It is now my pleasure to introduce Kraft Heinz. Please join me in thanking the company for sponsoring today's lunch following their presentation. With a portfolio of iconic brands and a strong commitment to agriculture, Kraft Heinz is dedicated to providing consumers with the food they love. Led by its flagship Heinz brand of $5 billion powerhouse, the company sees meaningful opportunity to leverage its Brand Growth System to drive brand and product superiority. Kraft Heinz will also be hosting today's lunch, as I mentioned, where we'll get to try some of their delicious recent innovations and to meet more members of the executive team. With that, please join me in welcoming CEO Carlos Abrams-Rivera, followed by CFO Andre Maciel. Carlos, over to you.
Well, thank you, Andrew. And good morning and welcome, everyone. Andre and I are excited to be here with you today. Now, before we begin, please keep in mind that today's presentations will include some forward-looking statements. Frankly, a lot has changed in the world and our industry since we gathered in CAGNY. Actually, for me in particular, my first year as CEO has been pretty eventful. Yet, despite the macro environment presenting numerous challenges and uncertainties, it also continues to present some meaningful opportunities. Our team at Kraft Heinz has remained steadfast in our commitment to building a stronger, resilient company for the future. And we're working tirelessly to ensure we deliver long-term value. At Kraft Heinz, we are uniquely positioned to be the leader in elevating and creating food that makes you feel good.
Our iconic brands are the bedrock of our business, playing in attractive spaces where we have a strong advantage to win. In 2024, we returned over $2.7 billion in capital through our industry-leading dividend yield and share buybacks. We increased free cash flow by approximately $200 million, or 7%, compared to 2023, all while maintaining our target leverage ratio. As we continue to mature in our strategy, as we relentlessly unlock efficiencies, we are positioning ourselves for a virtuous cycle of profitable growth, providing a clear path to consistent double-digit total shareholder returns. In 2024, we generated gross savings equal to 4.4% of COGS, which is best in class. We expanded gross profit margin by one percentage point as we protected profitability and generated a 4 percentage point increase in free cash flow conversion. We reinvested in marketing and innovation.
At Kraft Heinz, our ambition is to be the leader in elevating and creating food that makes you feel good, and doing so in the most attractive consumer spaces. Elevating food by unlocking endless flavor possibilities that inspire creativity in every kitchen and everywhere. Nourishing life's moment by creating delicious and convenient solutions that bring people together and by serving food that makes you feel good. It starts with warming the hearts and homes of our consumers with food that is good for your soul. Think of that cozy feeling you get when every bite of Kraft Mac and Cheese that fans have loved for over 85 years. Now, with the same great taste and comfort, but without the dairy. We are all about bringing a diverse range of great tasting foods that are good for your health.
This is true whether we are talking about Zero Sugar Jell-O, Kraft Gluten-Free Mac and Cheese, or Heinz Tomato Ketchup Zero. In the same classic flavor with zero added sugar or salt. It's good for the planet. I am so proud of the advancements we're driving in sustainable farming, packaging, and manufacturing around the world. Good quality. It's serving the best of our consumers for their families. Quality that they just trust, taste, and share with confidence. It all starts from the best American dairy farms. We bring the same local quality to every Philadelphia product with no artificial preservatives, flavors, or dyes. Finally, delivering good value to our consumer is at the heart of what we do. We are proud to offer numerous affordable solutions, making great food accessible to everyone every day. Take, for instance, Crystal Light.
We now have offerings that deliver on whatever consumers may need throughout the day, whether it is a morning energy boost, an afternoon refresh, or an evening on wine, all less than $0.12 a glass. That is value you can count on. Now, to provide consumers with the food they love, Kraft Heinz is an agricultural company and farming that is at the heart of what we do. Our founders, Henry J. Heinz and J.L. Kraft, knew that a product is only as good as the ingredient that you go into it. And for more than 150 years, our agricultural leadership has laid the foundation for creating the perfect Heinz tomato ketchup. At Kraft Heinz, we produce over 5.5 billion seeds annually and harvest 40% of the world's tomatoes. Our tomato masters oversee every stage of growth, ensuring the best quality from soil to table.
