Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to our full year results 2021 media and analyst presentation here live in Zurich and on the webcast. My name is Claudia Pedretti. I'm Head of Investor Relations, and I'm happy today to be here today with our CEO, Peter Boone, and our CFO, Ben De Schryver. Please be reminded that the information given during this conference contains some forward-looking statements which reflect the best of our current knowledge, while actual results may be different. Furthermore, we would like to inform you that this webcast is being recorded. This is the agenda for today. Peter will present to you the highlights of the full year 2021, and then Ben will update you on the financial results, followed by Peter's remark on strategy and ESG before sharing the outlook with you.
We will finish the webcast and the conference with a question and answer session. Please note that if you want to ask a live question on the phone, you need to dial in by your phone. Instructions will be given once more to you at the end from the operator. With that, I hand over to Peter.
Thank you, Claudia. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to our full year 2021 results conference. You saw it mentioned on the opening slide, this is a special year for Barry Callebaut and, of course, also one for myself. First of all, we celebrate our 25th anniversary this year, and although I'm part of Barry Callebaut already for 9 years and part of the executive committee for 9 years, I am proudly present for the first time as a CEO of the group. It's also special here as we are able to welcome you here in person this year. This makes me in particular happy.
As you maybe know, I was the old chief innovation officer at the start of my career in Barry Callebaut, so it offers us the opportunity to share some innovations with you, to let you taste it at the end of the meeting. Something to look forward to. We are happy to share today that we have returned to a healthy growth path. As anticipated, we achieved over the fiscal year, and in a still volatile environment, a strong volume recovery. The disciplined execution of our smart growth strategy led to good profitability and a good strong cash generation. Sales volume went up with a healthy 4.6% in all regions, and all key growth drivers contributed to this success.
Strong volume recovery and a positive product and customer mix enabled operating profit, our EBIT, to grow significantly faster than volume, which was up 18.9% in local currencies. Last but not least, we also continued to strengthen our balance sheet and reach a strong free cash flow of CHF 355 million. Ben will share later in more detail, but, at least I hope you agree, a set of good results. This chart, I assume you have seen before. It shows our volume development per quarter for chocolate and for cocoa. Overall, of course, versus a relatively weaker competitor, we've seen a very strong recovery in still a volatile environment with ongoing COVID-19 restrictions and continued limitations for some distribution channels.
What's in particular nice to see on this graph is that our chocolate business showed strong growth of 6.5% in 2021, outpacing the underlying markets in all regions and even surpassing the pre-pandemic volume levels of 2018 and 2019. Our cocoa, in a volatile market, we continue to focus on smart growth. Volume turned positive in the second half, and that helped us to limit the decline to 2.6% for the year under review. Overall, we believe these are resilient results. Let's have a closer look at the growth drivers on the next slide, which all contributed to these great results. Hey, let me start with Gourmet & Specialties, because Gourmet & Specialties led the return to healthy growth with an impressive 18.3%.
This is the positive outcome of our approach to seize the crisis as an opportunity to sharpen our business model by broadening our customer footprint, adding capabilities, and deepening our geographical reach, which should continue with the further easing of COVID-19 measures globally. Emerging markets volume grew 9.7%, driven by key markets like Russia, Brazil, and India. Long-term partnerships and outsourcing contributed a solid 4.5% growth to the recovery. The over 32,000 additional tons came from existing partnerships, so the growth of existing partnerships and new outsourcing deals across all regions. As you can see on this slide, it was also a year where we were not short of important milestones.
They all added up to a consistent and continued growth path of the group. I like to see we expanded our customer and geographic footprint, laying the ground for future growth. We opened a new chocolate factory at Baramati, India, the world's second most populous country and one of the fastest-growing chocolate markets. We opened a new state-of-the-art factory in Novi Sad, which will serve as a regional hub to address the rapidly growing chocolate market in Southeastern Europe. This new factory will supply Atlantic Stark, with whom we signed a long-term outsourcing agreement in the last year. We also opened a third factory in Kaliningrad, Russia, becoming an important market for us. We opened a Chocolate Academy in China, in Serbia, and in Dubai, growing the network now to 25 Chocolate Academies around the world.
With the opening of The Chocolate Box in Lokeren, Belgium, the world's largest and most sustainable chocolate distribution center, we are further building our cost leadership and accelerating our customer service. Hey, we also kept making progress on our plan to make sustainable chocolate the norm, a topic which is very close to my heart. Both Sustainalytics and CDP recognized us for the third consecutive year as a leading company on sustainability and carbon reduction. Through our innovation, we are catering to the consumer trends of today and paving the way for the consumer trends of tomorrow. We can cater now to the growing consumer demand for plant-based alternatives. Plant-based, a big segment and a segment here to stay. With the first fully segregated dairy-free chocolate factory we opened in Norderstedt, Germany.
The pandemic accelerated consumer interest in their own health, as well as in the health of their environment. We call this Mindful Indulgence. Among other things, we launched in Taiwan a new chocolate drinking powder with less sugar, and a low-carb, sustainable chocolate with no added sugar in Japan. It's not only product innovation we bring. We also reinvent ourselves in how we interact with our customer. In the past fiscal year, we continued to drive the full potential of digitalization. We doubled the number of professionals trained by our Chocolate Academy centers, of which many courses took place fully virtual. Personally, also very proud of what we do to shape the future of our industry. To cater to the trends of tomorrow, we leverage our deep scientific knowledge of the cocoa fruit, and the fruit's supportive health effect by introducing the first nutraceutical fruit drink called Elix.
It has health benefits, but also tastes great, as you will taste later, I hope. Those in the room will therefore have the opportunity to taste it themselves. Our global Gourmet brands and lead are leading on innovation trends, driving creativity and craftsmanship, and providing sustainable solutions for the future. Instead of me talking, let us show a video that brings that to life best.
We have always had the ambition to see our brands strive to lead the artisan chocolate world and drive our growth as a company. Also in the past years, we have seen this ambition coming true. We are creating innovation milestones. We are raising the bar and going digital first. We are working together with our customers, chefs, ambassadors, and artisans around the world. We are opening new markets, setting trends, and moving sustainably forward, day in, day out. I am very proud to be working together with a great team of passionate and dedicated colleagues who are driving all of this, and will take you on the differentiation journey of our brands into the future. Welcome to the future of sustainable chocolate solutions.
