We are about to hand over to Unilever to begin the conference call. For those participating on the teleconference, you may indicate your desire to ask a question at any time during the presentation by pressing star one on your telephone touchpad. Should you wish to cancel your question, simply press star two. If you need to speak to me, press star zero. To ensure all participants receive a high-quality audio experience, please ensure you are calling from a landline telephone and not a mobile phone. Please avoid using a speakerphone to ask your question. Use a telephone handset to minimize background noise. If you experience bad quality audio, please try redialing. We will now hand over to Richard Williams.
Thank you. Good morning, and a warm welcome to Unilever's third quarter trading update. As usual, we will review the results and have Q&A at the end. I know it's a busy results day for many of you, so we will aim to wrap up in about 40 minutes. Graeme will talk about the highlights of our performance and the growth by division. I will then cover the regional performances, and Graeme will wrap up with the outlook for the year as a whole. First, I draw your attention to the disclaimer to forward-looking statements and non-GAAP measures. With that, I hand over to Graeme.
Thanks, Richard. Good morning, everybody. Overall growth in the quarter was 2.9%. That was balanced between volume and price showing an overall step-up in volume from Q2. This keeps us nicely on track for our full year guidance to be in the lower half of our multi-year range. Emerging markets remain strong in aggregate at 5.1% in the quarter, with good volume growth. Our developed markets were flat in the quarter. We saw continued good performance in Southeast Asia, in India, and in China, whilst developed markets improved a little bit versus Q2. Last quarter, we mentioned some specific hotspots, which we're going to pick up on as we go through the presentation. Year to date, our underlying sales growth is 3.4%. Accelerating growth from here remains the absolute top priority for the business.
This means delivering successful innovation and communication, continuing to reshape our portfolio, developing our products to be fit for faster-growing channels like e-commerce, and all the time fully leveraging our geographic footprint. Looking in a little more detail, we're pleased with our performance in many of our geographies, although the markets remain challenging in a few of them. Home care and our business in Asia continue to deliver consistently strong growth with Indonesia, the Philippines, and Vietnam all performing well. The powerhouses of China and India are seeing consistent and solid growth with strength in general trade and modern trade channels. We continue to perform well in the fast-growing e-commerce channel in the key geographies. Some markets have slowed sequentially this year. The China market has softened a little bit, and while Indian markets remain relatively strong, they have also moderated.
Our markets in both the U.S. and Europe remain quite muted. By way of shorter-term context, Q3 2018 set a relatively tough comparator to lap, and as most of you know, in Brazil last year, we benefited from restocking after the truckers' strike there. That created a 25 basis points headwind this quarter. Despite this, our business in Brazil had a good performance. We do remain optimistic for continued improvement in Brazil. It will take some time. In Northern Europe, the weather gods presented a very tough weather comparator to beat from last year. In the end, this led to a headwind of about 25 basis points of growth for this quarter. Let me move on now to the divisional performance in a little bit more detail.
Beauty and personal care grew by 2.8% in the quarter, with 2.1% volume. That takes the year-to-date growth to 3.3%. Deodorants and skincare grew by mid-single digits. Hair care was more subdued as a result of high and sustained competitive intensity in both the U.S.A. and in China. Our prestige unit continues to grow strongly and competitively with our science-based hair brand, Living Proof, and the cruelty-free makeup brand, Hourglass, both growing at strong double digits this year. Hourglass is growing both in its home market of the U.S. and internationally. It now has 50% of its sales outside the U.S. We're moving quickly in beauty and personal care to deliver more natural innovations. This can be seen across our biggest brands. In skincare, microbiome science, where we have very strong R&D capability, is gaining traction with consumers.
In Dove, we are reinventing gentleness through being the first mass brand to launch an innovation that cares for your microbiome, which is, of course, the skin's living protective layer. The sulfate-free Dove formula with 100% gentle cleansers cleans without stripping the microbiome. We've rolled out this innovation now to 36 countries already. We've also launched a number of other innovations in the natural space under St. Ives in the U.S. and with Lifebuoy natural ranges across Asia. In oral care, we're building steady penetration and gaining share with natural toothpaste, such as the Vietnamese charcoal and aloe product that's shown here on the chart. Our Signal White Now CC range in France is also doing well, albeit in what is a tough retail market. Turning to food and refreshment, foods and refreshment delivered 1.7% growth.
