Thank you, operator. Ladies and gentlemen, good afternoon, good evening to Asia, and good morning to the Americas. Welcome to our 2022 full year results conference call. Tom Hallam, our CFO, will also be on this call. We'll take you through the presentation before answering your questions at the end. The company news on our full year results were published on our Givaudan website before 7 o'clock Swiss time this morning. This is where you can also find the slides for today's presentation, along with the company news on our website, both our 2022 integrated annual report and sustainability report are also available. I'd like now to start going through the presentation and invite you to turn to slide number three to go through our performance highlights. I'm happy to announce another solid set of figures.
We are very pleased with our performance in 2022, despite the challenging environment that we have operated in throughout the year. We have indeed been facing an unusual number of adverse external circumstances, ranging from high inflation in input costs to geopolitical tensions, persisting disruption in the overall supply chain, and a contrasted picture of the consumer and customer demand across geographies and segments. In this perfect alignment of headwinds, we have demonstrated three things. Our ability to focus on supporting the growth of our customers with innovative and differentiating solutions whilst ensuring an excellent supply chain performance. The second one, the natural hedges of Givaudan across clients, geographies, and product segments, has allowed to deliver a net positive growth. Finally, thanks to the collaboration with our customers, we are on track to fully compensate the sharp increase in input costs over 2022 and 2023.
I'm therefore extremely grateful to all of the Givaudan employees around the world for their continued commitment to continue deliver industry-leading performance. In 2022, We actually passed the bar of CHF 7.1 billion, representing a growth of 5.3% on the like-for-like basis and 6.5% in CHF. This solid growth was supported by many levers. The strong contribution of high growth markets, which increased 9.9% on the like-for-like basis. The strategic focus areas, as well as the acquired businesses, and the implementation of price increases, as already mentioned. The level of innovation has remained high, and I will come back to this shortly, whilst our new business pipeline remains strong. Finally, our new win rates have been very healthy.
The EBITDA in Swiss francs was stable at CHF 1.476 billion in 2022, compared to CHF 1.482 billion in 2021. What is interesting to note is that we actually managed to protect our absolute EBITDA in Swiss francs despite two headwinds. Raw materials, energy, and logistics totaled an increase of CHF 360 million for the full year. The Swiss francs has further strengthened across all currencies, across many currencies. The EBITDA margin was 20.7% in 2022, compared to 22.2% in 2021. On a comparable basis, the EBITDA margin was 20.9% in 2022, compared to 22.5% in 2021. The free cash flow amounted to CHF 479 million, representing 6.7% of our total sales.
As discussed before, this lower free cash flow rate that, lower than usual, reflects the lower EBITDA% and the higher levels of working capital we had to keep throughout 2022 in order to protect our service levels to our customers. At the AGM on 23 March of this year, the board of directors will propose a dividend of CHF 67 per share, representing an increase of 1.5% year-on-year. Let's turn now to slide 4. Both divisions actually contributed equally strongly to our growth. Fragrance & Beauty reached almost CHF 3.3 billion, growing 5.5%, and Taste & Wellbeing reached CHF 3.9 billion, growing 5.2%. Both growth rates are on a like-for-like basis. The good growth was achieved across most product segments.
For Fragrance & Beauty, it was driven by the sustained strong performance of both Fine Fragrances and Fragrance Ingredients, combined with the return to a positive growth of the Consumer Products business, especially in the second half. For Taste & Wellbeing, the growth was strong, especially in sweet goods, beverages, and snacks, and more modestly in savory and dairy. We also benefited from the continued growth momentum of our local and regional customers, one of our strong 2025 strategic growth platform, which grew again more than 2 times as much as with our global customers. Finally, all our strategic focus areas have contributed to our growth, including high growth markets, health and wellness, plant-based proteins, and Active Beauty. Let's turn now to slide 5. We're actually back to the usual picture of high growth markets growing four to five times the rate of mature markets.
At the end of 2022, high growth markets represented 44% of our total sales, delivering 9.9% on the like-for-like growth. All high growth markets contributed with high to double-digit growth rates to this result, except for China, which grew a low single digit, given the continuous stringent COVID regulations prevailing in 2022, and also the double-digit growth comparable in 2021. The Middle East contributed with strong double-digit growth levels, as well as Latin America, which performed strongly, led by Argentina, Brazil, and Mexico. Most of Asia have also recovered, including Indonesia, and India, the Philippines, and Thailand. Our size and operational footprint give us a unique exposure to the diversity of these high growth markets, in which we continue investing both with additional talent and new facilities to service a wide diversity of customers.
