Good morning, everybody. Good morning here in Kilchberg, and good morning to those who attend virtually online. I welcome you to the presentation of the group results, the financial results of Lindt & Sprüngli for 2022. Before I start, allow me one comment. When I entered this room yesterday, I was rather flashed by the decoration here. I thought, "I'm in Las Vegas somewhere." Probably it's because it's my first press conference here in Kilchberg. You are used to these fancy decorations. For me, it's a perfect example how the people work at Lindt & Sprüngli. They do everything they do with love and with passion, and especially you can see the love for our products and for our brands.
I would like to give a big thank you to the deco team, but also to the rest of the organization team for this press conference. Let me guide you through the agenda of this morning. I will quickly browse through the key figures and market trends, give you some market insights and highlights about the areas where we operate. I will hand over to our CFO, Martin Hug, who will present you the financial results and tell you about our efforts on sustainability. I will give you a quick outlook about our expectations in the future, and then we are here for you for question and answers. 10.8% organic growth last year.
We have published these figures already a couple of weeks ago. I think it simply shows how resilient the Lindt & Sprüngli business model is because last year was certainly not an easy year. It was quite challenging for us with the inflation that we saw globally, with the energy crisis, with the consumer sentiment declining substantially. Still you can see that consumers, also in tough times, long for the comfort of a premium chocolate, or should I say, especially in tough times.
We are also proud of the 15% EBIT margin. Here, we have to say that we benefited from the rebounds that we saw in retail post-COVID, also from the rebounds that we saw in the travel retail business, but also from supply chain issues that we could fix in North America and that contributed over proportionally to the improvement of our EBIT margin to 15%. The free cash flow margin at 10.6% is slightly below the level of the prior years. Reason is that we also increased our inventories to be protected against disruptions in our supply chain, so mainly packaging material was something that was not easy to be shipped or to be ordered last year.
The increase in earnings with 17.9% is also something we are proud of, and our dividends that we propose is CHF 1,300. I looked a bit in our archives, and I found that this is the 28th consecutive year where we increased our dividend. To give you just one comparison, back in 1995, we had a dividend of CHF 50. I think this is quite an impressive development what we give back to our shareholders. Global chocolate market and trends in 2022, I think, I don't have to elaborate in detail. We all know that the geopolitical situation has been a challenge. We saw soaring energy prices that also hit our P&L.
The inflation we experienced was unprecedented in the last decades. We saw it globally. The impact, we mainly saw it here in Europe. Of course, the war in Ukraine is perceived a bit more intense here in Europe. In the U.S. and in the rest of the world, the spending behavior of consumers was still a bit more robust and positive. Despite these headwinds that we saw, the global chocolate markets continued to grow. We also saw that premium chocolate was still able to gain market share in this environment. The global trends that we see, premium chocolate is still increasing. We see this in line with an ever-increasing middle class, not only here in Europe or in the U.S., but mainly also in emerging markets.
We see at the same time lifestyle trends like vegan, sugar reduced, free from, and we address all of these trends you find here on your right side. Our vegan products that we have recently launched, Russell Stover is very strong with sugar-free products, and we also are working on free from or all natural products which our main assortment is anyhow. Sustainability is something which is of ever increasing importance for our consumers, so we will communicate stronger also in the future our efforts on sustainability. What we also see during the pandemic, shopping was more of a functional thing. Availability of products was the main concern, and people are looking more and more for emotional shopping experiences.
I will give you some examples how we also contribute or try to create emotional shopping experience together with our trade partners in wholesale, in our own retail stores, but also in our online stores with a great user experience. Let's have a look into the different markets. We achieved CHF 4.97 billion, nearly CHF 5 billion. As you know, traditionally, Europe is the strongest part of our business, representing 46.2% of total sales. North America is catching up strongly with an over proportional growth rate, 40.8% of our total sales. Rest of the world with the strongest growth last year, but also in the years before, still only 13%. Why do I say only?
