In our company, and thank you for joining us today. Things are a little different this year, and my regrets that we can't host you in person. We would've liked to see you and reconnect, and to also show you some of our latest innovations. As it happens, we have to hold this press conference in an online format. Of course, we look forward to hosting you again in person in future years. François Roger and I will host you at this press conference. We're totally COVID compliant, so we're hosting you from two separate rooms. I will start off with some general comments. François will give you the detailed financial review, and then we're looking forward to answering your questions. As you know, we're doing this for the first time. If there's any technical glitches, I would like to apologize ahead of time.
I think we've got a good, convincing setup for you, and we hope we can answer all of your questions. With this, let me turn to the key messages for 2020. I think as you've seen from the video, it's been a year like no other. We've taken this pandemic very seriously from the beginning. We stayed focused on three priorities that we laid out very early in time: ensure the employee safety in our group, ensure business continuity, and provide a helping hand to the communities where we operate around this world. We stayed focused on those. I think in all modesty, early on, we've taken very decisive steps to meet the challenge posed by all three of these objectives, and I think we coped with it well. In this context, my heartfelt and deep gratitude to the Nestlé family around the world.
This has been such a challenging year, but it's been so fulfilling to see how the Nestlé team has been rising to the challenge and meeting one after another, the challenges posed by this pandemic. So thank you very much. It's been truly motivating to see all of this happen. What's also important is, in addition to mastering the challenge of the pandemic, is that we didn't skip a beat when it comes to our ongoing projects. Remember, a year ago, when we met, we didn't know this was going to be turning into a worldwide pandemic. We had plans laid out to you when it comes to continued progress on organic growth, on profitability, when it comes to our portfolio transformation, and also when it comes to innovation in our company.
I'm proud to say that except for a few weeks of the inevitable delay that comes from moving to online to remote working conditions, except for those very brief delays, we've been living up to these objectives, and I think you're seeing this reflected in today's results. Specifically, we were able, in this context, to improve our organic growth over the 2019 levels, and we were able to improve our underlying trading operating profit by 10 basis points. In fact, if you look at it in constant currency, it's 20 basis points. If you exclude Skin Health, it's 30 basis points over the prior year. So I think we've been able to continue to improve on both of these important metrics. At the same time, you've seen us be very busy on the portfolio transformation front, continued readjusting of our portfolio. I'll show more of that later.
I am proud to say in 2020, as opposed to 2019, we have also been busy on the acquisition front, in particular building Nestlé Health Science. In line with these very reassuring results, I am also very pleased to announce that the board proposes to increase the annual dividend by 5 centimes to CHF 2.75. This will be a voting item at the annual general meeting this year. One of the other key achievements that I will talk about later is that we issued our detailed net zero roadmap in December 2020. This was one of the key objectives we had on the sustainability front for that year, and I am glad to say that in spite of the challenges of the pandemic, we were able to keep the timeline and issue it before the year was out.
Now, moving on to the next slide and the key financial metrics, you will get a more detailed financial review from François later. To me, the key message is that on our two major financial metrics, organic sales growth and underlying trading operating profit, this is now the third consecutive year of continuous improvement. Each year, these two metrics went up, and that is important to us because as you think back to the investor day we had in September 2017 in London, one of the key concerns when we laid out our financial plan for the midterm was, well, are you really able to improve both of these metrics at the same time? A casual way of putting it at the time was, can you walk and chew gum at the same time? Yes, we have proven we can walk and chew gum at the same time.
In fact, the balanced pursuit of both of these objectives is a key part of how we look at business and position it for the long term. What is not shown on this slide, but what also improved in that time, is very prudent balance sheet and capital management. When you improve all of these three together, organic growth, the underlying trading operating profit, and prudent capital management, good things happen for return on invested capital, and you see that bounce up significantly in 2020. Now, we are not quite there yet when it comes to our mid-single-digit organic growth, and here you see some of the continued activity that we have underway to ensure we are getting there in the near term. You see the same three buckets that we have talked about in the past.