Yeah. Amazing video, making me very proud, on the one hand, of course, of the great results, but also the many, many great achievements of the gourmet teams around the world. With that, let me hand over to Ben.
Thank you, Peter. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. It's a pleasure to be back here in front of a live audience to present the financial review for this full year, 2020/2021. As Peter highlighted, we had a strong volume recovery in a still challenging market environment. With a volume growth of 4.6%, we returned to a healthy growth path. Our sales revenue amounted to CHF 7.2 billion, up 8.7% in local currencies, and therefore outpaced volume growth on the back of rising raw material prices and positive product mix. Operating profit, EBIT, increased by 18.9% in local currencies or 15.4% in Swiss francs. Compared to the prior year, recurring EBIT amounted to CHF 566.7 million.
Net profits for the year grew by 24.2% in local currencies and amounted to CHF 384.5 million. Strong free cash flow generation continued and amounted to CHF 355 million compared to CHF 317 million in the prior year. We'll get back to more details in the coming slides. Let's first take a look at our regional performance on slide 13. All regions outpaced the underlying markets and contributed to the healthy growth volume and good profitability. In region EMEA, volume returned to its healthy growth path with 5.5% in a progressively improving market environment, and is based on our efforts to sharpen our business model and broaden our geographic reach.
Both food manufacturers and Gourmet & Specialties contributed strongly to the recovery in a still challenging market environment. Thanks to these efforts, not only our volume recovered to a healthy growth plan, but also our profitability returned strongly. In region Americas, volume growth accelerated in the second half, leading to a strong 7.9% volume growth in 2020-2021. This was achieved thanks to continued strong volume growth from our food manufacturers and accelerating volume growth in Gourmet & Specialties. Across the region, thanks to our sharpened business model and broadened reach. Operating profit EBIT in the region showed strong resilience throughout the pandemic. With an 8.4% increase in the year under review, the region continued to deliver healthy profitability.
In the Asia Pacific region, the good growth momentum continued with 8.7% despite regionally reinstated COVID-19 restrictions. Food manufacturers continued its solid and broad-based growth. Gourmet & Specialties volumes growth accelerated, supported by global and local brands. The improved product mix in the year under review was driving the strong EBIT growth in local currencies. In our global cocoa business, volume declined by 2.6%. The focus on smart growth mitigated the impact of the unfavorable market environment. However, operating profit EBIT was impacted by higher energy costs in West Africa, as well as higher global freight costs. Excluding these and the additional costs, EBIT in local currencies grew by 2.2%. Going back to group level, let's take a look at the gross profit bridge on slide 14.
The volume recovery in the second half had a strong positive impact on our gross profit. The strong volume recovery in gourmet clearly boosted the mix effect, but also the high demand for value-added products in the industrial business contributed a lot. The cocoa business had a positive contribution, which is a testimony of the resilience and reduced dependency in a market environment that remained volatile and challenging. Please note that the currencies had a strong negative translation effect of CHF 32 million. The cocoa combined ratio shows, as you know, the relationship between the market prices of cocoa butter and powder in relation to the underlying cocoa bean price. This is a forward-looking curve. Results are normally seen over a 6-9 months period. This is also the European ratio, which is the most relevant.
We run a global business, and as you know, the combined ratio gives only a broad indication on the industry's profitability, but it does not reflect some important variables such as country differentials and the LID. As mentioned before, the market environment remains volatile, with global cocoa supply and demand out of balance due to good crops in the main cocoa producing countries on the one hand, and the decreased demand as a result of COVID-19 pandemic on the other hand. The average combined ratio remains about stable compared to prior year, with very resilient cocoa powder prices, while cocoa butter prices were under pressure related to the lower demand for chocolate due to COVID-19, the pandemic. The smart growth execution and our improved position, thanks to our cocoa leadership project, helped us to absorb these market fluctuations better, while we are not completely immune against them.
Now, let's take a look at the operating profits development on slide 16. We delivered a strong EBIT growth in local currencies of 18.9% compared to prior year recurring EBIT. Currencies continued to have a negative impact of CHF 17 million, resulting in an absolute EBIT of CHF 567 million. The strong volume recovery and our focus on smart growth continued to contribute CHF 115 million additional gross profit. As expected, SG&A costs came back with the return business momentum following the subdued levels in our prior year due to COVID-19 restrictions. However, we continued good cost management, which is proven by the fact that the SG&A costs are at comparable level as pre-COVID in 2018, 2019 at constant currencies.
In the next bridge, we show you the development from EBITDA to net profit for the full year 2020, 2021. Financial items were stable around CHF 101 million on the back of a lower interest rate environment and reduced short-term debt. Income tax increased to CHF 81 million, largely in line with the higher net profit, and the group's effective tax rate amounted to 17.3%. This resulted in a reported net profit for the year of CHF 385 million. Compared to prior year recurring and excluding the negative currency translation effect, the net profit amounted to CHF 397 million, an increase of 24.2%. On slide 18, you can see the long-term development of our key raw materials.
Please be reminded that the vast majority of Barry Callebaut's business is on running on a cost-plus model, passing on price fluctuations of raw materials. The volatility of these input prices normally does not affect our profitability. However, it has an impact on our working capital. The terminal market price for cocoa beans remained volatile and fluctuated between GBP 1,607-GBP 1,869 per metric ton. On average, cocoa bean prices decreased by 7% compared to the prior year period. World sugar prices increased on average by 22.3% on the back of strong demand from China in combination with poor Brazilian crop. In Europe, sugar prices increased on average by 3.6% during the fiscal year under review.
Dairy prices increased on average by 11.6% on the back of strong demand from Asia in combination with growing concerns about supply and logistics. As part of our smart growth strategy, we continue to focus on improving our balance sheet and free cash flow generation. I'm very glad to show you again strong adjusted free cash flow of CHF 315 million on this slide 19. Let me explain to you how we achieved this. As expected, working capital increased, however, at a slower pace than the group's volume growth. The effect of receivables increasing in line with regained business momentum was largely offset by higher payables and good inventory management.
Interest and income ex taxes amounted to CHF 163 million, 40 million higher than in prior year as a result of higher taxes in line with the higher net profit, while financing costs remained roughly stable. We continue to invest in our capabilities, which enable future growth and capital expenditure of CHF 275 million was around the same level as in the prior year. The reported free cash flow amounted to CHF 355 million as the effect of cocoa beans regarded as readily marketable inventories, RMI, was positive this year compared to last year. Our net debt was further decreased by CHF 85 million. This reduction was attributed to the early partial repayment of the Schuldscheindarlehen and the decision not to roll forward commercial paper.