The chocolate markets in this area represent 30%, we still have a huge room to grow there, and this is certainly where we want to increase our efforts to address these markets in the future. Coming to our biggest area, Europe, 5.3% organic growth. It is lower than our total group growth, but we have to mention that we closed our Russian business last year due to the war in Ukraine. Would we eliminate this impact, the organic growth would have been 6.4%, which is rather in line with the mid and long-term growth that we have seen in the well-established markets in Europe. Germany, biggest market, not only in Europe, but still biggest subsidiary in the group, representing nearly 15% of total group sales.
France, 8%, U.K., Italy, Switzerland, and then rest of Europe. If we see the growth rates of the European markets, we can say that in most markets we saw a healthy organic growth. We saw still LINDOR being our hero item or our key franchise with a strong driver of the growth. We also saw that post-COVID, with the increasing social life, gifting products benefited from this. Our seasonal products, Easter, Christmas, but also our assorted pralines showed strong growth. On the other side, we saw post-pandemic as people went out more for out-of-home consumption also that the self-consumption business was more normalized. Recovery of tourism, something where we benefit in our retail stores as we are represented in many touristic locations.
Of course, also we are strong player in the travel retailer. I come to this later. Here again, the impact of Russia. The total group growth would have been 11.4% without this closure in Russia. At the very end, I want to show you something more positive. We celebrated 70 years of GOLD BUNNY in our group. I will show you a short video how we cooperated with a trade partner in Germany and created a really an enchanting and exciting presentation on the point of sale. Let's have a quick look into this video. The installation of this 5-meter GOLD BUNNY that you have seen consists of 7,000 original bells from the 1 kilo GOLD BUNNY, all hanging on a string.
Wherever we place this huge installation, it's a selfie point, and people are mesmerized and overwhelmed. Let's go to the next region, North America. 15.7% organic growth. If we look into the individual subsidiaries, we can see that all our subsidiaries contributed with double-digit growth rates. For us, especially encouraging, Russell Stover, our youngest baby in the portfolio, also managed to grow double digit. The most important and most significant increase that we have to report is an improvement of the EBIT level of our North American area.
With 7.7%, it was lagging far behind group average, we could improve by 320 basis points, mainly by fixing supply chain issues, but also by leveraging economies of scale with the strong growth that we experienced. Today, we are at 10.9% EBIT, we will continue to catch up to the group average EBIT margin levels. We significantly invest in our production facility in Stratham, also to be prepared for further growth in North America, which we plan and expect. LINDOR was again the key growth driver in this market. It is produced in Stratham for the North American market. We also develop products for the local needs of the North American customers. Here one example is an Almond Butter flavor, which is a popular flavor in the U.S.
We also develop advertising locally for the U.S. customer, and I will show you one example here. It's a new emotional Christmas TV copy, which has tested so well that we will also air it here in Europe.
This year, take the time to melt into your holiday moments with LINDOR. Irresistibly smooth chocolate from the Lindt Master Chocolatier.
Yeah. Going on to Ghirardelli, with this switch from one brand to the other brand, from Lindt to Ghirardelli, you can also see that our strategy addressing the North American market with three different brands which are clearly positioned differently works because all these three brands contribute to the strong growth in North America. Ghirardelli benefited certainly from the rebound of the retail business. I don't know if you have ever been to San Francisco, at the San Francisco Ghirardelli Square and have experienced a hot fudge sundae there. It is a tourist attraction that you shouldn't miss. Of course, during the pandemic, these tourists haven't been there. We are also represented in all Disneylands all over the U.S. They have been closed for many months in 2020, and also in 2021.
In 2022 they were open, and so we saw a strong growth in our retail business. One of these stores at the Ghirardelli Square in San Francisco, it is the most historic location that we have. We made a renovation to increase the consumer and customer experience. I also want to show you a short video, how we also go new ways in communicating such a message. We invited bloggers and influencers to spread the good news. I will show you a short video, how one of these bloggers reported excitedly about the opening of our new store at the Ghirardelli Square.
Looking for something to do this weekend? Check out the Ghirardelli chocolate experience. When you head in, grab a bag or a tin and fill it with as many chocolates as you can fit. This location is the world's largest selection with over 20 flavors to choose from. Then you can even print a custom tag to complete your bag. How cute. Next, head on over to the chocolate bar for live hot fudge and chocolate-making demos. Then, of course, you can't miss out on their World Famous Hot Fudge Sundaes. Yum.