It is about advancing the high growth categories and channels, ongoing portfolio management, and gearing that portfolio towards higher growth, and also fixing underperforming businesses. You see good examples here for each of these buckets that apply to the year 2020. The one area I would like to point your attention to is our plant-based food. You heard us talk a lot about that in 2019 and 2020. To me, it is not only, but it is also about a key product that was getting a lot of attention, and that is the plant-based hamburger patty. I think we have a very successful offering there, both in terms of the taste and the nutritionals. But I was also telling you from the beginning that to me it is about a wide opportunity.
It's about a once in a generation opportunity to reinvigorate our CHF 12 billion food category as the population is getting more and more interested in plant-based protein sources. On that front, very pleased to report that we made significant progress in 2020. To give you a sense, when you take that inner core of plant-based alternatives to meat products, we're talking about roughly a CHF 200 million business for us, growing very significantly in spite of the fact that out-of-home channels were impacted by the pandemic. But when you talk about all the downstream opportunities where we use these ingredients to reinvigorate, for example, our frozen food, our prepared dishes, then we're talking about a CHF 700 million business opportunity, in 2020 numbers. That is increasing also at double digit.
That, of course, makes it much, much more material to the group and to the food category overall. This gives you a sense of what we're working on is not only about the key ingredient, it's also about the follow-on products that really get renewed consumer attention. Moving on to portfolio management. You see here a wrap-up of the deal-making activity over the past three to four years. In total, more than 75 transactions. You're seeing a portfolio turnover, including now the latest water transaction, which we announced yesterday, of about 18% of group sales. You're seeing that it is a contributor to our organic growth, adding about 60 basis points of organic growth in 2020. Next, I would like to talk about the net zero roadmap. I won't go through all the detail.
If you're particularly interested in this roadmap, I would like to ask you to look at our December 3, 2020 announcement. In addition to the summary slide, there's about 20 pages of backup information where we lay out in a very detailed way how we expect to get to net zero by 2050. I think in all modesty, what happened here is, this is one of the first detailed roadmaps out there. Lots of companies had taken the United Nations pledge in 2019. United Nations rules give you about two years to actually come up with a roadmap. We were one of the first companies to be out there with this detailed roadmap. I think as a result of the key amount of detail that's in there, it has fast become a benchmark now, especially in the food and beverage industry, for how to make this happen.
In this context, it's also important for me to point your attention to what kind of category are people talking about when they talk about net zero. Is it a category one, two, or three scope? This is a full category three scope, so this includes all the upstream materials, agricultural supplies that go into our product. That's different from some of the scope two ambition levels that other companies have announced, where it's really only about the company operations and its logistics. This also explains why we need until the year 2050 to make this happen, because as you can imagine, when you look at all the agricultural supplies around the world, it's a major challenge to work with our suppliers, get them to upgrade their activities as we move towards a carbon neutral world.
In this context, I would also like to point your attention to today's press release, where under the Business as a Force for Good section, we're talking specifically about our activities in the dairy field, which of course is a high greenhouse gas emission area, and what we do there to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. This leads me to a wider thought on sustainability. As you look back over the past two or three years and some of our new commitments and initiatives in the sustainability area, whether it's net zero or whether it's our plastic waste reduction activities, you're seeing significant spending coming up, and spending that we're facing over the next few years. To me, it's important to confirm to you that we don't see this as a giveaway. We don't see this as corporate philanthropy. To us, this is part of value creation.
In a world where consumers are more and more discerning, they expect the business practices and the operations of the companies they buy from to be first rate when it comes to environmental solutions. There's also increased regulation with the United States now joining the Paris Agreement. You basically have the expectation of regulatory convergence between the major economies in North America, in Europe, and in Asia towards 2050. That means that climate laggards will certainly face increased regulation and also taxation and fines. You have certainly an employee base that's very sensitive to this. So there's lots of reasons why moving towards a carbon neutral footprint will get reward in the future, and we intend to lead this space. We believe that especially with consumers, it'll support competitive advantage, it'll support underlying organic growth performance.