The decrease, however, was partially offset by higher long-term lease liabilities, which increased by CHF 79 million as a result of the opening of the group's global distribution center in Lokeren, Belgium, and the relocation of our head office in Zurich, Switzerland. Considering the beans, the cocoa beans inventory as readily marketable inventories, RMI, the adjusted net debt decreased by CHF 47 million to CHF 547 million at the end of August 2021. Now let's have a look at the key balance sheet numbers and ratios on slide 21. Our net working capital increased to CHF 1,242 million as expected on the back of regained business momentum.
Our ROIC and ROE increased by 160 basis points to 12.2% and by 110 basis points to 14.3% and returned close to pre-COVID levels on the back of improved mix, which was reflected in the higher operating profit EBIT. As mentioned before, the adjusted net debt decreased further, leading to the adjusted net debt to EBITA ratio improving to 0.7 times compared to 0.9 times in the prior year. The board of directors will propose to the annual general meeting of shareholders a dividend of 28 CHF per share, which corresponds to a payout ratio of 40%. To protect the health of our shareholders and employees, this year's annual general meeting of shareholders will take place once more without physical presence. Voting rights can be exercised electronically or in writing.
With that, I give the word back to Peter.
Thank you, Ben. Let me share a few words on our long-term strategy and how we continue our growth path as a company. You probably know this slide by heart. It is a slide at least we present and we work with already as long as I'm with Barry Callebaut. It will be one we will be staying close to as long as I'm a leader of Barry Callebaut, and therefore we stay very consistent to our long-term strategy. We are a growth company, and we will remain a growth company. We will continue to focus on the four strategic pillars, the four differentiators, which makes us different and make us stand apart from our competition. Expansion, innovation, cost leadership, and sustainability.
We continue our growth path with a smart execution and focus on the return and on cash generation. While remaining very consistent in the long-term strategy, as a new CEO, I will emphasize the acceleration up the value ladder. We want to be the preferred solution provider for our customers, and we know we have so much more value added to offer than we do today to our customers. This acceleration will be achieved in various ways. First of all, expansion. I see opportunities to further leverage our footprint across the globe, from developed to emerging markets, continuously broadening our capabilities and serving customers regardless of their geographic location. Second, acceleration will be achieved through innovation, a topic I'm particularly passionate about as the former Chief Innovation Officer.
I want Barry Callebaut to firmly remain a leader on innovation, catering to trends like plant-based, sugar-reduced, or better-for-you, and create a future of sustainable chocolate solutions. Through scale, leveraging, and efficiency along the value chain, I see us reinforcing our cost leadership and create value for our customers better than anybody else. Last but not least, we offer customers industry-best impactful sustainability programs. Through Forever Chocolate, which I was proud to launch back in 2016 myself, we became the leader of the movement to make sustainable chocolate the norm. In the coming years, this is how we will create value for our shareholders. On December third, we will publish our fifth Forever Chocolate progress report, providing a full overview of the progress we are making against these hard commitments.
Let me give you already a few highlights of the achievements in the past year, achievements I and all my colleagues are very proud of. First and foremost, we lifted close to 215,000 cocoa farmers in our supply chain out of poverty. 215,000 cocoa farmers. We have reduced our carbon intensity by more than 70% since 2016. Our child labor monitoring and remediation system is covering over 220,000 farmers in Côte d'Ivoire, Ghana, and Cameroon. In 2020-2021, 43% of our products sold contain 100% sustainable sourced cocoa and chocolate. With that said, stay tuned for more details, which we will share on December third. At Barry Callebaut, we are committed to nurturing an inclusive environment.
This is why we launched in January 2021, One BC, our diversity and inclusion strategy. It sets ambitious, measurable targets to improve our gender balance and cultural diversity at senior management levels by 2025. Because we are making progress, but we are not there yet. Let me also say a few words about governance in our board of directors. All members will stand for a re-election for another term of office of 1 year. The board of directors propose to elect at the AGM in December, Antoine de Saint-Affrique as a new member of the board. You all know Antoine well, as he served as Barry Callebaut's CEO from October 2015 until August 2021. We also recently announced changes to the executive committee.
We have been able to fill all positions with talent coming from within the organization and people with whom I've been working in the last years. With these changes, we have an executive team well-positioned to continue our growth plan. Ladies and gentlemen, let me summarize and give you an outlook. We are on a track to accelerate along the value ladder, and I see a lot of opportunities out there. I'm therefore confident and will deliver on the midterm guidance. Before we move on to your questions, let me say a few words related to our 25th anniversary. In 1996, Klaus Jacobs had a vision to merge two iconic chocolate makers, Callebaut and Cacao Barry, to build the world's best cocoa and chocolate company.
During the past quarter of a century, we have consistently built on that vision to become the leading manufacturer of high-quality chocolate and cocoa products. Our story of the past 25 years is, of course, above all, a story of our people. Our over 12,500 Barry Callebaut colleagues, their customer focus and entrepreneurial spirit have been the driving force behind our successful growth journey. Big thank you to all of them. With this, ladies and gentlemen, I conclude this presentation and would like to open up the floor for questions. Operator, could you please instruct-
This is the conference call operator. We will now begin the question and answer session. As a reminder, to ask a question, you have to dial in by phone. You'll find the details in the press release or in the website of Barry Callebaut under Events. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on the touchtone telephone. If you change your mind and decide to withdraw your question, simply press star and two. You have to unmute when your line is open and ask your question. All other lines will remain in listen-only mode.
Daniel Bürki from ZKB. I would have a question on inflation environment you have. Where do you see strong cost inflation? What is covered by your cost-plus? Maybe as a reminder, your cost of goods sold are about 85% of your sales. What would be the split, raw materials, energy, freight, direct labor? Just roughly.
I will, if you allow me, Peter, start, and then please, chime in, if I miss something. First of all, indeed, there is inflation around in the market. I want to reiterate that our cost-plus model is covering that, as well. Because overall, the way that we price to our clients, it's not only just the raw materials, but it's of course covering the freight cost and so on as well, and the manufacturing cost, as well. We are best weathered to an inflation environment. We're also running a global business as well.