I hope you got some appetite for a hot fudge sundae. Our third brand, Russell Stover. As you know, we it was quite a challenge to integrate it into our group. We did a lot of changes. We closed the factory, and we also had some supply chain issues, which was the reason why in 2021 we didn't show a strong growth at Russell Stover, but we could solve this in 2022, and the result is double-digit growth for the company. Coming to the third segment, rest of the world, as mentioned, CHF 650 million, we see a huge growth potential in this area. Also last year, with 16.6%, was quite an encouraging result, driven by global travel retail, which doubled the business. It was the second consecutive year.
You remember that in 2020, the global tourism collapsed literally. Also our business and the business on the airports collapsed. In 2021 we saw already a nice rebound, and we doubled the business again in 2022. We are still not on the level of 2019. We expect a further strong growth rate of global travel retail also in 2023. Coming to Brazil. Brazil with a 41% growth rate, we have a very special route to market in Brazil. We have a highly successful retail business there. Brazil is a huge chocolate market, but with a relatively low purchase power of the average population. With our route to market entering the premium shopping malls, we are able to address the affluent customers in these shopping malls.
You can see on the growth rate that this model works really well. In addition, we have built a brand awareness only with these own retail stores that allowed us now to integrate also the wholesale business into our own management. Also wholesale is now picking up and showing a strong growth rate. Coming to China. In China, we again have a very special route to market. Also here we adapted to the local characteristics of the market. We generate the main part of our sales in the online channels. I want to show you again a short video here how we address the consumers there. Social commerce is in China a very strong business.
It means that you see your favorite Celebrity or whatever that you follow on TikTok. There, if she presents a product, you can click and land or end up directly in the online store and can immediately buy this product. We will see one example here. Social commerce and video selling is also growing strongly here in Europe and in North America. This is for us a case study where we can learn and we can also roll this model out in other markets. Japan, the last market with 10% growth. You know that in Japan, our growth also derives mainly from a very successful retail chain that we have there. Also they developed for the local market needs, a special flavor, very popular in Japan, LINDOR Sakura.
I want to show you how this looks like. This is one of our flagship stores in Tokyo I've been visiting recently. Let's come now to the last part, global retail. As you know, the global retail sales are reported in the countries, but we manage the global retail division centrally here from Kilchberg. We run 500 physical stores in 19 different countries. We extended the number of our eShops, of our online shops from nine to 24 within two years, now on a global platform, and we achieved a growth rate of 22% as mentioned. This was certainly also a special effect post pandemic. We see the retail channel of Lindt & Sprüngli not only as a contributor to our profitable growth, but mainly as a unique brand-building opportunity.
I think this is a very strong point of difference to our competitors. None of them has a direct to consumer channel as we have it. We know consumers who visit our retail stores have a much better image of our brand and also buy more in the wholesale channel, and therefore it's really a mutual benefit for retail and wholesale. We try to provide a seamless shopping experience between offline and online, and we play the trend for personalization and gifting. In every store you find a printer. When you buy a gift there, you can print the name of the receiver of this gift, and this always makes a very good impression. What we roll out at the moment is a so-called smart data project.
We launch a loyalty program called My Lindt, so that we get access to first-party data and can learn from the shopping patterns and behavior from our customers to even better tailor the offer that we provide in our stores. With this said, I would like to hand over to our CFO, Martin Hug. He will give you insights about our financial results.
Welcome everyone here in Kilchberg. Also welcome everybody online. It's really great to present the financial results to you today. As Adalbert has already said, 2022 certainly was not an easy year with regards to the environment. You know, we had very volatile markets. You know, we had quite a lot of pressure from the cost side. You know, if you think about raw materials, packaging materials, supply chain costs, you know, across the globe, we're under pressure. Of course, also energy prices going through the roof. Despite this difficult environment, we have been able to deliver a very good set of numbers. You know, organic sales growth we have already seen. Our guidance was 8%-10%, so we have delivered close to 11%.