To us, it's one major plank in addition to the other key plank, of course, which is to have the best and tastiest and most nutritious food out there. So we summarize these two planks with what we call good for you, good for the planet. Good for you is essentially all the things we do to give you the best food and beverage offerings. Good for the planet is to minimize the environmental footprint of our activities and make them the best possible way. In this context, I would also like to underline that we feel there is a way to make this earnings neutral.
We have sufficient savings opportunities coming, especially from digitalization and the improvement of our structural cost and growth leverage, so that we can make this path smooth and without financial surprises for the next years to come as we ramp up and scale up these activities. I would also like to update you on one item that we published today, and that is the creation of a designated sustainability committee on our board of directors. Before, we had a combined nomination and sustainability committee. We're now splitting this into two committees, a nomination committee and a sustainability committee. Here again, as this becomes a major spending item, but also as you see, a major source of growth, we want to be sure that sustainability matters are fully reflected in our board of directors, in our governance, and get the proper attention that they deserve.
I would also like to proactively comment in this context on some of the recent, say, on climate activities, and movements that you've seen in Europe, for example, but also in other economies around the world. This is about giving shareholders a say at the annual general meeting about climate protection activity. I would like to say and confirm that we are strongly in support of a shareholder say on ESG-related matters. We have not moved yet for this annual general meeting as a simple result of the fact that there is ongoing legislation in Switzerland that will move towards some sort of increased transparency and shareholder say on ESG-related matters. We wanted to be sure that we don't duplicate here. We wanted to be sure we have clarity on the legal landscape.
Then over time, of course, we will give you that full transparency and also a shareholder say on ESG-related matters. This brings me to the guidance for the year 2021, and then also to a new midterm outlook. When it comes to the guidance here for 2021, please take in the fact that we're providing guidance at all, because you're still seeing some companies out there that refrain from doing this in light of the pandemic. As you know, even the darkest months of the pandemic last year, we were upholding our guidance and giving you regular updates, and we intend to do this this year and going forward as well. That's part of our dependability promise, and we expect to live up to that. What you're seeing here, especially on the organic growth, is the expectation of a continued improvement over last year's level.
In simple terms, greater than 3.6%. We're seeing an opportunity to potentially cross over the 4% mark, which is of course important because that defines the entry point to the mid-single digit rate that we have been talking about for several years. This is a possibility. We can't firmly promise yet because we don't know how exactly the pandemic is going to shape this year. But definitely, we're seeing an opportunity to be above the 3.6% that we posted in 2020. You're seeing then all the elements of the past Nestlé model, so a continued improvement in underlying trading operating profit margin. Also, when it comes to our other key financial metrics, you see continued improvement. That also carries forward into the midterm outlook. No surprises here.
To me, the key word when it comes to the midterm financial outlook is the very first one, sustained mid-single digit organic growth. From 2022 onwards, what we're seeing here is we have the elements together to give you a sustained performance in that range. That, of course, is important because hitting it once and then sliding back is not helping anyone. The value creation comes through regular compounding, and that means a sustained performance with organic growth in this area. Organic growth is the lifeblood of the company. It provides opportunity, it shows consumer acceptance, and it gives growth leverage. A lot of good things happen with the company financials when you hit it right on organic growth. With this, I would like to turn it over to our Chief Financial Officer, François Roger, for a more detailed financial review.
Then François and I will be back to answer your questions. Thank you.