Yes, it's fair that we see more inflation in North America and in Europe, in areas where we're not used to it anymore. In the same time, we are also running a business in Asia Pacific or Latin America, where we're very used to inflationary items that can go up to a couple of percent as such. Overall, we are very well weathered. Yes, you're right in terms of the overall cost. Raw materials is the biggest part of it. I just want to highlight something there. On the raw materials in inflation, we have not seen that in cocoa. You saw it also on the cocoa bean prices.
Actually, cocoa as a key ingredient, as a key cost factor towards chocolate production, actually has remained quite stable, quite low compared to historical averages. That's something we have not seen in other soft commodities as well. Overall there, when you look at the majority of our cost, it is in the raw materials, not necessarily in manufacturing or energy prices. Nevertheless, we are best positioned with our cost-plus model.
Do you give the split of your costs?
Yeah. We don't give specific
Or just roughly?
splits on it, as well. What I can say is that the majority is raw materials.
Yep.
Sorry, Daniel.
No surprises for our customers. If we have long-term partnership with our customers, they know the way how we build our contracts with the open costing. In that sense, we are of course in daily interaction with them. We are a customer-focused business. We are looking with them at solutions. On the raw material side, they know we work with a cost-plus model. Yeah. Thank you.
Hi, Silke.
About your outlook. You've confirmed your midterm outlook of 5%-7% volume growth. We were below for the first year of your three-year cycle. Can we take that to mean that this year you're expecting to see an increase over what we've seen in the past year?
Thank you, Silke. We don't give a kind of annual guidance. It's a midterm guidance. We are absolutely confident with the results we are presenting today that we have the momentum to deliver on a midterm guidance. Of course, on the one hand, you see our chocolate business growing with 6.5%, which gives us a lot of confidence that's broad-based across our regions. We see gourmet accelerating, and we believe that the challenging market environment we face in cocoa we are successfully navigating that. We also believe there's a time where we will get out of that, and that will help us to deliver against our midterm guidance.
Thank you. I'm Joern from UBS, and 2 to 3 questions, please. The first one would be, if you look on your chocolate business in total, do you feel comfortable with the product categories you have at the moment? You can grow mid-single-digit also for the next 5-6 years? Or is your strategic roadmap also considering new categories you want to enter? This would be the first question, please. Shall I take it step by step, or how do you prefer it?
I can take this one.
Okay. Yeah.
Let's take this one. Hey, we are a chocolate company, or we are the leaders in high-quality cocoa and chocolate. No chocolate without cocoa. In that space, there is still a lot of growth. Please understand me well. Yes, we are innovating. We try to create new products. But our core business is our core business of chocolate and cocoa. There, I believe we still have so many opportunities that we can drive our growth in line with our midterm guidance for the years to come. Of course, we have launched an Elix product. That was a very interesting product for us because it is based on the deep expertise we have of the cacao fruit.
Of course, the cacao fruit, which produces the cacao bean, which is important for chocolate, but there's much more in that. Leveraging that on the one hand to bring a new product, which is quite revolutionary, a nutraceutical fruit drink, but also of course as a way to commercialize the cacao fruit further in an attempt to bring more value to our farms. The key message is we are a chocolate and cocoa company, and I see that driving our growth for the midterm.
Maybe a second and third question, if I may. The second question would be please on Gourmet. I think it was the target to grow it by high single digit. Do you think this is still valid for the next couple of years? And if yes, can you give us some concrete examples, new regions you're entering, new customers which you are exploring at the moment where you're making progress?
Yeah. It is amazing the performance we see at this moment in gourmet around the globe. That is pretty broad-based. I think that team, our whole business, I think, but definitely also the gourmet team, has taken the pandemic as an opportunity. They have looked at, of course, where the market was going down, the distribution channels were going in lockdown, and they were forced to look at other segments, other customers, other regions to grow. To call out a number, we have added in that last year 3,000 new customers in the gourmet business. That's a lot of new customers with which to grow. We have entered new regions. I can just tell our personal experience, we were not that strong in Northeast Brazil.
We have successfully just entered that region and are gaining our share. We have added a lot from a geographical point of view, or from a customer point of view, we have added new levers of growth. You can imagine if now all the old traditional distribution channels come back, that will further keep driving our gourmet business. I'm confident that will be one of our key growth drivers going forward.
Thank you. The last question, if you allow me, it's a technical one. In your food manufacturing business, do you see prospects to improve your gross profit margin there, or will volume discounts offset the mix benefits going forward?
Food manufacturing is a big business for us. It's 70% of our business. Also there we are driving mix. We are driving mix from a customer mix point of view. We're also driving mix from a product point of view. Absolutely, everyone working on food manufacturing has the objective to drive smart growth and look to see how we can drive for growth, but definitely in a profitable way.
You're confident to improve your gross profit margin in FM? That is also-
In the end, we drive to a guidance on the overall business. Of course, we have certain part of our business which are more accretive than others. Also within the FM business, absolutely, we cannot afford to not drive for increased profitability.
Thank you very much.
If I may add to that point as well. You asked a question about gourmet. Of course, we want to grow gourmet faster because that's overall in the mix. But gourmet can also not live without cocoa. It's very important that we work on the three areas, not only on just one division. For food manufacturers as well, there is a lot of intimacy that we have coming from the chef world, so from the artisans. That's actually giving us a lot of credibility and opportunity for margin as well to the larger FM clients. That's very important that we have that. That's the nature of Barry Callebaut, all of the three divisions working very well.
It's a very important point Ben is making, because that's what we try to capture with accelerating of the value ladder. Because hey, there are still a lot of doors we can open in chocolate and cocoa around the globe, but we're also sitting at a table with a lot of customers. To further add value to those customers and add value through sustainability programs, add value through innovation, add value by showing where trends are going in Japan or in Santiago de Chile. Hey, that's the way how we start to add more and more value to our customers. In that sense, hey, it's a driver of our smart growth strategy.
Thank you.
Yes. Good morning, this is Pascal Boll from Stifel. I have a couple of questions. First of all, regarding profitability, you increased EBIT per ton this year by 12%, but you are, even though you are volume-wise on 2018, 2019 levels, you are in terms of EBIT per ton still below those levels. Do you expect to reach these old levels, or is it something that will persist at those levels we see right now?