EBIT margin was definitely under pressure in general, we have been able to deliver 90 basis points additional EBIT margin to 15.0%, which is in line with our guidance as well. Free cash flow for me is also a key highlight. You know, we are able again to deliver double-digit free cash flow margin, above CHF 500 million free cash flow. Good news there as well, and in line with our guidance of around 10%. Earnings per share going up by 18%, you know, driven on the one side by the higher profitability, but also driven by our share buyback program, which we continued, and we repurchased about CHF 550 million worth of shares. Net debt at about CHF 570 million.
If you compare that with our EBITA, which I will show you later, which was actually CHF 1 billion, we have still a very low leverage with regards to our balance sheet, 0.5-0.6 times. Still a very good performance here as well. Shareholder return, we have seen the dividend. The dividend proposal is CHF 1,300, which is CHF 100 higher than one year ago. That means our dividend yield is roughly 1.5%, which is also in line with actually the last few years. Payout ratio is coming down to 50%. That's actually our target for the future as well, 50% payout ratio. It was at 54.6%, so you can see this gradually coming down to 50%.
The share buyback I have already mentioned. We have repurchased CHF 550 million. We have finished actually the first payback in June, and then we have restarted another one over CHF 1 billion over a period of two years. We have repurchase of that second one, CHF 250 million in 2022. Share price development and market cap. If you look at the last five years, we can definitely see an increase here of 30% from market cap of CHF 16.5 billion in 2018 up to CHF 22.5 billion at year-end. If you took actually yesterday's numbers, we would be up to about CHF 25 billion. That's even an increase of 40% compared to 2018.
Organic sales growth over the last five years, you can see here, of course, 2020 was the COVID year. If you look at the weighted average, the CAGR over the last five years, we are roughly at 6%. You can see we are kind of back on track. You know, 6%-8% is our goal. I should mention here, you know, a couple of channels where we have still some catch-up to do going forward. On the one hand, it is global retail. We have had a fantastic performance last year, but there's still some catch-up to do. We see increase in tourism compared to 2019. Then we also have travel retail, which we have doubled. Again, a fantastic performance last year, but we are not quite back at the 2019 level yet.
Sales gross CHF at 8.4%. Unfortunately, I have to say, as usual, almost lower than organic growth because of the CHF . The CHF has strengthened once more, this time against the EUR and against the GBP. Basically coming in here at 8.4%. I think a very interesting chart is to break down actually the sales further to 10.8 organic sales into, on the one side, price mix, on the other side, volume. Roughly the 11% organic growth is split: on the one side, 8% price mix, and on the other side we have a volume of slightly lower than 3%. We still have very positive volume growth, which is good news.
Price mix, also, of course, because of the pressure from the cost side, we had to do price increases. Price mix, the split there is roughly 50/50. Sales analysis by market. I'm not going too much into the details because we have already heard from Bert, you know, what were the key drivers. I think surely key highlights here for me, North America has been one of the growth engines last year. The good news is all five subsidiaries, so the 3 U.S. subsidiaries, as well as Lindt Canada and Lindt Mexico, grew double digit. Very nice performance there throughout the entire business. Europe, 5.3, we have seen actually without Russia it's rather 6.5%. Roughly in line with what we expect in general from Europe.
Rest of world, driven by key markets like China, Brazil, and Japan growing double-digit, with a very nice performance of 16.6%. I've already mentioned in my introduction, you know, costs were a challenge and still are a challenge. Material costs, if you look at that, you know, we have important ingredients in there like milk, like sugar, which almost doubled in costs in 2022. We have also packaging material costs, which went up by about 20%. You can see that the material cost ratio increased by 70 basis points from 33.1% to 33.8%. Cocoa was actually more or less flat in 2022, but looking forward, cocoa is now also going up.
I mean, we have seen a certain decline in the milk prices, but at the same time now cocoa has gone up in the last weeks and month by about 15%. We are today at roughly 2,000 pounds per metric ton, and that number was 1,751 one year ago. Definitely still some cost pressure here also on cocoa. Personnel expenses, I would say in terms of costs, good news here. I mean, we have different trends here. On the one side, we have economies of scale because of the higher sales. We have higher efficiencies. You know, we have worked a lot on efficiency programs across the factories, across the business, especially in North America, which we announced in 2019, but also in Europe and in rest of world.