Foods grew both volume and price. Ice cream declined in volume as a result of that tough weather comparator in Europe. In the U.S., we were pleased to see a step-up in ice cream performance compared to Q2, supported by our super premium ice cream brands, Talenti, Magnum, and Ben & Jerry's. All three brands have launched exciting innovations this year, tapping into indulgent trends which help to drive the category. Indeed, according to Nielsen, the majority of the top 20 innovations by dollar value in packaged ice cream in the U.S. have come from Unilever. In foods, dressings grew well, and in savory, snacking and bouillons continue to lead the growth in Asia. Plant-based products and variants continue to grow across the whole portfolio.
Our vegan ice cream range, which is now in all of our major brands, has grown significantly this year across the developed markets, with strong repeat and loyalty rates. In tea, Pukka continues to grow very well and is now available in 23 countries, whilst in India, Lipton Green Tea is driving share and penetration. Home care grew by 5.4% in the quarter, with 3.2% from volume, taking home care's year-to-date growth to 7%. This consistently strong performance is a result of both innovation and market development. In Fabric Solutions, we are targeting market development, both from powders to liquids, and from liquids to capsules, and from concentration initiatives. Our growth was driven by the big laundry markets of Brazil, China, and India. In Brazil, Omo Perfect Wash, which is an innovation that combines both cleaning power and concentration, is selling well.
In Colombia, we've launched that market's first-ever product with 100% post-consumer recycled packaging under our Fab brand. Looking to India, we have crafted and launched a new brand called Love & Care, which is a premium detergent focused on preserving delicate fabrics. With an 80% emerging market footprint in home care, we must always be mindful of providing the consumer with products and brands across the whole affordability spectrum. Love & Care is, of course, placed at the higher end of this spectrum, while we continue to win in the belly of the market through the core brands of Wheel and Surf Excel. We're delivering double-digit growth in home and hygiene through our Sunlight and Cif brands, which are both growing strongly year to date. Cif Natural Sprays in Europe and our concentrated Cif ecorefill innovation are just a couple of examples underpinning the growth of Cif.
With that, let me hand you back to Richard, who's going to cover the geographies.
Thanks, Graeme. Asia/AMET/RUB grew 5.6%, with a strong mix between volume and price. Volumes were up 3.1% and price growth was 2.5%. Southeast Asia performed strongly with continued momentum in Indonesia and the Philippines, and double-digit growth in Vietnam. Growth in China was good, helped by strong performance in e-commerce and the premium portfolio. Turning to India, growth remains good and in line with Q2, although as expected, market growth has continued to moderate a little. In Turkey, we continue to grow strongly in a high-inflation country. Our Ice Cream Now business has performed well this year, with Magnum Ruby and Cornetto Mashup being our most successful impulse innovations ever, and our Ice Cream Now business successfully reaching 1,800 restaurants in only six months. In South Africa, we maintain momentum. However, in Nigeria and Ghana, strong market slowdown and the liquidity squeeze is negatively impacting our performance.
Latin America grew 3.2%, all driven by price. Brazil grew in the quarter with volumes flat, despite annualizing a partial recovery of the trucker strike, which accounted for around 25 basis points at group level, or 200 basis points at Latin American level. We're pleased to see momentum return in Brazil and remain cautiously optimistic on the economic outlook. As Graeme mentioned earlier, our concentrated Omo innovation is a strong performer, and we have now also used this concentration technology to launch under the Surf and Brilhante brands in Brazil. In Argentina, the economic crisis continues with a further significant devaluation this quarter. Volumes continue to decline, and so our focus remains on ensuring that we are offering the right portfolio of products to consumers at all price tiers while protecting our margins and share, ready for the recovery when it happens.
We flagged in our last call that we would review our treatment of Argentinian price. During the quarter, we announced a change in method of accounting for hyperinflationary economies, which currently include Argentina and Venezuela. The normalized level of price growth included in Q3 is 30 basis points, and also 30 basis points year-to-date at a group level. North America grew 0.3%, with price growth of 0.6% and volume decline of 0.3%. This is a small step up from Q2. E-commerce, in particular omni-channel, continues to be a big driver of growth. We've previously called out dressings in the U.S. as a hotspot, and we're pleased to report a return to growth in the quarter and gaining share again in the latest 12-week read. We believe that our brand-led investment is the right way to add value to the category.
