Rohit gets the, oh, where's the mic? Yeah. All right, great. So before Rohit goes, you know, on India, I mean, over time we do expect India to return to growth rates that are higher than what we've seen in the recent past.
As I said, you know, the development there, it's not a straight line and we cannot expect that. So we are focusing at this point when, you know, when growth is a bit more sluggish in the market, we focus on solidifying our shares and that's exactly what we're doing. So we're competitive and we're preparing obviously for bigger and better. When it comes to doubling down, and I think Fernando used his words to it, which were a bit more outspoken than mine, and that's how we are. It's the Argentinian versus the European here. But look, I think we're thinking about it exactly the same. All our business groups have India as a primary focus. That means that we would prioritize top-line growth and share over, you know, immediate profit delivery.
And that doesn't mean that necessarily I'm not, we're not giving a warning that margins are coming down. We're saying, you know, we believe in the mid to long-term opportunity for India. And that means you do need that support. I mean, on the current situation in India versus sort of the midterm perspective, Rohit, it's probably good if you spend a few words on that.
Yeah, just to turn around so that I can address everybody. So of course I welcome you all and to listen and to join next week. We'll go more in details on HUL Capital Markets Day. But just to take the segue from what you're saying, the opportunity in India is really in growing the markets from where they are today at EUR 2,500 per capita income. Any neighboring market, Philippines was an example, or Indonesia, all our categories will see immense growth.
The Indonesian per capita consumption is four times and Thailand, China. So there's an immense runway for growth and real opportunity lies ahead. Looking back, we've been growing over the last 10 years. You mentioned close to almost 8% CAGR, roughly balanced between price and volume. In the more near term, we've seen inflation and then deflation. Price has not been in the market. It's coming back now, going to the norm. The rural markets are recovering.
The urban markets are a bit muted at this point, but we should not really get so focused on one quarter or the other, but broadly look at what is it that we must do as a long-term player where we've been in 90 years and will be for that much more in the country to do the right things, which is to essentially invest behind market development, making our brands unmissable, and making sure that we invest behind capabilities of us because the country is transforming, whether it be channels or media. Ultimately, a test of success is to make sure that we continue gaining market share. You saw from HUL chart that we gained 200 basis points of market share. We've gained last financial year. We will gain in this financial year as well.
So we continue to build a competitive position and make it stronger in all market conditions. And we are very, very optimistic. And with all of the support from Unilever, I mean, HUL is a very, very integral part of this entire story. And our job essentially is to drive growth. That's why we exist. That's our purpose. Thank you.
I would like to add something, you know, just with the slowdown of China, everybody discovered back US and discovered back India, you know. And we appreciate, you know, that many multinational companies have serious opportunities in India, you know. So, and channel shift will give opportunities, whatever. But who would swap Unilever's position in India for the one of any other company? I don't know. Any? I would not.
But we're not resting on our laurels.
No.
So no mistake.
Doubling down means no less obligation for the HUL team. It means we're staying very close. It means we're staying very much on top. Rohit enjoys a bit more attention than others and I just came back. I spent two weeks in India and that means doubling down, personal time, making sure you understand the market. We review, we think, we think together. I spent more time with Rohit on the road than with my wife in the last month but that is what it means to me personally and look, we won't always get it right, but we are not taking India for granted at all. Yeah.
The deal focus?
Let me ask that.
Yeah, the deal focus. The deal focus, yeah.
I feel like I said something different that our bolt-on acquisition, our bolt-on M&A, we will focus on Beauty & Wellbeing with some options in personal care, you know, if there is any gap in our portfolio that deserves significant allocation of capital to be covered. We said also that our focus is in the U.S. because the American market has significant local critical mass and also is a platform for global brands. We said also that if necessary to make significant investment in India for acquisitions in order to cope with the significant market change that requires an adjustment of our portfolio, we will do it. Yeah.
We have one question online, which is, you've demonstrated accelerated growth in Europe this year. How sustainable is that growth going forward? You know, if you look at Europe for this year, and it has been a good year for Europe.
I've also seen that from others, by the way, in the sector. You look, I mean, first of all, Europeans structurally versus some of the other markets have a few interesting characteristics that I want to highlight. First of all, savings levels of consumers are quite a bit higher than in other parts of the world. You know, the Europeans are still saving around 15% versus the U.S. at 5%. Savings in the U.S. also after the inflationary period got depleted somewhat. The European situation is different. So is the European economy at this moment showing actually, despite all talks about the European Union, quite some resilience? That's helping us. But it also showed in Europe, and I think Fernando and I both talked about it, you do need to come with something that the European consumer really appreciates.
You know, we need to make markets think of the innovation that Edu talked about, think of the Bon Bons that we've just introduced in Magnum. And I'm sure you like them, but the cost is slightly higher than, you know, than some of the other ice creams that we're doing. And I feel that when we create needs, brighten every day, I think that's where we see Europeans actually responding very, very quickly. So that idea of premiumizing and going into other channels than the classic retail only and expanding in Europe, I see that as a good opportunity. But a high single digit every year in Europe, no, that won't happen. Yeah.
Good afternoon. It's Tom Sykes from Deutsche Bank. Firstly, just, we are becoming a more agile business. The backbone to that is going to be better and more timely data.
And I think you've taken on and obviously have shifted your entire business to the cloud in a way in which no one else has done and is quite unprecedented. So could you maybe speak about the advantages that that gives you versus others, please?
Yeah, thanks, Tom. That is indeed the case. I mean, we have shifted our business significantly in the cloud. I'm looking at Reggie, our Chief Business Operations Officer, to give you a few comments on that. Reggie.