Thank you, Mark. Good morning or good afternoon to you all. I will start with some further details on our financial performance in 2020. Our organic growth increased to 3.6%. The most significant contributor to growth was RIG, which accelerated to 3.2%, the highest level in the last nine years. Our strong RIG is largely made of positive product mix, which is a good illustration of our capacity to innovate and premiumize our offering. Pricing was 0.4% and improved during the year, particularly in emerging markets. Foreign exchange reduced sales by 7.9%, reflecting the continued appreciation of the Swiss francs versus most other currencies. Divested shares had a negative impact of 4.6%, largely related to the divestment of Nestlé Skin Health, the U.S. ice cream business, and Herta. As a result, reported sales decreased by 8.9% to CHF 84.3 billion.
This slide illustrates the development of our sales by geography. It includes both our zones as well as our globally managed businesses. The Americas represented 45% of total sales in 2020, while EMENA and AOA each accounted for more than a quarter of our sales. Our organic growth was positive in all geographies, led by sustained momentum in the Americas and robust sales development in EMENA. AOA was impacted by a sales decrease in China due to the timing of Chinese New Year, declines in out-of-home channels, and limited consumer stockpiling during lockdowns. Excluding China, AOA posted mid-single digit growth. Turning to growth dynamics in developed and emerging markets. In 2020, developed markets accounted for the majority of our sales, with organic growth accelerating to 3.8%. Emerging markets represented 41% of sales, with organic growth improving during the year to reach 3.4%.
We are positive on emerging market as a key growth platforms for the years to come. The effects of COVID-19 on organic growth varied materially by sales channel. Organic growth for retail sales doubled to 7%, reflecting sustained strong demand for at-home consumption. Out-of-home sales declined sharply as a consequence of movement restrictions and the closure of many offices, restaurants and hotels, to name just a few. Before COVID-19, the out-of-home channel accounted for around 10% of group sales. If we include on-the-go and impulse products, then our total exposure to this channel is closer to 15% of sales. Overall, 2020 demonstrates the resilience of our business. Our diversified portfolio is well geared for fast-changing trading conditions. The clear contrast between category growth partly reflects their level of exposure to out-of-home channels. Our largest category is powdered and liquid beverages, accounting for around a quarter of our total sales.
Coffee, the largest component, posted around 5% growth. Sales declines in the out-of-home channel were more than offset by strong development in at-home consumption, which grew at a double-digit rate. Starbucks products, Nespresso and Nescafé continued to gain market share. Sales of Starbucks products reached CHF 2.7 billion, generating incremental sales of over CHF 400 million in 2020. The sales of the total Nespresso system, including Starbucks by Nespresso, grew at a double-digit rate. Pet care, our second-largest category, saw outstanding growth supported by e-commerce, premiumization, and science-based offerings. Most segments grew at a double-digit rate with market share gains. Demand for products with health and nutritional benefits was strong and benefited categories such as Nestlé Health Science, fortified milks and plant-based products. Higher levels of at-home consumption led to strong growth for culinary and home baking products.
Meanwhile, confectionery and water were impacted by their significant exposure to out-of-home channels and on-the-go consumption. Let's now move to the performance of some of our key growth platforms. E-commerce sales grew by almost 50%, reaching 12.8% of total group sales. Growth was broad-based, with strong contribution from coffee, pet care and Nestlé Health Science. Sales in e-commerce exceeded CHF 10 billion, with further market share gains online. We continue to see strong demand for premium products, with organic growth accelerating to almost 10%. Premium products now account for 30% of sales versus 11% in 2012. Premiumization is a key component of our portfolio transformation as consumers are looking for differentiated products offering nutrition, taste, quality and functional benefits. Affordable offerings have also seen encouraging results, led by affordable nutrition, particularly for dairy and food.