Sir Kensington continues to grow strongly in the premium segment. As mentioned by Graeme, ice cream performed better, led by the super premium sector. In beauty and personal care, deodorants is leading the growth this year, but haircare remains challenging. We continue to focus on driving competitive growth through increased investment and innovation. Our natural brands continue to grow well, for example, Seventh Generation and Love Beauty and Planet, and we see further opportunity in this space as awareness and trial builds. In addition to seeking more natural products, plastics is of course a big concern amongst many U.S. consumers. Our business is working in partnership with Walmart to drive a Bring It to the Bin initiative, where shoppers are encouraged to recycle product packaging.
Turning to Europe declined 0.3%, with volume growth of 0.5%, while price was down 0.9%. Similar to the second quarter, ice cream was impacted by a very warm summer in 2018, whilst this year saw more normal summer conditions. Eastern Europe and Italy continued their strong performances from the first half and grew well during the quarter across the divisions. In Italy, the Cif brand is activating its purpose through city cleanups to restore lost beauty, and our Coccolino brand has teamed up with a well-known fashion house, Moschino, to launch an innovation which is delivering great results in our fabric sensations category. In Germany, the decline slowed, but retail challenges remain. Looking at turnover. Turnover for the quarter three was EUR 13.3 billion. Underlying sales growth added 2.9%. Acquisitions and disposals increased turnover by 0.5%, and in total, currency movements added 2.3%.
Based on the latest spot rates, we continue to expect a positive currency impact of around 2% on turnover and a little more on EPS. With that, I'll hand back to Graeme.
Thanks, Richard. Look, before turning to the outlook, I'm sure that many of you will have seen last week's announcement that we made of two new goals that we've set regarding our use of plastics. The first is a commitment to half our use of virgin plastic in all of our packaging, and the largest contributor to delivering that commitment will come from a significant increase in our use of recycled plastic. The rest of that commitment, more than 100,000 tons in total, will come from reducing our use of plastic in absolute terms. We're going to achieve that through products like Cif ecorefill and new packaging and delivery models such as hair refillery stations. The second big goal is to collect and process more plastic packaging than we sell, all of this by 2025.
These two new goals on plastics complement the commitments that we made back in 2017, which were to ensure that all of our plastic packaging is reusable, recyclable, or compostable by 2025, and to use 25% post-consumer recycled material. Together, they demonstrate the fast and radical action that we're taking at every point in the plastic cycle. We're making this investment because we believe that plastic has its place, but that place is not in our streets or our rivers or in our oceans. It's not just us who believe this, but most importantly, it's our consumers. This is an investment very much worth making. There's no doubt that this is a very ambitious and very challenging commitment.
Keeping plastic in the economy and out of the environment requires everybody to work together, whether that's product designers, whether it's governments, consumers, or the waste management industry. We already have initiatives to collect and process plastics, such as this example on the chart, which is from Indonesia. To help boost recycling rates and develop a functioning infrastructure, we support local collection through various initiatives, such as community-based waste banks, where individuals sort their waste and deposit it in exchange for payment. So far, we've helped set up more than 2,800 waste banks, which together have presented over 7,700 tons of non-organic waste from being dumped. Technology and innovation is also key. For example, black plastic is generally not recycled, but we have developed a technology which allows black plastic to be detected and sorted by recycling plant scanners.
This is now being used by our brands TRESemmé and Axe. The new technology means that an additional 2,500 tons of plastic bottles could now potentially be sorted and sent for recycling each year here in the U.K. alone. We'll share our work and the insights generated with other manufacturers to enable wide use of this technology and this approach. With that, let me finish by reconfirming the guidance for 2019. In 2019, we expect underlying sales growth to be in the lower half of our multi-year 3%-5% range. Our progress on underlying operating margin continues through a focus on savings, waste, and productivity, and ensuring that we have competitively support our brands, both in BMI and in building new capabilities. We'll target another year of strong cash flow while maintaining roughly our current level of gearing.
Our outlook on all other items remains just the same. Just before I finish, a reminder that our Capital Markets Day in New York will be webcast on November the 13th and 14th. Thanks very much for your attention. That's the end of the prepared remarks, and Richard and I now look forward to taking your questions.