Mature markets, representing 56% of our sales in 2022, have also contributed to the growth, with a like-for-like growth of 1.9% led by an exceptional performance in Europe, an encouraging recovery in Japan, partly offset by a decline in North America. This demonstrates once again how Givaudan's geographical balance contributes to the natural hedges against demand cycles, where timing and intensity can differ by geography. Please now turn to slide 6. You can see on slide 6 the sales development by region for the group in more details. It's worth mentioning, EMEA grew a record 11.9% against the high comparable of 2021.
It was supported by the strong recovery and expansion of various markets, particularly in France, Italy, Spain, the U.K., Northern and Central Europe for the mature market of Europe, as well as the Middle East for the high growth market parts of Europe. Sales in Latin America continued to perform very well. Latin America recorded another outstanding growth of 10.4%, driven mainly by Argentina, Mexico, and Brazil. Volume growth and market share gains contributing to most of the growth. Sales in Asia-Pacific, as mentioned earlier, continued to recover despite a subdued performance in China, still impacted by the pandemic, as well as suffering from a very high 2021 comparable, as already mentioned. Overall, the growth in Asia-Pacific was 5.2%, with India, Indonesia, and the Philippines contributing significantly to this result.
Lastly, North America, which had reopened earlier than other regions in 2021, showed a decline of 5.4%. Our 5% growth in 2021 in North America was certainly not an easy comparable, but a certain amount of safety stock building by our customers, followed by a significant de-stocking as weaker consumption was encountered by our customers, was certainly amplified the decline in the second half of 2022 in both Taste & Wellbeing, as well as in Consumer Products as part of the Fragrance & Beauty division. Let's turn now to slide 7. Fragrance & Beauty sales were almost CHF 3.3 billion, an increase of 5.5% on the like-for-like basis, and 5.3% in Swiss francs.
The good growth was driven by the sustained strong performance of Fine Fragrances and Fragrance Ingredients, combined with the sustained return to growth in the Consumer Products business. In Active Beauty, the single-digit growth was achieved against a very high double-digit comparable growth in 2021. Across all businesses and customer groups, the good performance was also supported by the increased impact in the second half of the year of the pricing actions, which had been implemented with customers to compensate for the increase in input costs. When looking on the business unit level, Fine Fragrances sales increased by 14.3% in 2022, on top of the very strong performance of 22.5% in the prior year. It's sales driven by the post-COVID rebound.
In 2022, against any expectations, sales have continued this strong momentum due to the recovery of travel retail, an increased offering notably from independent brands in haute parfumerie, and broader distribution with the well-established e-commerce reaching out to more consumers. All this combined with a high level of new wins for Givaudan. The CAGR, the compounded average growth rate for Fine Fragrances over the last three years has been close to 10%. Western Europe, Asia Pacific, and Middle East grew strong double digits sales, whilst North America declined mid-single digit against a double digit comparable in 2021. The second business unit, Consumer Products, the sales increased by 2% on the like-for-like basis. This performance was driven by a solid performance with local and regional clients, which more than offset the decline of volume coming from large customers.
On the regional basis, growth was led by Western Europe, South Asia and the Middle East, while sales in North America declined. On a product segment basis, the sales growth was led by fabric care, followed by personal care. The compounded average growth rates for Consumer Products over the last 3 years has been 4.2%. Sales of Fragrance Ingredients and Active Beauty increased by 10.2% on a like-for-like basis. Active Beauty grew mid-single digit against a very strong comparable in 2021, as already mentioned, and Fragrance Ingredients delivered a strong double-digit growth in 2022, supported by the buoyant Fine Fragrances market demand for ingredients. The compounded average growth rate for Active Beauty and Fragrance Ingredients combined has been 9% for the last three years. Now let's turn to the next slide, number 8.
Sales of the Taste & Wellbeing division grew 5.2% on a like-for-like basis, 7.5% in CHF. This is a very good performance if we remind that it compares to the 7.6% growth which was achieved in 2021, actually the highest growth ever achieved by the division. Key growth pillars of the 2025 Strategy, including alternative proteins and health and wellness, as well as all customer groups, contributed positively to this sales growth. From a segment perspective, the good sales performance was achieved across all segments, but mainly in beverages, and savory and snacks. From a geographic perspective, as you can see, the growth performance was quite impressive in Europe, South Asia and the Middle East, and in Latin America.
Sales in South Asia, Africa, and the Middle East increased by 17.6% on the like-for-like basis. This double-digit performance was achieved in India as well as across African markets and the Middle East region, where Givaudan has a strong footprint. Sales in Latin America increased 16.7% on the like-for-like basis, led by high single to strong double-digit volume growth in Brazil, Argentina, Mexico and Colombia. Sales in Europe increased by 11.1% on the like-for-like basis. The mature markets of Spain, Germany and Italy achieved double-digit growth, followed mid to high single digit growth in the U.K. and France. In the high growth markets of Europe, there was excellent business momentum, especially driven by Poland. Sales in Asia-Pacific increased by 5.3% on the like-for-like basis.