Examples of products include Bear Brand milk in the Philippines, Nestlé Moça milk in Brazil and Maggi bouillon cubes in West Africa. Now turning to profitability. Excluding Nestlé Skin Health, our underlying trading operating profit margin increased by 30 basis points in constant currency. Our gross margin continued to improve as our portfolio evolves toward more value-added products. Margin expansion was supported by structural cost reductions, portfolio management, and slightly lower consumer-facing marketing expenses, which more than offset commodity inflation and COVID-19-related costs. During the second half of the year, marketing expenses returned to a normalized level and even increased versus the same period of 2019. We are increasing our media investments, particularly in digital channels, which now accounts for 47% of total media spend. Free cash flow was CHF 10.2 billion, or 12.1% of sales.
The slight reduction as a percentage of sales was mainly due to one-off items in 2020. We expect our free cash flow margin to remain around 12% as we work on all drivers of cash generation, such as sales growth, margin improvement, and working capital reduction. The group's return on invested capital increased to 14.7% as a result of improved operating performance and disciplined capital allocation. This is the sixth consecutive year of improvement. We are pulling all levers to improve ROIC, including sales growth, margin improvement, working capital reduction, as well as disciplined CapEx and portfolio management. I now hand over to Mark for the Q&A session.
François, thank you. This starts the Q&A part of our press conference. I will read out the questions to you and then either answer them myself or hand it over to François to give you our reply. The first question is from Johannes Ritter at Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. His question is, "The dog and cat food business is becoming a star in your portfolio. How big is Nestlé's global market share in this business? What are your further plans here? Are there opportunities for big acquisitions, or is the focus more on organic growth?" Johannes, thank you for the question, and yes, you're right. It's been another stellar year for our pet food business. This was not only happening in the pandemic environment of 2020. I think this has been shaping up for several years now.
To me, the key story behind pet food is not so much individual actions that change things very much. It's the consistent gaining of market share in major pet food markets around the world over the past 20 years. It's been a wonderful success story. A global market share is misleading because there's some economies where we are underrepresented, and there's also economies where people still feed pets a lot with household waste. In most markets where market share measurements make sense, our market share is in the 20%-30% range, and we're either number one or number two in most of the advanced markets. To me, it's an opportunity that really ticks all the boxes of what we want to work on. It's a significant premiumization opportunity. It's a significant opportunity where we can bring nutrition science to the forefront.
And it's a significant opportunity on digital because building digital ecosystems that make pet ownership easier is a key area. All of these are initiatives that are very strategic to us and that we intend to work on in the future. I expect continued advancement in this area, not so much with major acquisitions. As you've seen us act in the past, we've done small tuck-under acquisitions. Lily's Kitchen, one example from 2020, or the majority stake in Tails.com a few years ago to give us some lead here in the digital space. Expect solid organic performance, solid investments in capacity to deliver, and then also the occasional tuck-under acquisition here and there to advance our market position. That's our game plan in this area. The next question is from Assis Moreira from Valor Econômico.
"Could you elaborate on the results in Brazil, and how do you see the prospects for 2021 in the biggest Latin American economy? Higher prices in the country? Less investments?" I'll pass it to François, Assis, who will answer your question.
Brazil is a very important market for us. It is our fifth largest market worldwide and the largest market in Latin America by far. We did very well in 2020 because we grew in the double digit space across categories, actually. There is no category that led more than any other one. It is largely the result of innovation and improved execution, and we gain market share across categories with the exception of one or two, but most categories, we gain market share. We are very happy with it. The growth came as a combination of pricing, mix, and volume. Pricing started to pick up a little bit in the latter part of 2020 and will most probably accelerate in 2021 as a consequence of the currency depreciation, as we have to reflect the impact of currency depreciation for whatever we import, and that hits our P&L.
Thank you, François. The next question is from Pearly Neo from FoodNavigator. "Does Nestlé expect plant-based products to become a major driver in APAC markets in the coming year, especially with the establishment of your plant-based manufacturing facilities in China and Malaysia?" Pearly, the short answer to that is yes. We are very committed to Asia Pacific markets and rolling out plant-based options in the Asia Pacific markets. So we have the product innovation. We have, as you see, the plant investments and manufacturing investments in place. We are also, of course, tailoring this very much to local Asian needs. This is not about just copy-paste some of the Western products, but we are also gearing this very much towards local Asian tastes. This is part of our local commitment and local structure. So we have a global effort underway.