Thank you, Graeme. As a reminder, if you want to ask a question, please press star one. If you wish to cancel your question, press star two. If you're listening to the conference call on speakerphone, please use the handset while asking your question. Finally, please keep your questions to a maximum of two. We have a first question from Alain Oberhuber at MainFirst. Go ahead, Alain.
Thank you very much, Richard. Good morning, Graeme and Richard. The first question is regarding personal care. We saw gradually slower organic growth over the last couple of quarters. Could you give us a little bit more granularity, and when do you expect that these organic growth in personal care is starting to accelerate again? The second question is regarding Brazil. Also there, what do you expect on the development, given that we see a little bit slower growth there as well? Will that continue into Q4 or even in 2020?
Thanks for the questions, Alain. Good morning to you. Why don't I take the first one, Richard, on Beauty and Personal Care, and you pick up the one in Brazil, if you like?
Yeah.
Beauty and personal care performance, Q3 growth, yeah, a little bit slow, but it was very good in DEOs, very good in skincare, Alain, and very good in oral. We saw slower growth in hair and in skin cleansing. First thing to say about beauty and personal care, 24% of that business is in the U.S., and 14% is in Latin America, which are both currently low-growth markets for us. From a competitiveness perspective, we have volume winning share in 62% of beauty and personal care, and that's been driven by things like deodorants, which was up mid-single digits, helped by the Rexona Clinical range. It's been a very effective innovation. Skincare, as I said, is also performing up mid-single digits with good growth in Vaseline, an innovation called Pond's Glow Cream in Indonesia, and Vaseline Therapeutics in Thailand.
Skin cleansing, as I said, is a little bit more muted. The Lifebuoy and Lux brands in India are down a little bit. We've been a little bit uncompetitive on pricing there, and we've corrected that now. In markets in Southeast Asia, which generally are strong for us, across the broad church of Southeast Asia at the moment, we're performing pretty well. Hair, of course, we've spoken a fair bit about hair over the course of the last few quarters, it remains quite challenging in BPC. It's at low double-digit growth. The two hotspots to call out are the U.S. and North Asia. Different dynamics, Alain, in both of them. In the U.S., our competitiveness has definitely stepped up. We're looking at our wider plans, and we've got investment going into North America in a competitive battle with a big multinational.
In North Asia, it is more local competition that we see in hair care. There's a particular brand in China which is taking share and has built quite a strong position from all of the multinational players. Sorry for the long and broad answer, but it's a broad question. We're committed to accelerating the rate of growth in beauty and personal care. There are many pockets of very strong performance, both at a category level and a geography level in beauty and personal care. A couple of hot spots, principally in skin cleansing and in hair, and we're working very hard to address those.
Yeah. Alain, you asked about Brazil. Brazil remains tough. GDP growth is still 0%-1%, probably a bit less than one. Our own growth there was north of 1% in the quarter, but that's with a headwind from the recovery from the truckers' strike in the back year of 400 or 500 basis points. We're pretty pleased with how Brazil is doing for us at the moment, but it remains tough. Your question is, I think, very much about what do we expect. We think it's going to continue to remain tough, but we're cautiously optimistic about our business there, and the market going forward, and we wouldn't say anything stronger or weaker than that at the moment.
I'd just add to that we're very confident that our performance in Brazil is a competitive performance, in particular, through the economic crisis, which is now mitigating in Brazil, and we've done a very good job of moving down to tier 3 brands. If you remember, we repositioned the Bianca brand quite successfully in laundry. We've launched a number of other tier 3 brands, and in particular, we are performing well in the fast-growing cash and carry channel, which is very much the equivalent of the discounter channel in Brazil. Kudos really to our business there, which has performed very well in a dynamic and difficult environment.
Thanks, Alan. Next question is from John Ennis at Goldman Sachs. Go on, John.
Yeah, good morning, everyone. Thanks for taking my question. Two from me, please. The first is on Indonesia. I wondered if you could comment on your market share performance in the region and maybe give some color on your BMI outlook for this year, given that it's been a region where we've seen some pretty big reductions over the last four years. My second question, I guess, is coming back onto the U.S. shampoo business. The trends, when you look at Nielsen, seem to have worsened more recently. I just wondered if you could, I guess, give us a bit more detail on the strategy to revive that business, whether it's new launches, whether it's increasing promotions, and maybe a bit of timeline if it is new launches on when they should start to, I guess, feed into the market. Thank you.