Growth in Asia-Pacific was strong despite COVID-19 impacting performance in China in 2022. In the high growth markets, Indonesia, the Philippines and Vietnam delivered the strongest performance. Finally, in the mature markets of Asia-Pacific, the growth was driven by Korea. On a like-for-like basis, sales in North America decreased by 6.4% after growing a strong 5.8% in 2021. In addition to the strong comparative, this situation can be explained by customer destocking and more cautious inventory planning following the safety stock building as supply chain disruptions and high inflation prevailed, especially in the first half of the year. Let's turn now to slide 9. As you all know, our company purpose is about creation, the cornerstone of which is innovation. Innovation is what our customers expect from us.
The core of our innovation is about working on the more than 300,000 briefs a year. Winning more than our fair share of those multiple briefs is the only way to compensate more than the average 10% erosion of our business, so that we can deliver our average sales growth promise of 4%–5% on the long term. We continually seek new ways to anticipate consumer needs and help solve their customers challenges and create value for them, while developing creations that contribute to happier and healthier lives, which is our purpose. This is whilst reducing the impact that we have on the environment.
Our research and development activities allow to provide our teams working on those multiple briefs with novel technologies, differentiating ingredients, which will make those bespoke solutions we develop with our customers, win the brief, but also, and more importantly, win the consumer. In 2022, we invested CHF 522 million in R&D, in line with what we had spent in 2021. Let me give you some of the key outcome examples that stemmed out of our research programs. In Taste & Wellbeing, it's about shaping the future of food and creating food experiences that consumers love. Our new PrimeLock+, a natural vegan-friendly solution that mimics animal fat cells, encapsulates, protects, and locks in both flavor and fat in plant-based meat substitutes.
This integrated technology enables companies to enhance the food experience of plant-based meat products whilst having 75% less fat and 30% less calories when compared to a full fat, full protein plant-based product. A good example of how a plant-based protein can not only provide the benefit of being more sustainable, but also being healthier than the animal version. BioNootkatone, a breakthrough ingredient that responds to the demand for sustainable, natural, clean label citrus flavor without the cost and supply volatility of traditional citrus extracts. Made from a non-GMO sugar source as the starting material, the ingredient does not require the use of any citrus ingredients and originates from a renewable, natural starting material. This material is used in thousands of flavor applications. In the other division, in Fragrance & Beauty, sustainability is a key driver for creativity and innovation as well.
We launched Patchoul'Up, an eco-design upcycled active for hair and scalp. It is sourced responsibly in Indonesia and is crafted through green fractionation from distilled patchouli leaves after they're used as a raw material in fragrance creation. This is a very good example of how we can use waste and upcycle. In the field of delivery systems, a major breakthrough was the launch of PlanetCaps, the first biodegradable and bio-sourced fragrance core-shell technology for fabric softeners, laundry sanitizers, and scent boosters. Finally, Ambrexolide, a sustainable alternative to the widely used musk Ambrettolide. This biodegradable and naturally derived molecule, exclusively available for Givaudan perfumers, is obtained by an innovative process using Nobel Prize-winning technology.
Finally, in terms of artificial intelligence, we developed Customer Foresight, a proprietary digital engine leveraging big data, artificial intelligence, and Givaudan's deep expertise to detect signals and emerging trends to anticipate future potential food solutions, opening opportunities to enhance the current development processes. With this, I'd like now to hand over to Tom, who will give you more granularity on our financial results. Tom, please.
Thank you, Gilles. I would also like to welcome you all to the call. As always, as Gilles has taken you through the business performance of the group, as well as the main aspects of the market and regional development, on the following slides, I would like to focus on the group's operating performance and those of the two divisions. Let me start with the performance highlights on slide 11. Group sales increased this year to CHF 7.1 billion, an increase of 5.3% on a like-for-like basis and 6.5% in Swiss francs. This result includes the full year impact of DDW and Custom Essence, the two companies that we acquired in December 2021. The group's EBITDA is CHF 1.476 billion, compared to CHF 1.482 billion in the prior year.
The reported EBITDA margin is 20.7% in 2022, compared to 22.2% in 2021. The underlying EBITDA is CHF 1,486 million, a margin of 20.9% in 2022, compared to 22.5% in 2021. The net income increased to CHF 856 million, an increase of 4.2% compared to 2021, and the net income margin was 12% of sales. The group achieved a free cash flow of CHF 479 million, or 6.7% of sales. The group's net debt to EBITDA was 3.1 times at the end of 2022, compared to 2.97 times at the end of December 2021.