I will start answering. First of all, as you noticed as well, that there is still a translation currency impact. When you go back in time as well, there is also a translation impact as that. We're still slightly below on EBIT per metric ton compared to 18, 19, but not that far. Definitely, it is the ambition to regain. That's part of our midterm plan as well, that we want to be above on EBIT level compared to volume. Yes, indeed, EBIT per metric ton should go up.
Let me use one example there, because we have seen that the cocoa business is a challenged business in terms of market environment. Still, that team, while their business was slightly declining, they still focused a lot on the premium powders. They still focused a lot on the branded part of their business, and they were able to increase the kind of EBIT per ton throughout the last year. It is throughout our business, we are always trying to find that added value, and I'm sure therefore, we will restore where we were before COVID.
Okay, thank you. Next question regarding your outsourcing pipeline. Can you elaborate a little on that? I think you mentioned that, due to the pandemic, a lot of projects got delayed. Should we expect an acceleration now again, or, do we see the usual course of things?
I'm nine years with Barry Callebaut, and it's you can never fully predict with what kind of pace the opportunities will arise, but they will come through. We even in a pandemic, we have seen that we could deliver 32,000 tons with three new outsourcing long-term agreements. We have renewed the partnership. I'm personally very proud on that, the partnership with Hershey. Yes, also this pandemic has challenged a lot of customers always reviewing how they can become more efficient, how they can set themselves up for success for the future. Outsourcing is in many cases also a part of our discussion with them. We have a guidance of 30,000-40,000 tons per year.
We are in control to keep delivering that.
Okay. On Gourmet & Specialties, you mentioned you added 3,000 customers. How much of the volume do these 3,000 customers account for, or in other terms, at what discount of usual capacities do your old customers at the moment run their business? What can we expect when old business returns in combination with new business going forward?
I hope I understood your question well, but yes, 3,000 new customers really in new segments, where our Gourmet team identified customers out there, which absolutely were in need of our service, of our products, of our services. That has been good business for us. I hope that we can sustain those customers, that we keep them with us as long as they are profitable while the traditional business will come back.
Pascal, if I just might add, overall, the new customers that we have added overall, the different segments that we're going in with gourmet is still accretive to the overall result of Barry Callebaut. It's still very interesting, as well. There are differences that there are higher-end chocolatiers and so on. There are some donuts and other players and so on. Different products, of course, different geographies have a little bit different profitability. But for me, the key message is that it's still accretive to the overall Barry Callebaut, and definitely very interested to go. It's definitely our plan to keep our current customers and our new customers.
Okay. Final question for you, Peter. You mentioned you want to expand along this value-added ladder. Can you give us some concrete examples? Because in my understanding, Barry Callebaut has been very innovative in the past. So where do you see here the opportunities? Do you have to spend more money on R&D going forward, or do you reallocate resources, or how do we should imagine that?
Now, as shared in the presentation, we believe there are various levers for accelerating up the value ladder. Innovation absolutely is one of them, and I believe by being customer-focused, by diving deeper into the needs of those customers, I think we can still sell much more of those innovations than we ever have done in the past. In that sense, that's acceleration. As you all know, ESG, sustainability is very, very important. We believe with our sustainability solutions, we are able to add value to our customers as well. Hey, the oldest lever of our strategy is cost leadership. I still believe also even through cost leadership in these times, where a lot of our customers are challenged, we can add value.
Accelerating up the value ladder is really about adding value to our customer relationships. You know, we have an enormous reach. We sit with a lot of customers in need of chocolate around the world, adding value through innovations, through sustainability, through cost leadership, but even leveraging our global footprint. I think we are only scratching the surface, and there's still much more that we can do than we do today.
Thank you.
Jean-Philippe Bertschy, Vontobel. I'm here. Thanks for taking my question, and welcome to the financial community. The first one is on where do you want to put your priorities? You repeated a couple of times today the smart growth strategy. You are running the Americas quite successfully. I think South America was really a huge success last year. If you can share with us where you want to put your priorities and maybe to share some best practices with the rest of the business. The same probably with regard to sustainability, where you want to accelerate. We saw some companies in the consumer goods industry which accelerated their sustainability plan and kind of targets a bit earlier than before.
The last one, I saw some headlines this morning that you won 3,000 clients, I think, if that's right, if that's accurate.
Mm-hmm.
Where was that? Probably in which divisions? Was that new contracts, new outsourcing contracts, so you gain market share? Maybe as well in terms of tons, what does that represent?
Okay. Let me. Thanks, Jean-Philippe. Let me start by learnings from the Americas. Please be reassured that is well reflected, of course, in the strategy we are driving together. Hey, we are a big company, but we are so small enough to share learnings. My experience in leading the Americas is exactly as we describe here. We are a growth company. We have always been very focused on our customers, very active on the front line, empowering our frontline people to come up with new opportunities.
We have been selective in which one, in the end to sign up for, to really drive the mix, because it's the easiest way to deliver our midterm guidance. If you find the growth and drive it with the right kind of mix, it's the best way to get to the guidance. I think we spend a lot on execution. With our growing business, I always say my mother taught me one thing, and that's Peter, if you promise something, please do it. That's at the heart of what it is all about. We are a business-to-business company. With our growing business, it's very important that we deliver on our promises.
Go after the growth, do it in a smart way, but also be ready to execute against it because, hey, we cannot disappoint the customers out there. That's the first question. On sustainability, hey, we see an, of course, enormous interest. That's not that we have started this journey yesterday. I'm very proud that, in 2016, I started and I launched Forever Chocolate. Started that journey before even Antoine joined us, because we felt, hey, we need to show as a leader in our industry, we need to show that we can grow in a profitable way. We can really be very successful, but still have a positive impact on the world around us.
That's why we launched very impact-focused time-bound targets, Forever Chocolate. Those targets are still front and center in our strategy. We drive against our own impact, and we will keep doing it. Very important, of course, is to also get our customers engaged and on board, because we always said we can't do it enough alone. We need our suppliers, we need the governments, and we absolutely need our customers. What I'm very happy with is that we see a lot of customers just ramping up their programs, spending much more time with us to find the right solutions. It's up to us as a leader to guide them in the right direction.