Efficiencies apart from economies of scale. On the other side, of course, we have higher wages, we have wage inflation, we have higher salaries. The good news is that the efficiencies plus, the higher sales have been able to offset the negative impact. We are down from 21.5%- 20.3%. Operating expenses. There are two major cost elements in here. On the one side, we have advertising, which I consider an investment, of course, behind our brands. We have costs like supply chain costs in here, logistics, et cetera. This ratio has been flat at 26.0%, 21- 22. Overall, the number went up by CHF 100 million. It shows you that we have been able to invest more into advertising, which is good news in 2022.
At the same time, we had higher costs on the supply chain side, which is not a surprise. Depreciation, more or less flat actually over the last three years at CHF 275 million, no big news with regards to the absolute value. In terms of percent, it came down. Also operating leverage here, down from 6% to 5.5%. We come to the operating profit. I think that's definitely one of the key highlights of this presentation. I think this 90 basis points improvement on the EBIT margin. I mean, you have seen we had severe headwinds coming from raw materials, coming from packaging, coming also from energy prices and also from supply chain.
It is really great that we have been able to offset it, you know, through efficiencies, throughout economies of scale, thanks to our good growth, and also to some extent through price increases. Overall, EBIT came up by CHF 100 million absolute and 15.5%, if we look at the growth in percent. The key driver here has been North America, as Bert has shown you, 320 basis points better EBIT margin. For me, the good news is that's actually above our guidance. We expect an EBIT margin in North America of 9.5%-10% this year.
The great news is that our efficiency programs that we started to implement in 2019 are starting to pay dividends and, 320 basis points in 2022, and I'm expecting between 50 and 100 basis points per year over the next few years as well in North America. Europe is slightly down. Part of it is driven by Russia. In Europe, you're also slightly delayed with regards to price increases. Rest of world, as well, a very good performance. Of course, there the numbers are smaller in EBIT, but also up from 16% to 17.8%. EBITDA, for those who are interested in here, I think also a very good performance. The first time ever actually at above CHF 1 billion. I think that's also an important achievement here.
Free cash flow is the other good news. I think for the fourth consecutive year, we have been able to deliver a free cash flow above CHF 500 million. It's CHF 526, and it's also completely in line with our guidance of about 10% free cash flow to sales. We achieved 10.6%. That's actually despite the fact that we have built up our inventories because of the uncertain supply chains around the globe. You know, we want to be on the safe side, so we have increased our inventories, which had obviously a negative impact on our net working capital, but still good number here. Capital expenditures at about CHF 230 million. I mean, some of the big investments are in New Hampshire, in Lindt USA, right?
Where we are expanding to be ready for higher volumes in the future. Also here in Switzerland, for example, in Olten, we have quite large investments to improve or to increase our capacity also for our cocoa liquor, which we deliver to many of the production sites. The tax rate is flat at 21%, not too many details here. The net income also up by almost 16% to CHF 570 million, so also a CHF 80 million increase on the net income. Here we are back to pre-COVID levels as well, which I really think is good news. Earnings per share up by 18%. I mean, you have seen net income up by 16%, and then we have also done the share buyback of more than CHF 550 million.
That also helped our earnings per share increase of 18%. Net financial position. Here, I have shown you this in the first chart, that -CHF 570 million. It came down slightly, or it came down by about CHF 300 million, which was driven by the free cash flow on the one side of CHF 526 million. We had a cash outflow of CHF 835 million, giving money back to the shareholders on the one side in the form of dividends last year of CHF 284 million, and then the share buyback of CHF 550 million. The combination of this was the CHF 835 million.