Please turn to slide 12, which shows the exchange rate development. As always, this slide shows the comparison of the exchange rates in 2022 versus the average in 2021. In the current year, mainly due to the geopolitical instability and economic uncertainties, we have seen major fluctuations in the main currencies that the group operates in, especially in the development of the U.S. dollar, GBP sterling and the euro against the Swiss franc. Although the movement in currencies can have an impact on the various lines of the income statement, the net impact on the EBITDA margin is fairly limited given the operational and geographical spread, which provides good natural hedges to our business. Please turn to slide 13 for an overview of the operating performance of the group.
The growth margin decreased from 42.7% in 2021 to 38.8% this year, due to, on the one hand, a mechanical margin dilution effect of the pricing, as well as the timing of the price increases to offset higher raw material, energy, and freight costs. On the EBITDA level, the impact of the higher raw material, energy, and freight costs was mostly offset by price increases and a lower operating expense due to the strict cost discipline, resulting in an EBITDA of CHF 1.476 billion in 2022 compared to CHF 1.482 billion in 2021. We had a number of one-off items in the year amounting to CHF 10 million, all relating to the integration of the acquired companies and the optimization of our manufacturing footprint.
As such, the underlying EBITDA margin was 20.9% this year, compared to 22.5% in 2021. The operating income increased to CHF 1.112 billion in 2022 compared to CHF 1.089 billion in 2021. A small increase versus the year. A good performance considering a very challenging operating environment. On the next two slides, I would like to spend a few minutes on the operating performance of the two divisions. If you turn to slide 14, we will start with Fragrance & Beauty. Fragrance & Beauty recorded a sales increase of 5.5% on a like-for-like basis, and 5.3% in Swiss francs, mainly driven by the sustained good growth of Fine Fragrances and of the Fragrance Ingredients business during the year.
EBITDA for the division was CHF 698 million in 2022 compared to CHF 696 million in 2021. The underlying EBITDA margin was 21.6% in the year compared to 22.6% in 2021. The decrease in the margin is a result of the higher input costs, partially compensated by price increases. If you now turn to page 15, we will cover the performance of Taste & Wellbeing. Taste & Wellbeing recorded a sales increase of 5.2% on a like-for-like basis, and an increase of 7.5% in Swiss francs, with excellent sales growth recorded in Europe, Southeast Asia, Middle East, Africa, as well as Latin America.
The division was particularly impacted by higher raw materials, energy and freight costs, recorded an EBITDA of CHF 778 million compared to CHF 786 million in the prior year. On a comparable basis, the underlying EBITDA margin was 20.3% compared to 22.4% in the prior year. The decrease in the margin is as a result of the higher input costs, partially offset by price increases with clients. Please turn to slide 16 for the net income. The net income before tax was CHF 928 million in the year compared to CHF 965 million in 2021, with the decrease caused by higher non-operating expenses compared to 2021.
Although interest expenses remained stable, the group incurred higher realized and unrealized losses from fair value fluctuations of its financial instruments caused by the economic uncertainty in the financial markets, particularly during the first half of 2022. The effective tax rate decreased to 8% in 2022 compared to 15% in 2021. The net income was up to CHF 856 million in the year, which is a solid increase of 4.2%. The net income margin was 12% in 2022, and basic earnings per share was CHF 92.83 compared to CHF 89.03 in the prior year. Please turn to the next slide, which shows the free cash flow. In 2022, we had a free cash flow of 6.7% compared to 12.6% in 2021.
The decrease is mostly explained by the higher cash investment in working capital, driven by the need to manage the inbound supply chain disruptions that the group has been facing throughout the year in order to continue to deliver and to satisfy the needs of its customers. During the year, the group generated an absolute free cash flow of CHF 479 million compared to CHF 843 million in the prior year. Total net investment was CHF 289 million, and as a percentage of sales, net investments were 4.1% of sales compared to 3.7% in the prior year as the group continues to invest in growth. Working capital was 26.8% of sales compared to 24% in 2021. Please turn to slide 18.
This slide has been updated to include the final acquisition values of DDW and Custom Essence acquired in 2021. It gives you a perspective of the future expected amortization. I would like to remind you that on page 101 of the annual report, we provide a split of the changes in amortization on the various income statement lines. As an example, amortization of intangibles decreased by nearly CHF 20 million in R&D between 2021 and 2022. Please turn to slide 19. Over the last 22 years, the company has generated a cumulative CHF 10.7 billion of free cash flow. Including the proposed dividend for 2022, Givaudan has returned CHF 7 billion to shareholders in the form of either dividends or share buybacks since its spin-off in 2000.