The impact we are after in the end is captured well in Forever Chocolate. On the third of December, we report back on our progress there. Then on the 3,000 customers, I think we just highlighted a little bit. It's 3,000 customers in for our gourmet business. This has also happened, let's be clear, for other parts of our business. Yes, it was done in an agile way. If I'm proud looking at the business performance in Americas, we were pretty quick to accept where the decline of the business came, and then to complement it with new customers, with new segments. Hey, of course, we are learning from some of those customers.
There could be customers, there could be some segments where we say, "Hey, this is not exactly where we should be." In general, what surprised me, and that's in all kind of ways throughout our business, we have become a stronger business out of this pandemic. We have identified new opportunities which we were too busy to with our existing business to really pay enough attention to. We see now that the business we have added, I'm confident that a majority of that business we will sustain. With the traditional kind of distribution channels opening up again, that will keep accelerating our growth.
Yeah. If I just might add to that point as well. We were, of course, helped by our digital tools. If the crisis, COVID pandemic, would have happened 10 years ago, 15 years ago, it would have been much more difficult to find new customers. Now we're using Salesforce platform. We have our digital sales platforms. We have our digital collaborations with our clients, with our chefs and so on as well. That has helped to find new customers as well.
Yeah. I always say to my team, on the one hand, it's a moment to be proud of, but also as a moment just to see the potential. I say, Hey, we are at most in one out of four chocolates in the world.
Mm-hmm.
That's something, of course, to be proud of, because that's a lot of chocolate. It's also showing the headspace. Yes, we want to develop the markets. We want to develop the markets in value, but there's also still a lot of share we can gain.
We are also having questions from the phone lines. Operator, if you can please put them through. The first question comes from Jon Cox from Kepler. Please go ahead.
Yeah, thanks very much. Good morning, guys. Apologies I can't be there. Congratulations on a decent print there. I think your comments on maintaining the targets and the sort of focus on smart growth is very reassuring for the market, and obviously that can be seen in the stock price. A couple of questions for you. Just on sustainability, I know you had a net zero or a carbon neutral goal by 2025. That's obviously, you know, much better than a lot of your peers out there are talking about 2050. Just wondering where you are on that. Are you still relatively confident you'll land on that around 2025?
Because I think that would be a fantastic achievement and, you know, very important for investors and, obviously for your customers. Second question, just on Gourmet. You mentioned this 3,000 figure. Just wondering what your total Gourmet client base is. Is it like 50,000 or 100,000? Just to give us a bit of, you know, feeling for what you've added. The last question, just to roll back into what one of my colleagues was saying, how much do you think of your pre-COVID business has gone or is down?
Is it something like, you know, 10% is still down, and you've made that up with new customers, and you would expect that 10% to come back as things normalize, which obviously would give you some great tailwinds going into FY 2022 and FY 2023? Thanks very much.
Thank you. Yes, as said, on the third of December, we give an update on our Forever Chocolate plan, so the progress report. As just shared in this presentation, we have reduced carbon intensity with 70%, which is significant and much better than seen by others. That's also why CDP again gave us a top ranking for the third year in a row on that aspect. We have a plan to hit our numbers. Of course, we have an enormous exposure to land, which offers opportunities, but also gives its challenges. I think we are working against our targets.
The beauty of Forever Chocolate is that we set targets which made us all nervous, but unleashes a lot of creativity. Unleashes a lot of ideas which really make us on most fronts just making great progress. More detail on that front on the third of December. We are excited to share then really the various data points of our progress. How many customers, Ben?
Yeah. John, I cannot answer that part. Also, I don't have the data with me. Overall, as you know, our Gourmet business is a business of artisans. It's a business of food service. It is a business of small and medium-sized companies. It is a large pool of clients. And that's important as well in different segments. It's not only in HORECA. Yes, HORECA, hotels, restaurants but are important, but it's wider than that. It's bakeries, pastry and so on, as well. I will not comment on the specifics on how much is still there, because I simply don't have that exact number available.
Yeah. Just on impact, you have seen the impact of the pandemic on our Gourmet business last year and through our numbers. There are certain segments which have been heavily impacted. For example, in my Americas business, the cruise liners, hey, that's not a great business or that was not a great business to be in. There's a little bit of sun on the horizon, and there are more travel, of course, out of home.
Mm-hmm.
My assumption is that the markets will come back.
Mm-hmm.
Whether it's exactly through the same customers, that's a question, but the markets will come back because we see the consumption of chocolate just sustaining itself pretty well, even growing. Therefore, we believe that the coming back of distribution channels will be a big kind of growth driver behind our business in the years to come.
You can't give us a figure of how much you think is still missing from that pre-COVID client base or customer base?
Yeah. You know me, John. I'm not guessing. It's very difficult. It's also depending a little bit on different geographies. It depends on Asia, which is a little bit different now with some more difficult times in Southeast Asia. Europe was already reopening. Now we have quite a bit more restrictions coming up. I'm not going to guess at this point, John.
There is upside in there.
Okay, thank you.
There is upside in there. Hey, look at our own travel agendas. Now Asia starts to open up.
Yep.
That's still a region which has been heavily in lockdown, and therefore also will show potential in the months to come when they open up.
Great. Thank you.
The next question comes from Lauren Molyneux from Citi. Please go ahead.
Hi. Lauren from Citi. Thanks for taking my question. I just wanted to go back to, on one of your slides, you have the gross profit bridge, and you mentioned that there was mixed contribution from both, GNS and also you're seeing more value add from industrial customers. I was just wondering if you could give us an estimate of, kind of the split between these two in terms of contribution to growth. Maybe also on that value add side from the industrial business, where are you seeing this appetite coming from in terms of customers? Is it more the larger customers or the smaller customers that are focusing on this? My second question is around your expectations for your commodities into next year.
I know there's already been a question or two on this, but just wondering how we should think about cocoa and some of your other soft commodities developing into next year. Thank you.
Thanks. Thanks, Lauren. First of all, on the gross profit bridge, as you pointed out, of course, we're growing in terms of volume, but the mix is very important. No surprise there, it's a mix because of Gourmet growing strongly again. There's but also within the FM business, as I pointed out, we're also growing their overall margins because we have been looking at more premium products there as well. The cocoa side, yes, the overall volume was down, but it was compensated by focusing much more on the premium cocoa powders, the cocoa powders that we're selling under the Bensdorp brand. We had some interesting launches with an all-natural dark cocoa powder as well.
That's part of the mix activities that we're doing as a company. On your second question,
Maybe I can-
You can answer.