It is worth noting that we don't even add any coloring to our pure ketchup. The red is pure tomato. And the secret to our irresistible ketchup starts with healthy soil. In fact, 95% of the food we consume is directly or indirectly linked to the quality of our soil. But let's take a look.
This land here has been farmed since Roman times. And you can see why, because the conditions for growing tomatoes are perfect. But after all those centuries of farming this land, the soil has become dry and degraded. To continue the Spanish tradition of growing tomatoes worthy of Heinz tomato ketchup, we needed to do something and fast.
Irresistible taste starts with great soil. We introduced a new practice that hasn't been done here called cover cropping. We plant a cereal or grain crop for incorporating it back into the soil for its nutritive purposes. And that will allow us to have rich, big tomatoes in our next crop.
It's a beautiful thing seen in the Marismas region being restored to its former glory. Since we started our partnership with Heinz, the organic mapping in our field has doubled. This has allowed us to keep growing rich, thick tomatoes from an irresistible Heinz taste that is loved all around the world.
You can smell the quality. Our dedication to excellence has earned us a trusted place in the hearts and homes of consumers worldwide. And that is why, to achieve our ambition, it all starts with a portfolio of iconic brands. Within the U.S., we have a household penetration of 96%, with eight brands representing approximately 60% of our business globally. From the dairy farms in New York to the tomato fields in California, we can proudly say Kraft Heinz is produced and made by us. It is also imperative that we are playing in the right consumer spaces. We are prioritizing our accelerate platforms, the most attractive spaces where we have the strongest ability to win. Each portfolio has a role to play in executing our strategy.
Across our Accelerate platforms, we look to accelerate growth and are prioritizing our investments since they're the most attractive for both top-line and margin perspective. In Protect platforms, our strategy to win here is to protect profit margins and invest at a healthy level. And finally, across our Balance platform, our strategy is to balance performance and profitability, rebuild the foundation, and to invest to maintain a strong brand equity. This is so important. So let me walk you through some of the recent highlights across each of the portfolio roles, starting with Accelerate. In 2024, we launched seven Taco Bell innovations to provide our consumers with restaurant-like experiences at home, leading to an increase in dollar sales of 24%. And our global Heinz brand achieved a 6% CAGR from 2022 to 2024, driven by our culturally relevant marketing and global creative platforms.
Internationally, our business is primarily in accelerate platforms. In 2024, we generated double-digit growth across our East region, Germany, and Hispanic countries, which together represent about $1.5 billion in revenue, and finally, we have seen promising results following the initial pilots of our brand growth system. In Philadelphia, we increased dollar sales by approximately 2% in 2024, largely driven by our expansion across occasions and channels, including 13% growth in club. In the U.K., we have seen a notable turnaround for Heinz, specifically our brand growth system helped drive share gains in Heinz ketchup for the first time in five years. I'll go deeper into our brand growth system later in the presentation. Moving to protect. For the first time in over a decade, we renovated the Jell-O brand to ensure our products continue to grow with our consumers, highlighting its zero sugar benefits.
In 2024, Jell-O gained 0.8 share points of share, while approximately 40% of those share gains came from the zero sugar line. In Mio , we modernized the brand with refreshed graphics and added emphasis on wellness benefits to attract younger consumers. For example, take our Hydrate Subline, where the results have been quite impressive, a steady sequential improvement in 2024, ending with over 30% growth in the Q4 . We have proven we can renovate, and we can apply this successful model to many more brands in our portfolio. With our newly launched single-serve and multi-serve bottles, we are delighting kids with Capri Sun, both on the go and on the table. Although it's only been three months since the launch in retail, Capri Sun multi-serve is quickly on its way to a top quartile item, and do not worry, I can assure you we still have pouches here.
And through recipe activation, we inspire consumers to get creative in the kitchen. Whipping up tasty desserts like this easy-to-make mini cocoa pies, featuring a perfect blend of Jell-O, Cool Whip, and Jet-Puffed marshmallows. This helped contribute to an excellent year for desserts, where we gained 0.3 percentage points in share. And finally, across powder beverages, we grew dollar sales by over 5% with our Kool-Aid brand leading the way, making it our fastest-growing brand in the category. And on Crystal Light, with zero sugar and only 10 calories per packet, it is the ultimate solution for refreshing and flavorful hydration on the move at a price per glass that consumers can appreciate. And lastly, Balance. In line with our strategic role, Oscar Mayer achieved a 10% increase in gross profit dollars in 2024, driven by our team's commitment to deliver end-to-end productivity improvements.