You can see that there's an overall cash outflow between free cash flow and return to shareholder of about CHF 300 million. This CHF 570 million we should put in context with the CHF 1 billion EBITDA I've shown you. We should also bear in mind that there are some lease accounting transactions in there, lease liability of CHF 430 billion. If you excluded that because it's pure accounting, our net debt would actually be at about CHF 140 million compared to the CHF 1 billion EBITDA. It's a very safe picture still. The same can be said about the equity ratio. It is still at 55%. You know, we have still a very high equity. We have a high liquidity. We had about CHF 850 million liquidity at the end of 2022.
It is still a very good set of numbers here as well on the equity and on the liquidity. In summary, that was my last chart on the financials. In summary, you have seen really great performance, of course, on the organic side, organic sales growth. We delivered to 90 basis points higher EBIT margin, driven by North America, mainly. You know, in North America, improved actually EBIT margin by 320 basis points. At the same time, we have been able to deliver very good free cash flow, CHF 526 million, despite the fact that we have increased our inventories, and we have been able to increase our earnings per share by 18%, at the same time keeping a very safe equity ratio and a very safe liquidity.
Really a very good set of numbers in 2022. After the summary on the financials, let me also give you a short overview about our activities in sustainability. Our history of more than 175 years demonstrates that we are a long-term oriented company. You know, if you look at sustainability, it is about the long term. We are always thinking long term. Our Lindt & Sprüngli plan, our Lindt & Sprüngli Sustainability Plan is really our Lindt & Sprüngli strategy on sustainability, and it is our commitment for a better tomorrow. It is actually built around the four pillars that you can see here. It is around the consumers on the one side. It is a bit about improving livelihoods, so about our cocoa, especially cocoa programs, our cocoa farming program. It's also about the environment, you know.
Contributing to an intact environment, and it is about performing together. It's about the people, you know, how to motivate people, how to create a better working environment every day, and also about health and safety in our factories. On the next three charts, I'm giving you now a quick overview on the highlights on sustainability. I'm showing you the highlights of 2021 because the 2022 report is going to be published in May, June 2023 only. I'm giving you the highlights on 22, then I'm going to do a quick deep dive on the Farming Program. At the end, I'm talking about the environmental topic, science-based targets as well. What are the highlights in 2021? We have worked with more than 90,000 farmers in our cocoa farming programs.
You know, carbon footprint, I'm covering at the end. One of the key goals of our farming program is really about tackling the child labor risk. Our goal is to have rolled out the CLMRS, Child Labor Monitoring and Remediation System, in all our farms by 2025. You know, with this system, we can detect possible child labor early. We can remediate it. We can work with the farmers. We can make sure the kids go to school, so we can really tackle the problem once we have rolled it out to 100%, so to all our farmers. Another key achievement was the 64% cocoa, including butter, including powder and chocolate that we source for us in store, having covered through sustainability programs. You know, we are already at 100% for our cocoa beans since 2020.
For the other materials like butter, et cetera, we want to be at 100% in 2025. We have distributed close to 3 million shade trees. Alone in 2021, it was about 900,000. We are delivering, or we are handing out shade trees to the farmers. You know, we have also published a new human rights policy, which was approved by the board. We are not only tackling the child labor issue, we are in general looking at human rights topics, to be able also, under the new laws, to do a due diligence on these topics. Then, you know, it's not only about cocoa, it's also about all the other raw materials and packaging materials.
We have the goal to cover 80% of raw materials and of packaging materials through our sustainability programs by 2025. We are well on track to deliver against those targets as well. As I mentioned before, the Lindt & Sprüngli Farming Program, I would say it's really the heart of our sustainability activities. There are four pillars that we are basically looking at here. The first one is tracing our beans. You know, if you think about sustainability, traceability is always at the forefront, because if you don't know from where you have your materials, it's impossible to have an impact, right? Once we know exactly who are the farmers that deliver our beans, we can work with them.
We can tackle issues like child labor, or we can help the farmers to increase their living income. Traceability is the number one and the first pillar. The next one is really training the farmers. You know, we train the farmers at the end of the day with the goal to improve their living income, to improve their productivity on the farms, right? If they can increase the kilos or tons they produce on their farms, they will have a higher income. That's one leg of the training, and the other one is really about helping them to have multiple crops. You know, if they can diversify apart from cocoa into other crops, that also helps their living income. We are doing lots of investments in West Africa as well.