Asia Pacific is a key part of that, just as much as Europe and North America. Next question is from Corinne Gretler at Bloomberg. "A year into the pandemic, what long-term changes to the industry do you see? Obviously, people have been consuming more at home, but vaccines are being rolled out, so what do you think will really stick?" Corinne, very fair question, and obviously, we've seen at-home demand spike in 2020. I do think we have reason to believe that even once vaccines are fully rolled out and applied, that some of this is here to stay. I think this is directly related to the switch towards digital and more flexible and remote working formats that so many companies are embracing now.
I think all of us in the future will enjoy a more flexible work lifestyle, and that includes spending more time remotely, and remote for most people means working from home. I do believe that some of this is going to be here to stay. We've also seen in some major economies, in this time of the pandemic, a renewed interest in major brands, trusted key brands, when it comes to the quality promise, when it comes to the attention from retailers, and we also expect to retain some of that going forward. It's something that we have to defend with first-rate reliability as a supplier and, of course, convincing innovation. The next question is from Tina Tu at AWP. "How much of your e-commerce revenues are driven by your own platforms, and how much by third-party platforms? How does the accelerated shift to online affect partnerships with retailers?
Are intermediaries increasingly cut out?" Tina, very important question, and to me, in a true omni-channel world, it is not about an either/or. Where it makes sense to be in direct contact with the consumer, think about Nespresso, think about tails.com, we're very much in favor of doing that. Where clearly from a consumer convenience point of view, it's better to be part of a general purpose e-commerce platform. It makes sense to be part of that because you don't want to go for each and every product you buy to a different website. Sometimes, the convenience of having it all in one basket, in one shipment is key.
Then, of course, you know this is not against retailers because many retailers now have their own online platforms or have their own combined models, like the click-and-pick models where you order online and then you pick up without ever entering the store. I think all of these are very strongly on the rise, and I think all of this has been powering our significant organic growth rate of almost 50% in digital last year. To me, the year 2020 has been sort of a coming of age when it comes to digital opportunities in food and beverage. We don't see that sliding back going forward. I think we see it, if anything, advance over time. People have discovered it.
The people who hadn't been into digital before have now gotten to it, and they accept it and have seen the convenience that digital can offer. I think this is here to stay. It's a major initiative that we're working on. Next question comes from Johannes Ritter at Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. "Do confectionery and chocolate really still fit into the strategy of a group that wants to stand for healthy food? Are you open for a sale of this division in the long term?" Johannes, appreciate the question, but I think we've been very clear in our commitment to the confectionery and chocolate business going forward. When we divested our U.S. operations a few years ago, we made it very clear that we see significant opportunities in the rest of the world, and we're committed to working on that.
You see us bringing innovation, meaningful innovation, to the space. Some of you may have seen just a few days ago that we announced the launch of vegan Kit Kat products. This is a product group that is geared towards enjoyment. We know that. We made it clear from the beginning that we're not only about food that advanced health, we're also about the enjoyment that comes with food and beverage. But the vegan Kit Kat shows you that you can still work on improving the nutritional footprint of these products and provide enjoyment, but provide it with better nutritionals. This is one of several areas that we intend to work on. Premiumization is the other one. It has been a very promising and rewarding path. Over time, in particular, the chocolate side is one that is key to us.
There was a second part to your question, and that is, a human rights organization has filed a class action lawsuit against Nestlé and other chocolate manufacturers for alleged complicity in human trafficking and forced labor in Ivory Coast. Can you rule out the possibility of cocoa being harvested by forcibly recruited children appearing in your supply chain? This is an area where I just wanted to be very clear, as in the past, that supply chain is an area we're very much focused on, and child labor has no place in our supply chain. This is an area that we're totally unequivocal on. Child labor is something that we strongly detest and reject, and we're working very hard to rule it out. The next question comes from Pearly Neo, FoodNavigator.