As mentioned in previous years, this clearly underlines the strong commitment of Givaudan to return surplus cash to its shareholders. Based on the strong, resilient business model of Givaudan, it is with confidence that the board of directors will propose a further increase of the dividend to CHF 67 per share in 2022 from CHF 66 in 2021, an increase of 1.5%. Please turn to slide 20 to look at the debt profile of the group. This slide shows a well-balanced and stable debt profile compared to the prior year with interest rates, which have been locked in at attractive rates. At the end of the year, the net debt was CHF 4.5 billion, with a weighted average interest rate of 1.7% compared to 1.4% in 2021.
Finally, please turn to slide 21, which shows the net debt to EBITDA ratio. At the end of the year, the net debt to EBITDA ratio was 3.07 times, relatively stable compared to the 2.97 times at the end of 2021. With this, I would like to conclude my section of the presentation and hand back to Gilles.
Thank you, Tom. Now let me now come back to our 2025 Strategy and the outlook for 2023, which I will comment further in the coming slides. Turn now to slide 23. Let me quickly remind the main features of our 2025 Strategy. The company's 2025 ambition is to deliver sustainable value creation for all stakeholders. Givaudan's 2025 Strategy is fully in line with our purpose whilst placing customers at the heart of our business, supporting them to grow and creating products that are loved by consumers. The 2025 Strategy is focused on three growth drivers. The first one, expanding our portfolio, the second is extending our customer reach, and the third one is having a focused market strategies. All supported by four growth enablers which are aligned with the company's purpose, namely creations, nature, people, and communities.
These three growth drivers and four enablers are all underpinned by a commitment to excellence, innovation, and simplicity in everything we do. Let's turn now to slide 24. Ambitious targets are an integral part of Givaudan's 2025 Strategy with the company aiming to achieve organic sales growth of 4%–5% on a like-for-like basis, and a free cash flow of at least 12%, both measured as an average over the five-year strategic cycle until 2025. The company aims to deliver on key non-financial targets around sustainability, diversity, and safety linked to Givaudan's purpose. Let's move now to slide 25 on our 2023 outlook. We are confident in our capabilities, the quality of our portfolio, our creative strengths, and our ability to build on the strong start of this strategic cycle.
For 2023, let me share with you our priorities and focus areas. We remain very well positioned with our capabilities and our 2025 Strategy. We have a strong brief pipeline to support the growth with our customers as they innovate. Our input costs are expected to increase 5% in 2023. We will continue to be focused on delivering pricing actions to compensate for higher input costs. In terms of operational priorities, a performance improvement program is about to be launched, aiming at structurally improving our gross margin and our EBITDA margin over the course of this strategic cycle. It includes keeping our strong focus on operational excellence through the manufacturing and the supply chain footprint. It also includes an organizational simplification and further reducing the inventory levels through process optimization and continue cost and cash discipline across the business.
This will imply restructuring costs of up to CHF 60 million to be expected in 2023, out of which CHF 40 million in cash and CHF 20 million in non-cash. We expect from this initiative savings of CHF 60 million on an annualized basis, with CHF 40 million to come through in 2023 and fully in 2024. With that, we have arrived at the end of our 2022 full year presentation. I'd like to thank you for your attention. Now we look forward with Tom to your questions.
We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question or make a comment may press star and one on their touchtone telephone. You will hear a tone to confirm that you've entered the queue. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press Star and Two. Participants are requested to use only headsets while asking a question. Anyone who has a question or a comment may press star and one at this time. The first question comes from the line of Heidi Vesterinen from BNP Paribas, please go ahead.
Good afternoon. I have a first question on organic growth. I know you don't give annual guidance, but given the very low visibility out there for most of us listening to this call, could you help us with any hints or thoughts on volume growth in 2023, please? As a related question, could you talk more about what happened in Taste & Wellbeing North America, please? Because it seems to be down double digits. It's quite unusual to see that from Givaudan. What sort of categories and customer types were affected, and is this volume decline likely to continue? Is that, you know, happening in Q1? Lastly, perhaps your current thinking on M&A, please. Do you have large potential targets? Thank you.
Many questions, Heidi. Thank you. Organic growth, you know, essentially, to have, as you know, we commit on an average growth for 5 years, and we don't give any specific guidance on a given year. Not that we are hiding anything, it's just that the visibility, not just in 23, but always in every year is limited. The only thing we can control is the pricing actions that we have in place. The other part that we control is the amount of new wins that we win in a given year, which will have a positive effect on the volume growth the following year.
The third element, which is the erosion of the existing business, which essentially is the result of how good our customers are doing around the world, there is no crystal ball to do that. The only way to do that is actually to look, to look at the, at the historic sales, at the historic volume growth of Givaudan, which in fact, if you look at 3 years, 5 years, 10 years, 15 years, whatever the horizon you take, is actually quite steady. We contribute to products which are consumed on a very regular basis around the world, and Givaudan has always delivered on the continuous volume growth. That's basically my best answer to you, Heidi. On the price increase, I can be a bit more specific.