Hi, John. Morning to you. Let me take the first one in Indonesia because it's home patch for me, I suppose, and I always like talking about it, to be honest, and let Richard think a little bit about the question on the U.S. hair business. I think we'll be rather cagey in what we say there, given that it's quite a competitive situation, and we don't want to give our game away. Indonesia and Southeast Asia generally, we've got good, strong performance. Markets in Southeast Asia are growing at about 4%. Premiumization is really the big value driver across the region. We're benefiting both in Indonesia and Thailand from being through the elections that we had in the spring. Things have stabilized politically. That's providing a benefit for us.
Personally, and as a company, I think we're all very pleased to see our big and successful business in Indonesia back into strong growth. Indonesia is growing slightly higher than mid-single digits in a market that we think is growing between 3% and 4%. Very difficult to get a Nielsen or IRI-based measurement of share performance in Indonesia. What we tend to do is look at overall market growth compared to our overall growth. We're very clear that we've got a competitive and improved performance there in Indonesia. I'll come to your question on BMI levels in a second. I did want to say that the real dynamic there has been a shift in the competitive landscape with a lot of local competitors, a lot of local brands competing very strongly in the Indonesian marketplace.
We've been transforming our portfolio, particularly in beauty and personal care, in order to respond to that, launching a couple of very Muslim beauty-focused brands, another brand called Korea Glow, which was launched in Indonesia as well. We've also been working hard to address competitive challenges within our ice cream business. Overall, we feel pretty optimistic about maintaining that good momentum in Indonesia. On the question of BMI, it's a very traditional TV-driven media market. I have to say that some of the biggest dividends from our ZBB program, particularly in the area of media fundamentals, have taken place in Indonesia. In fact, the leader of our business in Indonesia actually leads that thrust within our ZBB program of media investment. For example, it's quite a digitally-focused market, becoming more digitally-focused.
We're very effective in making sure that our digital mandatories and our compliance with good quality digital advertising take place in Indonesia. Above 70% of all our digital assets pass that test, and indeed, testing our media assets before they show them. Our test rates are well above 70% also in Indonesia. That has meant that we've been able to make our BMI and our investments in Indonesia work harder for us. I think you're seeing that in the good, strong performance that we're having there.
On U.S. hair, we called it out as a hotspot last quarter. I think you're right to ask us how it's going. It continues to be a very competitive sell for everybody. We're seeing steps up in media and price. We're stepping up our investment in hair care in the U.S. and scaling up innovation. We're not going to talk too much about that obviously here. Overall, we know our plans are in place. We are pleased with the overall performance in Dove and Sundial. I think we have more work to do on Suave and TRESemmé. Yeah, that hotspot, still more work to do. In other hotspots doing better, dressings, Graeme's already called out as one where we've already begun to see improved performance as we focus on it. Okay. Next question coming from James Targett at Berenberg. James?
Hi there. Good morning. Yeah, two for me. Firstly, sorry, just come back on the U.S., but I guess more generally across categories. I think earlier in the year, you said you were going to be focusing on improving growth in the U.S. through step-up innovation rather than high levels of support rather than chasing promotional activity. I just wondered if you could comment generally where you were in terms of new product launches in the U.S. in terms of phasing. Was there a big step-up in Q3, what we should expect over the next couple of quarters? Secondly, just looking at organic growth. Again, at the start of the year, I think you said the big delta of growth, whether it was going to be 3% or 4% was going to be mainly due to Latin America.
I just wondered, as we stand today, looking over to the next 12 months, where you see the biggest areas of delta to growth lying. Thanks.
Morning, James. Let me just touch on your second question on sort of overall growth momentum. Then go into your question on the U.S. Then let Richard maybe pick up the point around Latin America market growth. Turnaround more generally. First thing to say is, our markets in aggregate, the measured read is just north of 2%. If we include an adjustment for unmeasured channels, our view is that our markets generally are growing around 3%. We're growing just a little bit faster than that. It's a good, solid performance. We're pretty competitive. We've got parts of our business, for example, home care and our emerging markets, which are winning share in 60% of the business. In beauty and personal care, we're winning share in 60% of volume. All the signs are that we're becoming more competitive.