Yeah. Can you hear me? Yes. Yeah. Tom, I mean, thank you for your question. I think as we talked before, I think we took this decision some years ago to really invest in our infrastructure. And one of the investments was really to move 100% of our data to the cloud.
The biggest advantage that we are seeing now is the speed that we can leverage, like for instance, AI in our operations. I mean, the speed that we can really take, I mean, like for instance, you could see the video of the dark factory Cu Chi in Vietnam. I mean, this is enabled to AI, but that's one of the main enablers is that our infrastructure, we move it already to the cloud. The speed that we can do those things is much faster, but also it's much more cost-effective to do it. And this is something that we are leveraging for our net productivity that Fernando and I just explained it before.
Tom, does that answer your question a little bit?
It does. Thank you. Just did have another question, if that's all right.
A quick one, but just we've heard quite a few people say fewer, bigger, better in terms of innovations. And is that much as much a market comment that it's harder to generate volume growth and harder to get premiumization and mix gains? So therefore you have to double down on fewer innovations to get that growth. Why is that the trend for everyone?
Yeah, I think we feel humbled and proud at the same time that others started to talk about it as well. You know, look, I think in this industry it does make sense, but I'm not sure if, you know, I think there has been a time of let 100, you know, many flowers, whether it's hundreds or thousands, I've not forgot, but, you know, let them all blossom.
I mean, the time of, you probably remember, there was this expression, "fail fast, experiment," and we, you know, I think we've all gone through that phase. I think there is also a realization at some point that if we all do that, that's great, but it leads to an enormous complexity in your operations, and I think we've woken up a little bit from that as well and say, okay, experimentation is good, but experimentation within the frame is probably better because you can scale up much faster, and I think that's probably an emerging thought. As I said, I think we started to talk about it, but indeed I see others talk about it. It's not rocket science. I think it's probably a response to that time of experimentation and piloting. Thank you.
Olivier Nicolai from Goldman Sachs. That's just two questions since it's nearly five o'clock.
First of all, how much of your U.S. sales are actually produced in the U.S.? In the context of obviously potential tariffs, which could affect countries like Mexico, would you seek to move back some production in the U.S.? And could we see a bit of a change in your CapEx chart from earlier? And just going back to premiumization, considering the current consumer environment, how much room do you see for premiumizing some brands outside of your Beauty & Wellbeing division? So without necessarily going through all the brands, but if I think about Dove, for instance, should we assume that, I mean, Dove obviously has premiumized, but can we think about a GBP 20 Dove product at some point or GBP 25?
Thanks for the questions. I think it's a great opportunity. First, good question on Mexico and on the United States. Reggie first, and then after that, Nuria Hernández will answer the question on the stretchability and the premiumization opportunity on Dove.
Most of what we sell in the US, we produce in the US. We have factories there, and we source materials from the US as well. That's the first one. We do source US as well from countries like Mexico, Canada, and Europe. Small volumes, but we do source. But we have developed the networks in such a way that I have flexibility. If we have tariffs in the future, we can change those things very quickly. And yes, we are investing in the US. Just three weeks ago, we just started production of a brand new factory in Jefferson City, Missouri, that we are producing Liquid I.V. I mean, Priya mentioned that Liquid I.V. is growing very fast, 20%.
We invested in a brand new factory in the U.S. We are investing for capacity, but we have flexibility. If we have a problem, we can move very quickly, and we can source from other geographies, or we can even produce more in the U.S. if we need to.
Second question on Dove and the stretchability there, Nuria.
Hi, good afternoon to everyone. And on Dove, what we know is that the brand equity really commands the premiumness that the brand can deliver. So we have started our journey recently, and what we are seeing is that every mix we are bringing on more premium price points in the market is responding very well. But also what we are seeing is Dove being a brand very much on the personal care part, and personal care evolving towards beauty is creating that opportunity.
All the synergies that we have by being a brand that is present already in beauty through hair, through care, but also being able to elevate the personal care traditional categories towards the beauty credentials is creating that space for Dove. Thank you.
There's room for one more question since somebody called out at five o'clock. I see the drinks humming. All right.
Hi, Victor Ma from TD Cowen. Thanks for the question. This will be very quick. So on that slide for the minus 74 basis points share decline and expecting that to improve sequentially, are both of those things excluding Ice Cream or including Ice Cream ? And does it change at all if you take Ice Cream out of the picture?
The charts that you've shown for the development so far are all including Ice Cream .
But I should say the measured turnover-weighted market shares exclude the out-of-home portion of Ice Cream , which is about half of the business. But the in-home consumption is in there. How are shares developing on Ice Cream in itself? The Ice Cream shares are actually developing well, and the latest readings confirm the overall picture of the company. So I'd like to leave it there, but Ice Cream competitiveness and operational performance, as Fernando has talked about, have improved considerably this year.
Okay, and then just to follow up. What categories or markets are driving that sequential improvement that you're expecting to see? If you can offer any color, that'd be great.
Sequential improvement in share?
Yes.
So we're a bit careful to go in category by category, but I would say, you know, in general, we see bigger improvements in competitiveness in Home Care , in Ice Cream , in Nutrition, in personal care as well. And I expect in towards 2025, as I said, on a full-year basis, to get back to stability or positive territory. But the latest readings confirm that in the second half of this year, which we had committed to do, that we see an improvement in competitiveness. So we're happy with that. But, hey, we have more work to do on our core. Good steps made, but we're fully on to get to more and better. Gemma.
I think that's all the time that we have left for questions, but thank you all very, very much for coming. And there will be drinks afterwards if you are able to stay.
Thank you very much all for coming.