First, I mentioned that in 2022, we have encountered in the P&L an additional total CHF 360 million of input costs, which include CHF 270 million of additional raw mats and CHF 90 million of everything, logistics, freight, and energy. What we have always said is that we are in a good position to actually recover two-thirds of those 360, which we actually did, because that's part of the 5.3% growth that we have recorded in 2022. You have roughly 4% of price increase in 2022, which amounts to 270.
That means the remaining CHF 90 million or CHF 100 million have been already negotiated because it was part of the negotiations in 2022, and that will come in 2023 in full. The second, the second pricing element has to do with the guidance we are giving on the input costs that we are forecasting a 5% increase of raw mats for the group in 2023. That all actually have been already negotiated entirely, and that will kick for the full year in 2023. That's going to be another CHF 160 million. Basically you have already CHF 260 million of price increase in 2023, which is roughly exactly the same amount actually as 2022 in absolute terms.
In terms of new wins, you know, we track that especially for Fine Fragrances, Consumer Products and Taste & Wellbeing, and we have a very good inflow of new wins, which will come into 2023. The only thing I can say about the remaining volume growth is to talk more about the natural hedges of Givaudan. We are. It's in three dimensions, as you know, Heidi. From a geographic standpoint, we are everywhere. You can see again the natural hedges across Europe is playing in 2022 because, yes, everybody has been focusing on the decline in North America, but I actually had no question about why we have 11% growth in Europe.
One is actually more than compensating the other, and it's true also for high growth markets versus mature markets. Yes, we have the confidence level in 2023, but to give an exact figure is not easy. The second hedge, natural hedge is that we are across clients. Now we have 55% of our sales, which are with the local and regional clients that you don't have any figures because they don't usually are publishing their numbers since they are usually family-owned companies. This part most people don't see, but we see it in our figures, and I can testify for the strong growth that we have again delivered with this segment of clients in 2022, which has compensated for the actual volume decline that most of our global clients have published over 2022.
That's another natural hedge dimension that is important to remind. Across segments, you know, across segments, that's essentially, we are across all types of applications, but also all types of price points. You know, whether you have an expensive shower gel, a more affordable soap or an affordable snack versus a premium product in food, we are on all sides. Wherever consumers go, you know, down trading or going for more affordable and so forth, we are on both sides. That's also the natural hedge that it creates. That's the best answer I can give you. Givaudan is the best protected across whatever happens up or down, but difficult to get an exact an exact growth figure for the volume.
Lastly, yes, you know, all those products, actually 80%-90% of all the things that we do are consumed every day for basic essential needs, as you know, that consumers have. Specifically about Taste & Wellbeing North America, you know, overall we have roughly a 6% decline for Taste & Wellbeing. It's true that shows because obviously Taste & Wellbeing we report by region. What you don't actually see is that the Consumer Products part of Fragrance, which we don't report by region, also includes sales in North America, which have also shown a decline. A decline overall for the year, which is more or less in the same range as Taste & Wellbeing. What it shows is that, yes, there is...
It is a combination, and difficult again to give an exact, it's not an exact science, but certainly a combination of consumers having consumed less at the end of the day, on the back of a good growth in 2021. As it relates to the comparable growth quarter by quarter, where, yes, in the fourth quarter the decline was stronger than in the early part of the year, especially for Taste & Wellbeing. That certainly has to do with the fact that as supply chains were incurring disruptions and clients who are quite nervous to actually not miss sales, maybe there's been a certainly a bit of safety stock building in the course of 2021 into 2022, which as consumers consuming less, you know, those inventories were driven down by our clients.
Yes, there's a fair amount of building up and building down in terms of inventories. What's the split between destocking and consumption, nobody knows, including our clients. On a long-term basis, the U.S. will grow. The question is, you know, is basically by what amount and when. Finally, on acquisitions, you know, essentially, we are always looking at opportunities. We are looking at, we are active on every opportunity. The number of opportunities have certainly declined because most of the valuations have also declined. Maybe people are waiting for better times. We are still active looking, actively looking, in an opportunistic way. I hope it covered your three big questions, Heidi. You can always come back.
Very comprehensive. Thank you.
The next question comes from the line of Charles Eden from UBS. Please go ahead.
Hi. Good afternoon. Thanks for taking my questions. Just a quick follow-up on the volume question, and I fully appreciate your helpful comment to that. Just in terms of Q1, I know we've only had maybe 3 weeks of trading, but is there a sign for destocking is done in North America? I guess, given how quickly you've managed to get the full year results out for us, that you've got very live systems on the order tracking. Any comments around that would be helpful. Then secondly, on margins for 2023, I understand the 5% raw material inflation and also the arithmetic impact from pricing passes. Could you also discuss how you see some of the other major cost buckets, like freight, energy and wages developing this year? Maybe that's a question for Tom.