We're not satisfied with our rates of growth currently. It is faster than our best read of the market growth. It's very much within what we guided for the year and what we expected to see. There's more performance out there, and we're very optimistic about that. We know there's more that we can do, and we're excited by the opportunity to step up. That's just a general comment, I guess, on growth rates and step-up in performance. Turning to the U.S. and your question on North America more specifically, there was a slight pickup actually in market growth in North America in Q3 to around 1.5%-2%, with most of it coming in food and refreshment.
We will have driven part of that, of course, with the activity and the step-up in success that we've had in ice cream in North America, and in particular, the turnaround in momentum that we've had in the dressings business in North America. We're back to winning share in dressings North America. As you've said many times on these calls, we're really seeking to try and create value within that category by focusing on the brands and brand investment and to grow category value. It's been a very tough competitive battle, but I think we're calling the turn on that now, and you see that when we focus in on these businesses, do the right things, innovate properly, and invest well with our customers and behind our consumers, we get back to winning positions. That's good news there.
In ice cream, of course, there's a belly of the big ice cream market in North America, which is pretty commoditized. A lot of the volume going through that sort of mass channel is fairly low margin, commoditized stuff. We've been focusing on changing our portfolio, as you know. We acquired the Talenti brand. We launched the Magnum brand some years ago, and we've got Ben & Jerry's. In what we define as the super premium sector, we have almost half of the super premium sector in North American ice cream as Unilever brands. As I said in the presentation earlier, almost all of the innovation coming through in ice cream North America is being led by Unilever. In that mass portfolio, we're just focusing on getting the range right.
We've rationalized quite a number of SKUs, and we've taken some pricing action to reflect commodity and logistics inflation, and that has caused an uptick in the ice cream performance, and you see that reflected in the market growth. Finally, we've talked a fair bit about BPC, but actually, we've talked a lot about haircare in North America, but I do want to highlight that deos actually, where we also compete with a big multinational competitor, continues to be a significant growth driver in North America. It's growing year to date at mid-single digits in North America. Remember, we've got a big BPC portfolio there. It's our biggest BPC business. Whilst we're involved in competitive dynamics in haircare, there are many other aspects of BPC that are performing strongly.
Let me just pick up the LATAM question. We'd already talked about Brazil, more broadly, it's true for LATAM as well. It remains very challenging. Give you a few numbers. The market overall, we think, is growing around 2.5% if you take out Argentinian hyper-price, probably something like 5% or 6% if you include it. In Brazil, as I said, we're cautiously optimistic. We have actually seen signs of some consumer confidence, which is why we are returning, which is why we're cautiously optimistic. In Argentina, volumes are declining at 16%, so everything remains really tough on the ground in Argentina. As we said in the prepared remarks, that our focus is very much on protecting margin, protecting share in Argentina and coming out stronger. Inflation there is now at something like 60%. We're not expecting anything to turn around quickly in Argentina.
As I said, Brazil, the biggest market, cautious optimism, and our business is doing very well there.
Just one thing I want to highlight because the chart that I'm looking at, it's got in the middle box, has got the new innovation, Perfect Wash, that we launched behind Omo in Brazil. Most of you know that Omo in Brazil is our biggest single brand position in the entire company. It's one of the strongest, iconic brand positions that we have across the entire portfolio. Relaunching the Omo brand with a completely different look and feel with new technology, 20% concentration, better carbon footprint, lower plastic footprint, and getting real consumer acceptance behind it. It's a great example of a very strong innovation, a bold innovation in one of our biggest markets, landing successfully and driving growth, albeit in difficult market circumstances that we're all aware of.
A great example of Unilever continuing to do the right thing and innovate behind the consumer, regardless, really, of the challenges from the market circumstances.
Right. Thanks. Straight on to the next question, which is from Martin Deboo at Jefferies. Go ahead, Martin.
Yeah, morning, everybody. Martin Deboo, Jefferies. The question's on plastics, actually. It's nothing to do with trading. I guess the context from my side is sort of welcoming the initiative and welcoming the boldness and the ambition, but sort of worries and obsessive about the costs and practicalities. If I could ask you on that, I guess it breaks down into, you're implicitly targeting about 300,000 tons of use of recycled plastic within five years, and you, I think, consumed just a bit less than 5,000 tons in 2018. Given everyone else has similar targets to yours, does that implicitly mean that you're going to collaborate with the likes of Nestlé, Danone on some sort of recycling supply chain?