Maybe I can take that one. You take the last.
Yeah.
One again. Interest in the value add. Yes, we segment our customer base as well. Absolutely, there are customers out there who just want to have a price discussion for their cocoa powder or their chocolate. In general, the demand on our customers on innovation.
On sustainability are not getting less. That whole kind of trend of Mindful Indulgence. Indulgence is, of course, always here to stay. Yes, they care more about their environment, they care more about their own health, and our customers need solutions for that. Therefore, we see a rate and the pace of innovation increasing. Still, some of our customers would say, Hey, we can do it ourselves. We see a lot of customers reaching out to us to help to ask our help. Therefore, we are comfortable we are able to add value to a significant amount of them.
Thank you. Very good, sir. On expectations in terms of commodity, let me touch base on cocoa, where, of course, that's our core business, where we know the most of. I'm not an expert overall in forward-looking statements on sugars or dairy. In cocoa, there was a surplus, so we had very good botanical crop. We had good supply of cocoa beans. I don't know the latest estimate, but it was something around 100,000 tons surplus this year. Of course there is going to be a little bit of an overhang in the next coming year. We expect the next year to be much more balanced.
We don't expect a huge surplus coming out of the cocoa beans, because of course, coming out of COVID-19 as well, the consumption has normalized now as well. It is much more balanced, but also not negative, which is good news for us.
The next question comes from Andreas von Arx from Baader. Please go ahead.
Yeah, good morning. I'll start with a housekeeping question. The increase in corporate and unallocated EBIT to above CHF 100 million, is this more, a bit more one-time, or is that a sustainable increase? That's my first question. Second question is on your outsourcing growth that you show in your presentations. I mean, this has been 4.5% for the full year, but 5.5% for nine months and 1.8% for the first half. Roughly, this gives you 1%-2% growth in the fourth quarter and more than 10% growth for the third quarter. The question here is this just, you know, quarterly shifts we can see, you know, as normal business? Or what do you see as your current underlying growth rate in the outsourcing business?
Then finally, a question for Peter Boone. Maybe I would like to get a bit more meat on the bone on your smart growth strategy and your priorities, how to execute that. I mean, maybe to provoke you a bit, what you told did sound a lot you know, like what we heard before and not a lot really new stuff. I would like to know, to what extent is the Peter Boone Barry Callebaut acting differently going forward as compared to the as de Saint-Affrique Barry Callebaut we have seen in the past? What are the key projects you have been outlined to the board and employees to keep you know your employees motivated and excited in terms of delivering on that smart growth strategy? Thank you very much.
Hey, Andreas, if I may, 'cause I didn't quite understand your first question. What were you referring to on the EBIT side?
On the EBIT side, you have the EBIT per division, and then you have a corporate unallocated negative amount, which is a bit more than CHF 100 million and which has been below CHF 100 million the year before. There's an increase of CHF 6 million-CHF 7 million, mainly in the second half.
Yeah.
Is there anything, you know, one-off in?
No, there is not one-off. Of course we also have a corporate division, so we have a regional view, and then we have our corporate cost as well. Fair to say that the corporate cost has increased. Of course also we are doing more corporate activities as well. We are doing also more corporate marketing activities in terms of research and development as well. I think we're at a good level now. It's nothing extraordinary, but there's also not one-offs there that is not going to return back the following year. It's an overall quite solid and well-controlled corporate cost structure that we have as a company our size.
Now, on the outlook. Andreas, I cannot give you specifics quarter-to-quarter, that would not be wise to do so. We give a mid-term guidance. We are very confident in the outlook there. We as an executive team, together with Pieter, know the opportunities are out there. There is no lack of opportunities out there. Me as CFO, we always look together with the finance community and the business, of course, at the right trade-offs. Not every business, as Pieter was saying, is attractive to us as well.
It would not be wise for us to suddenly change our overall view in terms of growth. Also, a little bit linked to the outsourcing part, as well. First of all, it's a zero-sum game. It's very difficult to predict, but we are also very diligent about it. It's not. It needs to be a win-win. It needs to be a win for Barry Callebaut. It needs to be a win for our client as well. It's not just going blindly after volume growth.
That's why we are very confident that our 5%-7% overall growth and acceleration on the EBIT side is the right approach for us, and we will always carefully look at every opportunity.
All right, I probably have to take the third question. Thank you, Andreas. Hey, let's start by saying that I'm nine years with Barry Callebaut and have seen different parts of our business. I've been chief innovation officer, I've been leading the sustainability and crafting our agenda on sustainability. Have led quality, so I've seen the factories, and then I had four years leading the Americas. I've always been part of the executive team, and it's not just a CEO, it's always a leadership team together with the full organization that sets the strategy and executes that on a day-to-day basis. Hey, personally, Peter, hey, I've seen, yes, all corners of the world in my career.
I've seen different functions, but I'm a marketer at heart. I'm always out there. I love our customer focus. I love to look at the markets to see where the trends are going for the future. In that sense, I see a lot of opportunities and bring at least that positive outlook to our colleagues and to our employees. Second, hey, that's in line with Antoine. I'm also fully endorsing, of course, our ambition on the sustainability front. There, you will see me driving the agenda as hard as Antoine has been doing. In general, hey, what's different? Change is not always better.
I think if you have a very successful strategy which delivers, then, hey, please, keep executing. That's where we focus, on executing our strategy, very well, and of course, preparing ourselves for adding more value to our customers. Because our customers want to see more of ourselves. If you talk with our customers, they appreciate Barry Callebaut. They love Barry Callebaut, not only for just the chocolate we provide, but really for the expertise we bring to the table, for the innovations. I think we can definitely do more and bring all that expertise, all that knowledge and excellent products to our customers.
There, of course, my experience on the ground as a president, being day-to-day with our customers, I think will bring a lot to help inspire the organization.
The next question comes from Alex Sloane from Barclays. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi. Morning, all. Apologies I can't be with you in person. A couple of questions from my side. Just on the global cocoa business. I mean, in the statement you refer to an EBIT per ton growth in the absence of some of the impacts from higher energy and freight costs. I wonder if we can infer from that that you see those costs as largely one-off or should we be expecting them to continue in the next year? That would be the first question.