Then, very quick sort of follow-up on the restructuring program, which I assume also results in some job cuts. Are you able to sort of comment on where these job cuts are coming from? Is it sales personnel, R&D, head office staff or broad-based across all of those buckets? Thank you.
On the volume questions, you know, one, I can't really disclose where we stand in January for two reasons. One, because I'm not allowed, two, because it's only, as you say, two or three weeks, so very difficult to see. Again, you know, it's the best way to predict Givaudan is to look more on the multiple month basis. There I can't, you know, answer this question. On the second one, on the margin, you know, on the margin profile, I mean, I just will pass over to Tom, but I think, you know, in very simplistic but high level way, which I think is the best way to read our financial figures.
As I said, in 2022, the total input costs included almost a 10% raw mat increase, which is roughly CHF 270 million, plus CHF 90 million, which includes the sort of almost abnormal increase in logistics, freight and energy, which came in and impacted 2022. That's a total CHF 360 million, which again, we compensated with a price increase which amounted by CHF 270 million and CHF 90 million of frugality, essentially, without, as people might have asked the question, without cutting on our research and development capabilities. As it relates to 2023, we have, you know, we basically have... I will let Tom add, but essentially to talk on the restructuring program.
Essentially this is, you know, because obviously I can't give details. No data has to be obviously discussed, validated with the different employee representatives in the different countries. We'll go actually quite fast. And this is really across the different divisions and support functions, but not impairing significantly our ability to grow with and to innovate, you know, with our commercial research and development resources. Tom, maybe you want to add.
Yeah, thanks, Gilles. You know, Charles, if you look on the long-term margin, and I think, you know, we've discussed this many, many times together. You know, our free cash flow, our long-term guidance is free cash flow as a percentage of sales, more than 12%. You know, the numbers as well as I in that requires a certain EBITDA level. If you look historically where we've been, we've been somewhere between 22% and 24%. You know, that's the sort of expectation that we would have if we talk about our 2025 guidance. You know, of course, the restructuring or the reorganization that Gilles just referred to is part of that, getting back to where we've been historically.
Of course, we've talked about the pricing actions that we've taken. As the supply chain has started to ease, you know, we see that we are now able to accelerate the integration of the acquired companies. You see it already in our 2022 numbers in terms of the investments that we've been making on the digital side. As we just announced today, you know, we have some restructuring costs, which is non-cash, which is actually related to supply chain and footprint optimization. You know, I would see a really a two to three year journey in terms of recovery of what we would call our fair share of both gross margin and EBITDA margin.
That's helpful. Thank you.
The next question comes from the line of Isha Sharma from Stifel. Please go ahead.
Hi, good afternoon. I just have two left, please. Your R&D and admin costs are meaningfully down in the second half. Tom, you also mentioned on the amortization slide a little bit, could you elaborate more on that? Is this a level that is sustainable, that we should think of going forward? The second one is on the restructuring costs. In general, you guided us that for the acquisitions that you have made recently, we should assume a CHF 50 million integration costs on the special items line. Is this CHF 60 million coming on top of that, or does it include also the integration charges? Thank you.
Just Isha, on the R&D, which is the number that I have top-of-mind, I think there's overall there's about a CHF 40 million reduction if you look at the face of the P&L in R&D. CHF 20 million of that or nearly CHF 20 million is amortization. Actually, about CHF 10 million is currency. You know, again, we show the currency slide just to remind you that we are a global business and, you know, it depends very much on where our R&D facilities are located. Just as a reminder, we have a large R&D facility in the U.K. in Ashford, and of course, with the weakening pound that, you know that has an impact on the reported R&D, but not on the underlying structure of the business. That's about another CHF 10 million.
You know, we have various smaller cost savings on R&D. You know, we are not, and Gilles referred to it a couple of times, when you see again the innovation pipeline and the number of projects that are coming through, we are absolutely convinced that, you know, we need to invest a certain amount of R&D, so that we can differentiate in the market and our clients can differentiate in the market as well. No, no cut on the underlying research and development. That was the first question. Sorry, on the second question, can you just? Yeah.
The-
On the implementation, sorry, on the implementation cost. you know, most of the implementation cost this year is on the people side, as we mentioned. We have about CHF 20 million of non-cash, which is related to site closures.
Right. I was just wondering if the acquisition, if the integration costs that you incur in general is close to CHF 40 million–CHF 50 million, is that something that you're going to postpone for later or how does that?
That will probably come into 2024, to be honest, Isha. What we've talked about so far this year is the reorganization that Gilles referred to.
Perfect. Thank you so much.
The next question comes from the line of Matthew Yates from Bank of America. Please go ahead.