"What are Nestlé's plans to enhance growth in Asia Pacific countries in the coming year and rebound from the impacts of COVID-19? Plus, for Asia, which countries posted the most growth, and can we get more specific numbers, please?" Let me turn this one to François to comment on Asia Pacific.
In Asia Pacific, to start with, in 2020, outside of China, we were already at mid-single digit level, and we ambition to stay at that level. But we saw countries like India, Malaysia, and others, Thailand and so forth, growing in mid-single digit, even double digit space for some of them. We expect that to continue. In China, we had a specific issue last year due to the timing of Chinese New Year that hit our sales both in Q1 and in Q4. We have a stronger exposure to out-of-home as well in China, which hit us more in the context of COVID-19. And the consumers in China did not stockpile during the crisis, contrary to other markets. We expect clearly AOA to go back to mid-single digit level, both in China and outside of China.
There is no specific country where we expect to see stronger growth. I think it will happen across geographies and more specifically in emerging markets because we have a very strong growth platform there. Category-wise, we see the same categories as what we experience in other markets coming from coffee, infant nutrition, pet care as well is a good growth driver if we see the potential in some markets like China, for example.
Thank you, François. The next question's from Tina Tu at AWP. "There's a lot of talk about factories closing down during Chinese New Year and that travel is still restricted. What does that mean for Chinese New Year revenues in the first quarter? Could we see some downside here?" Tina, I'm very glad you're asking the question because it helps us to explain one calendar issue that affected 2020 and that will benefit us in 2021. 2020 really saw a negative impact from Chinese New Year on both ends. Clearly, the beginning of the year was impacted because Chinese New Year was earlier than this year, and hence a lot of our sell-in actually occurred in the fourth quarter of 2019.
When it comes to Chinese New Year this year, it's later, hence a lot of the sell-in occurred now in January, and that means we didn't get the usual pickup in the fourth quarter of 2020. So you saw year 2020, that was kind of reduced on both ends. That's one of the reasons why the fourth quarter growth rate, as good as it was at 3.9%, was not even higher than that. But it also means that we picked up a lot of that now in January 2021. The next question is from Pearly Neo, FoodNavigator. "Which products and brands led the growth in Asian countries? Which main coffee products led in South Korea? Nescafé, Starbucks, or others? Can more numbers, data, info be shared about this?" Let me hand this to François again.
So in Asia, like in the rest of the world, actually, within coffee, we grew across categories and geographies as well. So it's not only Nescafé or Nespresso or Starbucks. I mean, the three brands gain market share in almost all territories where we operated, and there is a very good complementary between the three brands. I think that the beauty of it is that it happens across geographies as well. So it's not only one single market, and I think this applies as well to Korea.
Thank you, François. The next question comes from Marie Cougard at Les Échos. "What will your strategy be in water now that you have sold part of your local brands? New geographies? Do you believe in the future of this activity, highly criticized due to plastic pollution? How much does the water business make up today in your business activity?" So Marie, this is an important question just following the announcement yesterday that we're selling our domestic North American spring water and purified water brands. I think what we have announced yesterday is very much in line with the new strategy that we outlined last summer, and that is we are committed to water, we are committed to healthy hydration, but we would like to focus on segments and geographies where we can achieve higher growth and higher relevance for our consumers.
And that means in terms of segments, international premium brands and functional waters. So this is waters where there's some sort of low sugar flavoring or some micronutrient added so that you have some nutritional benefit or simply caffeine to give you an energy boost. This is an area where both in terms of internal innovation and also external scouting, we're very interested in advancing the waters business. We don't intend to operate it now at this reduced level, but over time, we intend now from the smaller base to grow around the international premium brands and functional waters. When it comes to plastic, we fully are aligned that plastic should not leak into the environment. That means we have to work on higher recycled content.