The second question, I mean, just in terms of the food manufacturer business, I think, you know, the height of the pandemic, you had called out some margin mix pressure in that business as kind of smaller customers were losing some share relative to multinationals. I wonder, you know, has that trend reversed? Or, you know, do you expect that to continue to reverse and could that be a margin tailwind for you over the next few years? Thanks.
Let me take the first question. Indeed, Alex, thanks for your question. You're referring to what we disclosed in the presentation here, that we in cocoa were hit by higher energy costs and by logistical pressure. First of all, on the energy part, it was for a specific reason. We had to be operating a large grinding operation in West Africa. Over the summer, we didn't have enough electricity. Good thing is that we are prepared for these things. It's not the first time it happens.
Also that's why we didn't put it as a non-recurring item because things happen when you operate in origin countries. Luckily, we have generators to keep our production going. When there was no electricity, we were able to continue our operation, making sure that our clients were served, that we had continuity. It came at a cost. Running your factory on generators costs you more than running it on electricity. That's what we wanted to highlight. Will it not happen again in the future, in the next two years? I don't know at this point, but it was important to put that extra highlight.
On the freight cost itself, I would say it's if you would have asked me six months ago, I would have said we're already out of it by now, but I'm sure every CFO will say the same. Yeah, it is here to stay longer. In the meantime, also in our cocoa business, we are pricing it into our contracts in our cost-plus. So, it's not that it's that we were not able to pass it on, but it has a delayed effect as well. So, because typically we are in a forward business there. But very difficult to judge what's going to happen in the future on the logistical side.
I want to stress something, and this is very important that I say this, because during all the price issues, but also the supply issues and containers being misplaced, we always have been able to supply our clients.
That is worth a lot of money as well in the future. When you can show as a global supplier with your global footprint that in times of crisis, in times of pressure, that you can supply, that's worth something for our clients in the future.
No, absolutely. It's amazing to see when a team gets challenged.
Yeah
What kind of solutions they come up with. Yes, you see a little bit more stress on the faces at coffee machine of those working in logistics, transport, but they come to solutions. I just picked up last week that from the very little town I'm from in Holland, Vlissingen, we just chartered a boat which was going to bring products from Vlissingen to the Americas. They're all kind of new solutions we find also in this space. Most important, we get our products out there. We get our products to our factories so that we can produce, and we get our products in the end to our customers.
A lot of customers also reach out to us to ask our help just to support them in that area. On FM. I always say the luxury. I worked 17 years of my time of my life in Unilever. I was betting on one horse. The beauty of Barry Callebaut is that we are active along the whole spectrum, of the smallest customer out there in the high street to the biggest one. Yes, we saw in the pandemic that some consumers responded, consumers respond to uncertainty by getting back to what they trust the most, and that were the big brands. You saw big brands coming up. You saw also trends which catered a little bit better to the big players.
For example, in my market, the U.S., everyone got crazy in baking chocolate cookies. There was a lot of chocolate chips which were sold. You see those trends now reversing again. Still a lot of the big companies keep strong positions, but we also see a lot of smaller ones again gaining pace. Up to us to keep up with that. That's the agile company we want to be. We want to be there from the smallest to the biggest, and therefore we will see who in the end will win the market.
Thanks.
The last question for today comes from John Ennis from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.
Hi, good morning, everyone, and thanks for taking the questions. Just a couple of follow-ups from me. My first is on the EBIT per ton outlook. Your EBIT per ton is around 20 CHF lower than the pre-COVID levels, which has already been referenced today. I guess what would stop you correcting that gap in FY 2022, if any? Maybe you could give us a bit of a timeframe with regards to the recovery there. My second question is just to come back on the sustainability plans. As it's been referenced, you still have a reasonable way to go in order to reach some of your targets there.
I appreciate that you'll be coming back on this topic in December, but can you give us some of the key headlines behind the big initiatives to close these gaps? Peter, given that you set up the Forever Chocolate roadmap, if you think back to when you laid out the plans in 2016, are we where you would have expected to be by 2020, 2021 versus the initial roadmap? Or are we ahead? Are we below? A bit of color there would be helpful. Thanks.
Let me start. Thanks, John. So on EBIT per metric ton, again, I want to reiterate, of course, that is a translation impact, as well over the 2-year period, not over only over a 1-year period. But it's fair to say that we are still a little bit behind, as well. We strongly expect EBIT per metric ton to go up, as that's of course our mid-term guidance that we have and that we can definitely accelerate, as Peter was saying, along the value ladder. I'm not going to go into specific quarters, as well, but you heard it as well. Gourmet is back on track.
Gourmet is back into growth mode, and it's an important contributor to overall EBIT per metric ton as well. That's a little bit when I was talking about the three divisions are important, but it is important that Gourmet keeps on growing faster than FM is growing faster than Cocoa. That's how you should look at the overall profitability per metric ton between the different business units. But again, not saying that our focus should only be on Gourmet at the same time, because also Gourmet, beyond things already said earlier, Gourmet also needs the footprint of FM.
That's also the beauty when we go into certain markets, when we grow in China, for example, because I spend quite a bit of my time in Asia-Pacific. You need to have a footprint. You need to be close, you're close to the market. You need to have feet on the ground. You do that typically with FM customers, and you use that to manufacture Gourmet products in a very efficient way as well, and reaping the benefits in EBIT per metric ton by having those combinations.
On sustainability, yes. In 2016, when we sat down and said, "Hey, what to do in this area?" Of course, we brought quite some Unilever experience to the table also, where we learned that you have to set ambitious targets. Targets which make you nervous because the solutions we need to really be a positive impact on the world around us need to be quite radically different. We also said we cannot do everything. We were very focused in four areas.
We said right away we are going to report on this very openly because there must be areas where we are going to make great progress, but there must also be areas where we struggle and where we will see maybe a gap arising. At this moment, that's too early. Hey, the targets are still out there. We are still looking at them and working on them every day to close the gap. You will hear on the third of December our progress. Very proud on our progress on carbon. Very proud on our work with farmers. Very proud on the sourcing of our sustainable ingredients.
There's a lot to be proud on and a lot of areas and a lot of work still to be done, but we luckily have a couple of years to do so.
Great. Thank you.
There are no more questions in the queue. Please go ahead. Thank you all for being here today with us in Zurich, live and also on the webcast. For those who have the pleasure to be here, we invite you and have some of the chocolate and the latest innovation to taste. But thank you very much for joining us at the conference today. If there are any further questions, please reach out to us. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.