I think the second question is, given you're all going to be merrily bidding up the usage and price of recycled plastic, what's the cost implication of it if it's material to margin? I guess a useful number to know, if you would be willing to share it, is what proportion of your cost base or raw material cost base is plastics at the moment? That's the question.
Well, morning, Martin. Thanks. A really terrific question in an area that I hope we can actually spend more time in the months ahead in exploring, actually. The first thing is, it's great news that everybody in the sector has got commitments on plastic. Of course, it's the right thing for everybody to do. It's demanded by the consumer, and therefore, from a business perspective, makes perfect sense as well. It's really good that everybody in the sector is focusing on it. I do think that the commitments that we made last week actually go a step ahead, and we're hoping that by doing that, we will trigger further action from other companies, because this is not about competition as such. This is about making systemic change, and that's what we're trying to achieve.
As I said in the talk there, these are tough and really challenging targets. I think we should all feel some butterflies in our stomach about the ability to achieve them. We think it's the right thing to do our homework, set a bold vision and not be conservative in our aspirations here, and that's what we've tried to do. What's particularly distinctive about what we've just announced on plastics is the point on helping to collect and process more plastic packaging than we sell by 2025, getting down to that sort of zero incremental plastic in our system by 2025 and reducing our use of virgin plastic by 50% with an absolute reduction in plastic use. That is quite distinctive, I think across the industry. As I said, both challenging and bold in its outlook.
Will it require us to collaborate across not just other manufacturers and suppliers in the industry, but retailers and collection systems? Absolutely it will. I think that is where the one main body of effort will be in that collaboration, in harnessing the resources that we have together collectively for systemic change, particularly in the markets where plastic waste running into oceans is most concentrated. We very much look forward to that. There's a fair amount of collaboration already. I can only see it stepping up from here. The other thing fundamentally we have to do is to think about design. This is a design challenge sitting around packaging and products. It's going to require us to introduce new packing materials, scale up new business models, get into reuse and refill formats.
These might not all be entirely attractive from a consumer perspective, and we're going to have to do that at unprecedented speed and intensity. It's going to be challenging going forwards. To give you a sense on the cost, our current plastic packaging spend is about 5% of Unilever's turnover, and our plastic packaging footprint is around 700,000 tons. I won't be specific with you on what the on-cost is for that, but I have a good sense myself already of what our cost of including more PCR. You're quite right in terms of the market dynamics with PCR. There'll be inflation before there's deflation, I would assume, in the market for PCR plastics. I'm aware of the range of on-cost for that for 2020, and I'm also very clear that that's an investment worth making within our P&L.
We talk very often on these calls about A&P as a percentage of turnover, but there are many areas in which you have to invest in your business. This is just one example of where we think the investment that we will make will be worthwhile. It will show up in a different line of the P&L, of course, but it's very much focused on doing the right thing for the consumer for the long-term growth of the business. With our savings programs, and you can expect that we'll deliver another couple of billion EUR of savings this year, and that will continue at similar rates or even beyond that in the coming years. We're very committed to carrying on our savings and productivity programs.
When we talk about reinvesting those savings, this is the sort of area that we will continue to reinvest in, investing behind and making changes that are in the interest of the consumer and the wider planet.
Okay. I said we'd try and finish in 40 minutes. We still have a number of questioners. I suggest we just maybe take a couple more questioners because I'm sure you want to hear from Graeme. Could you just have one question each. We'll hard finish in five minutes. The next question, Alicia Forry at Investec.
Hi. Good morning. My question is on your comment about new capabilities to support the brands. I was wondering if you could elaborate a bit on that. I think you've touched on some of these things in your comments, but I'm particularly keen to know if there are specific areas within your brand support functions that would benefit from some additional investment, digital maybe. Just your thoughts.
Morning, Alicia. Thanks for the question. It's a bit of an extension, actually, from where I finished the conversation with Martin there. It's a great example of where investments that we're making in the business, specifically around data and digital and the shift to a hyper-fragmented consumer communication landscape, where we're having to invest in building capability in-house as opposed to simply making more advertising and buying more media to show that externally. Take our digital hubs. We've now got digital hubs rolled out to over 25 locations, and we'll continue to expand that up above 30. You'll get to see them in the U.S. in particular if you come to our Capital Markets Day. One of the most exciting parts of visiting any Unilever operating company now is to see the activity taking place in our digital hubs. It goes beyond that.