You know, if you think about schools, we are investing in schools, we are investing in boreholes to make sure the farmers have access to fresh water. That's very important. You know, for us also, you know, we don't wanna be the only ones checking these programs. We have an independent party that actually does the verification of the programs to really make sure, hey, are we following all the guidelines that we are supposed to follow or that our suppliers are supposed to follow? That's another important pillar of these programs. Ultimately, the objectives are really three. One, decrease the child labor risk. Two, improve the living income. Three, to conserve the biodiversity and also the natural ecosystems.
You know, Bertold and I have had the pleasure to go to Ghana in November. It was super interesting to look at the farming program. We were actually able to go from the tree, talk to the farmers in the farms to the port, you know, where the cocoa is shipped. It is really fantastic to see what impact our Lindt Farming program has in Ghana. You know, we have also seen in external studies that the farmers have been able to improve their productivity in the last years. Talking about conserving biodiversity and the environment, I think this is a good step to talk about science-based targets. You know, we have co-committed to defining science-based targets for scope one, two, and three . scope one is what happens in our factories.
Scope two is basically the energy that we buy to produce chocolate in our factories. Scope three is everything else. If I say everything else, I mean mainly raw materials that we source, packaging material that we source, and then also, for example, transportation that happens to deliver our products to the final consumer. After committing to defining science-based targets, we have also worked on the footprint in 2021. We now know exactly, you know, what footprint do we have in Scope one, Scope two, Scope three. You know, by far the biggest is Scope three. You know, the sourcing of the raw materials and the packaging is about 95% of our footprint. We have started to work on a roadmap. How can we tackle the different emissions?
How can we reduce the emissions, basically? That's something we have done in 2022. We have then also set our goals, you know. We have a long-term goal, which is net zero by 2050. We have also a midterm goal, and we have set these goals to the Science Based Targets initiative, which is the organization that works on these science-based targets. Once we get the feedback from them, we will publish our science-based targets, and that should be in the second half of 2023. Of course, now we have already started with some implementation, and then we will start tackling all the different projects to improve on this topic as well. I mean, it's a very important topic for us.
I mean, Bertold and I have spent many hours with the teams to understand the topic better because it's. At the end of the day, it's going to cost a lot of money. It's going to cost resources. It is very interesting for us also to understand the details, and it's definitely one of the important future strategy that we have as part of our business transformation. With that, I'm ending my section here. You have seen sustainability also very important part of our strategy. You know, I mean, it's not only a Lindt & Sprüngli Farming Program, it's also the environmental pillar, and it is really a program that goes across all the ESG topics. With that, I'm handing over to Bertold, who will talk about the growth agenda and also the outlook. Thanks.
Thank you, Martin. The last chapter of our presentation, I will give you a short outlook, what we expect for the years to come and how we define our growth agenda. We have created a growth agenda with three pillars in the shape of a pyramid. Like in a pyramid, the bottom pillar is the biggest, which means that our biggest management attention goes into this pillar, and this is to build on our strengths. We have a success-proven business model that has delivered for many, many years, we can say decades, great results, and we have to make sure that we continue to grow in our key markets, to grow with the key franchises, that we keep and foster our entrepreneurial culture, which also differentiates us from our competitors.
We are a decentralized organization with a very lean headquarters that tries to give a professional support, tries to give strategic guidance, aligns objectives with the subsidiaries. Once we have this alignment, the subsidiaries are fully empowered and fully accountable to deliver the results. The second pillar, we call it Adapt, is the pillar where we have to improve. Here I have listed some topics. Emerging markets, as mentioned, we have a far below average market share there. Supply chain challenges also. We are not flexible enough as we source the products in emerging markets, mainly out of Europe or of the U.S. We will find solutions to provide more flexibility for these far distant markets. Sustainability, very high on the priority list, also on my personal priority list. As Martin has mentioned, one of our...