We have to support recycling systems so that our bottles don't leak into the environment, or we have to work on alternative container strategies, and we're doing all of this. But overall, portable solutions that you can take with you to ensure that you have hydration through the day, and also something where the main ingredient is pure water and where you're not loading up, especially on sugar. I think that is a contribution towards healthy hydration and public health. It's a worthy area to be in, and one that I think continues to see significant growth opportunities. Next question is from Gabriela Hunter at "Finanz und Wirtschaft." "You can't be happy with growth in China. How is your outlook on this particular market for 2021? Where do you see the major issues, and how are you planning to improve the performance?"
Gabriela, I think you're absolutely right, and we're not happy with that performance. Do keep in mind what I just mentioned earlier, and that is the year looked unusually bad because of this double whammy on the Chinese New Year, both at the beginning and the end. That alone will correct itself in 2021. But of course, we also had to deal with a lot of homemade issues and things that we really intend to improve on. One was separating from the Yinlu peanut milk and porridge business and fully focusing now on the ready-to-drink opportunity in Nescafé, which I think is off to a good start. Another area is clearly giving our Wyeth infant nutrition business renewed attention, a deeper push into tier three and tier four cities and also continued rollout of innovation, including our locally made Belsol brand.
I think with all of these activities and a deep commitment to the Chinese market, we intend, in this second largest worldwide market for us, that sees a lot of dynamic activity, to improve performance. Clearly we're not happy with where we are. The team is very committed to improving from the levels that we have seen in 2020. Next question is from Pearly Neo, FoodNavigator. "What solutions is Nestlé looking at to make dairy production more sustainable in New Zealand, with dairy such a major local industry, and China, where the government is strongly pushing for more dairy consumption?" Pearly, I think in both of these traditional dairy markets, we're very committed to advancing the state-of-the-art in dairy.
That includes New Zealand, but what I would like to focus on, clearly, is China, where I think over the past decade, we have patiently contributed to that local industry, improving over time and scaling up. We have a dairy research institute in the north of China that really is quite engaged in working with local farmers and improving agricultural and dairy farming practices, and we will continue to do that going forward. A good source I can point you to is some of the material that we highlighted in today's press release under the Business as a Force for Good section, and count on us as being very committed to this space, certainly for China, but also for a key dairy market such as New Zealand. Next question is from Tina Tu AWP. It is a follow-up on China. "Follow-up to the Chinese New Year question.
I meant rather the impact of COVID-19 right now and not the calendar impact. When people travel less this year, will they also buy less gifts, and might that impact your Chinese New Year sales?" Tina, it is still a little early to judge that. Clearly there is less travel activity. But before and after Chinese New Year, I think there is good reason to expect that overall travel activity and presence in offices is going to be on the rise again. What clearly hurt us last year, when you look at the timing of Chinese New Year, was the fact that with people being away when some of the lockdowns started, there was never really any consumer pantry loading that we have seen in other markets. We have never had any of the positives that we saw in other markets. But then, of course, we were hit by the lockdown.
We do have a very large Nestlé Professional business in China, and hence, that also suffered quite a bit during the spring and summer. But it has also seen some good recovery now, and so that makes me quite optimistic when it comes to China in the year 2021. I understand the actual numbers for 2020 do not look great. We are fully aware of that. But I think the team has taken this very seriously on all potential fronts, whether it is the gifting side, the out-of-home side, the infant nutrition side, to work on plans here to improve matters in 2021 and going forward. Count on our commitment to the Chinese market. There are no more questions right now. If there are any follow-up questions, please direct them to our media team. We will be happy to assist you, and we appreciate your attention. Thank you for joining us.
Hope the format worked for you. On behalf of François and I, wish you a good day. Again, we look forward to hosting you in person as soon as this pandemic is over. Thank you.