We've talked for a while now about our people data centers, which are the ability to listen to social media and to see insight from that. A great example of an innovation that came from that actually is Marmite peanut butter here in the U.K., which is the first time we've put a permanent innovation behind Marmite in its history. We've decided that we'll keep that innovation in place. That was very much driven through insights that we gleaned from the Marmite consumer by using our people data centers to see that the combination of Marmite and peanut butter was what the consumer wanted. You've got U-Studio, which is our in-house digital content preparation capability. All of those things mean that we're investing in building capability through our overheads line, not necessarily in our BMI line.
That's why our marketing, the proportion of overheads that are invested in marketing have gone up as a percentage of overall overheads, while overall overheads have been contained at a flat level. That's just one example. There's another example I could give you in terms of media capability. I think we've got, if not the best, then one of the best media teams and capabilities that are out there on the planet. I spend an awful lot of time with them. I find it a very interesting place to learn about the changes that are taking place in our industry. Just little things, well, big things actually. Brand safety, where your brand shows up on YouTube or on Facebook, et cetera.
Really leading with that requires capability, it requires knowledge, it requires credibility within that space, and we're a very active participant in all the positive changes that are taking place in that space as a consequence. Things like ad fraud. I think we have the lowest rates of ad fraud in our digital advertising in the sector. Our digital media spend is 40% of total media spend. We spend about EUR 3 billion a year on media, 40% of that is digital. The average rate of ad fraud, I think, is still up in 30%-40%. When you can get that down into single digits as we can, then obviously the bang for the buck that you're getting within your investment is much, much higher, and there's a very good ROI in that.
The final point, sorry for the long answer, is really on data capability. Our data strategy has been very strong and very consistent for a number of years now in Unilever. Our acquisition of first-party data, second-party data, and third-party data, how we use that to get consumer insight, how we get personally identifiable information, that's a key asset for our business in every one of our companies. It's a core raw material of the digital hubs. It allows us to get a number of distinctive traits around the consumer, and is at the core of what we call data-driven marketing. It allows us to retarget and really be much more precise with the media messages that we send to consumers, making our investment much more effective in that space. Sorry for the long answer, but it was a broad question.
Okay, in which case, let's run straight to David Hayes to ask the last question, which I hope is a short question, because I did promise that we would stop. David, you're on.
Good morning, all. Pressure's on for the last question. I'm going to take you back three years if I can. I think, Graeme, you talked about the dynamics of the category growth being that you, so Unilever, were taking growth, the locals and private label were taking growth, and then the donators of that growth were the other multinationals. If you look back sort of three years when you made that comment, and then look at it now, is it a similar dynamic, or is one of those units kind of doing better or worse than it was before, and what's driving that? Thanks so much.
Thanks, David. Morning to you. Yeah, that's right. Back three years ago, we were clear that what was happening from locals and private label wasn't coming from Unilever, it was coming from other multinationals. I think we're more in the pack now. As I said, our markets are growing at 3%. We're growing faster than that. At that point in time, we were growing comfortably 60% of our business winning share in aggregate. As you know, we're not yet in aggregate. We're around about half of our business in aggregate winning share. There are many, many ways to look at this, and it gets a little bit difficult because measures of market growth are probably a little bit less better quarter by quarter, although sequentially they still matter. At the top level, we're growing just a little bit ahead of the aggregate growth of our markets.
There are areas in food and refreshment, for example, in BPC, where we're not growing 60% value, we're only growing 60% volume. I think that would triangulate back, David, to saying that in terms of locals winning, I think, Richard, I'm right in saying locals are winning, private label broadly flat, although it's a little bit different in North America versus Europe, and that locals are winning from the multinationals, and we would be in that pack of multinationals now. It's all correlated to a business that's competitive. We're growing slightly ahead of the market in aggregate, but we know there's more that we can do, David.
Okay. Thank you. Thank you, everybody. We'll call a stop there. I know there's still one or two questions that people want to ask. We'll bring the call to a close, however. If you have further questions, please give the IR team a call, and we'll be happy to take them as soon as we get back to our desks. Thanks, everybody, and have a good day.
Thank you. Bye-bye.
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