One of my first trips led us to Ghana to see with our own eyes, our Lindt & Sprüngli Farming Program, what is the impact, how do the farmers react, and what are their needs? Diversity and inclusion, we have developed a roadmap. We know that we have room for improvement also here, and we are working on this. Digitalization, I think we made big steps forward in the last years. I've mentioned before, 24 online shops in 24 different countries, but also our cooperation with pure players like Amazon, or with click-and-mortar or with the big retail partners, is very strongly growing. We know that we have good market shares already in this digital era. As you know, digitalization goes far beyond only the digital channels.
RGM stands for Revenue Growth Management, something that we also installed in the last years, here in the headquarter. It should help us to generate funds to invest behind our brand. Secondary franchises. You see the word key franchises in our bottom pillar. In the established markets, we have next to the three key franchises that we have defined, which is LINDOR, EXCELLENCE, and our GOLD BUNNY. Next to these key franchises, we have strong secondary franchises in the established markets, which we did not yet roll out in the new markets, and I call them sleeping beauties. I think this is the next step that we have to take for our growth agenda. Gifting is something which goes together perfectly with the DNA of our premium brands at Lindt & Sprüngli.
We have seen in our direct-to-consumer channels that we have room to grow in the gifting business, and we also want to leverage this in the wholesale channels. The third part of this growth agenda is the so-called stretch. It's where we have to reach out to new segments and to new markets. Here is one example. Vegan, it's certainly still a small business at the moment, but we also see a responsibility that we bring out the seed for future growth. Vegan is a globally growing trend. It's only one example. We defined, together with my colleagues from group management, five strategic focus areas, and the number one is growth. It's our number one priority. We want to make sure that everybody in this company has a growth mindset.
Why? We are currently a number six on the global chocolate market, with a market share around 5%. In those markets where we are well established, we achieve market shares between 12% and 15%. We have a proven recipe that with our premium positioning, we can be a 12%, 15% brand. This shows us the potential that we have globally. In addition, our purpose is we enchant the world with chocolate. We are sure that we are far away from enchanting the whole world with our chocolate, and this is what drives us to exploit this potential that we see globally. Number two is we want to secure our premium positioning. Consumers have to be prepared to pay our premium prices. Only then we can leverage this potential.
Therefore, everything that we do has to nurture our brand equity. We also have to secure our margins to make sure that we don't have to compromise on product quality, and also are able to protect our reputation and are able to invest into our reputation. We want to embrace innovation, especially for a premium brand. Consumers expect always new, exciting flavors, but also packagings. Consumers expect to be surprised by a brand like Lindt. We also want to gain and have to gain new customers. Of course, with a new flavor, like you have seen it before, Sakura or Almond Butter, we are able to increase the penetration, and we are also able to cover new demand moments for our consumers.
Sustainability, we want to live up to our ESG commitment. It goes far beyond our cocoa, our Lindt Sprüngli Cocoa Farming Program. It goes also in the direction of governance improvements and improvements in the social area. We will beef up our investments into our sustainability programs. The last part is probably the enabler for all of these targets. It's our agile culture. I really strongly believe that this is a huge differentiator also in recruiting and gaining talents. We have a lean organization. We have empowered people out in the markets with an entrepreneurial culture. They are owners of their business. They are accountable to deliver results. They operate consumer-centric, and we have a very high speed to market.
Probably this is, in a nutshell, the key ingredient of our success, and we have to make sure that we keep this culture and don't become, as we grow, too bureaucratic or too formalistic and too slow. This brings me to our outlook, and this is a very boring chart because we confirm for the year 2023 exactly the figures that we have published for mid to long term. You could say you have, or you experience quite some headwind, but I can tell you, we are fully confident to achieve these targets. It's not only me standing here together with Martin, the CFO, but I had the privilege to visit all our big subsidiaries in my first months in my new assignment, and I will show you some impressions out from the markets.
For me, it was important to get a feeling, to feel the pulse in the market, to have a strong connection with the markets out there, to cater to their needs also with our decisions that we take in the group management. We have seen our sustainability program. We have spoken to customers, but also to startups in India, for example, that want to cooperate with us. I leave you now with these impressions from our market visits before we are open then for your questions and answers. Thank you. You can see in the center of these pictures is this group of smiling people that go in one direction. That's our group management. Thank you