Hey, good afternoon, gentlemen. We touched on this a bit already, but that really stark contrast in your taste performance between Europe and America. I think you've explained the American impact in terms of customer destocking. Just curious why we haven't necessarily seen that in Europe. Were buffer stocks never built up to begin with, or is that still to come in the coming quarters? Maybe this one's for Tom Hallam, just around the cash flow. You said you chose to strategically invest in working capital to support the customers, which obviously makes sense. I was a bit surprised by the 15% decline in payables. I was wondering if you could just explain that a little bit and whether that means you're sitting on excess inventory within Givaudan at the moment.
Yeah. Thank you. Yeah, the performance of Taste & Wellbeing is as unusual in Europe as it is in the U.S., I must say. Actually, it's not something actually specific to Givaudan, because if you look at the space of ingredients in total, the growth in Europe has been strong. It's not just about Givaudan, even if we are performing very well and gaining shares and so forth. You know, yes, you could argue that why is Europe not slowing down? You know, actually the outlook in Europe from an economic standpoint now turns out to be positive again.
The only thing I can say is that we've been growing across all clients, across all segments, so there's nothing specific about types of products or types of clients. I would say that even if there would have been, you know, the building stock cannot explain 11% and certainly we have not seen destocking. That's my best answer. You know, essentially, it's a great result. We believe that, you know, even if there's been a bit of stockpiling up, maybe, even if there is, you know, destocking, the impact will be minimal. The big question is, you know, will the consumption at the retail continue to be strong? That's more the bigger question.
Any destocking or stocking is only temporary. Reflects basically the consumer demand, what's going up, what's happening at the retail side. That's more the bigger question. You know, are we going to see a sustained volume as it relates to consumption in Europe? The only difference between Europe and the U.S., though, is that in Europe, we include obviously a certain amount of high growth markets in there that you don't have in the U.S., which obviously are always operating at high growth rates, like Eastern Europe, like the Middle East and so on.
Yeah. Matthew, on the working capital, you know, we can go through the technical aspects of it, of. You know, when inventory is received and accrued and paid and so on. We can just, you know, sort of stay at the high level, which I think is probably the simplest. You know, fundamentally, we had high levels in 2022. It's, you know, as we both Gilles and I have mentioned, in order to support our clients as the supply chain was so disrupted, our total working capital is at the end of the year, 26.8% of sales. There is absolutely no issue on the underlying accounts receivable on the underlying accounts payable. It's really a question of inventory.
If you look overall at where we would expect to be over the next two to three years, Gilles, in particular, referred to the, to the supply chain, let's say optimization now. We would target somewhere between 23% and 24% of sales for working capital over the next two to three years. We're at 26.8% at the end of the year. We want to get back to that 23%–24% over the next two to three years, that is fundamentally, reduction in inventory levels.
Thank you, guys.
I think we're about to take the last question, operator.
The last question comes from the line of Lisa De Neve with Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.
Hi, good afternoon, and thank you for taking my question, Gilles and Tom. I leave it to one. Can you please share what your customers' appetite is at this point for innovation and new launches? I mean, the last one to two years may have been, in some cases, innovation or new launches may have been held back by a variety of supply chain challenges on your level and on the customer level. Will you please share what you're seeing at your customers today and how you expect the launch cycle sort of to ramp up over the next 12 months? Thank you very much.
Thank you. I think we cannot have a single the same answer for all product categories because it all depends. You know, usually the rate of new launches depends on how the market is actually doing. If you take obviously Fine Fragrances, you know, actually there's been many, many new launches in which, you know, actually, Givaudan was very happy to contribute with great perfume. Actually the number of launches is correlated to the buoyancy of the market, and that's true for Fine Fragrances. And the reverse is true. When there was the pandemic, you had almost actually no launches of new fragrances. When there was an economic downturn in 2008, that was the same. You see that for fine.
You see that for Active Beauty, which is very doing very well on skincare and so on. A fair amount of, you know, if you look across Taste & Wellbeing, obviously a lot of, you know, promising launches around beverages, which continue to be a strong category, around plant-based proteins with new food solutions. You know, essentially, we have an aggregated good number of new launches. In any case, if you have less new launches, usually you also have less erosion, because obviously, new launches replace erosion. At the end of the day, what matters is how much consumers consume, and whether that's through existing businesses, existing products or new products. That's the net consumption which matters. That's really what we can say.
Essentially, we are not in a position to say that across geographic clients are becoming reluctant to launch new products. We don't see that.
Thank you very much.
Okay, that was the last question. I thank you. Thank you everyone for your attention, for your questions. I'd like to remind you that we publish our Q1 2023 sales results, the first quarter sales results on the 13th of April. You are welcome to register to our annual investor conference, which will be held in-person, finally back in-person in Vernier, close to Geneva in Switzerland. Thank you very much.
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