For example, our investment in digital technologies and modernized equipment across our plant in Kirksville, Missouri, drove significant value for the company. We improved CFR by an impressive 21 percentage points, delivering $40 million in gross savings. And by bringing new items to the high gross value channel, we drove 37% growth for Oscar and Mario at Dollar General, outpacing total Dollar General perishable growth by roughly five times. We also launched a creative consumer-driven innovation, bringing excitement by making one of America's favorite traditions even better, with our stuffed dogs. We achieved the highest distribution for any new hot dog item in the category over the last five years. And we brought Belbeda into a new convenient format that is ready to dip. We are making occasions like watching the game easy with minimal prep.
I am also excited to announce that our new peel-reseal Oscar Mayer Deli Fresh packaging is rolling out now with a full national launch in April. This new packaging improves sealability and reduces plastic by 30%, with 50% less plastic relative to our competition. We have achieved a major win for both our consumers and the environment by innovating our packaging without passing any additional cost to our customers. I am incredibly proud of the team's outstanding work in driving this positive change and what they have been able to accomplish across the Oscar Mayer brand. When it comes to investments, we are distorting resources to higher growth and higher margin platforms to become a sauces and meals powerhouse. We have made significant progress to improve the composition of our portfolio over the last five years, reaching $17 billion of sales in Accelerate platforms.
Looking to the future, we expect this platform to become an even larger part of our net sales, reaching more than 75% over time, with most of the expansion coming from Taste Elevation. Let's take a closer look at each consumer platform within Accelerate. Taste Elevation is one of our most compelling spaces. It includes products such as condiments, sauces, and spreads. With over $11 billion in revenue in Taste Elevation, we play in more than 70 countries and are the number one player in sauces worldwide. That makes us the clear leader in this space. Our second platform, Easy Ready Meals, at approximately $5 billion, features convenient meals you can cook in 30 minutes or less. With iconic brands and global scale, we are primed to lead this fragmented space. Our third platform, Substantial Snacking, are snacks you can enjoy between or instead of a meal.
With disruptive technology like 360CRISP and our supply chain expertise, we have the edge to win in this space. These accelerate platforms are at the core of our growth and span across all three of our strategic pillars: North America retail, global away from home, and emerging markets, and our global Heinz brand is leading the way. Our "It Has to Be Heinz" campaign, the first global effort from the global growth office, leverages real-life stories to build brand equity and connect with consumers. Heinz has achieved iconic status in 85% of global markets, with loyalty increasing 3.5 percentage points year over year in 2024. This has contributed to significant growth with a 6% CAGR since the launch of our global creative platform.
As a $5 billion plus brand, Heinz has seen more than $600 million in sales growth over two years, particularly in ketchup, where we have stabilized our growth penetration in six of seven priority markets. While Heinz has universally high awareness, our global household penetration of 19% lags behind the 30% best-in-class benchmark set by similar iconic package brands. Closing this gap, that alone represents a $4 billion opportunity for sales growth. We are a company of iconic brands and can further leverage Heinz's success as a blueprint to unlock the full potential of these brands. Now, to deliver on our growth potential, we have a clear path ahead of us, a Kraft Heinz playbook, if you will, to drive profitable growth across our three strategic pillars, to continue investing in our enablers to fuel top-line growth, and to fund this investment by unlocking efficiencies across our sources of funding.
Now, what reinforces my confidence is our ability to execute in our distinctive competitive advantage. Today, Andrew and I will highlight key elements of this plan, starting with our three strategic pillars. As you may recall, our long-term algorithm calls for each pillar to drive about a third of our total top-line growth. With about 1 percentage point of organic net sales growth coming from each of these pillars, we are targeting top-line growth of 2%-3%. Now, let's take a closer look at how we will capture the growth across each Accelerate platform in North America retail. Starting with Taste Elevation, we are growing our consumer base by expanding usage occasions and flavors. Whether you are a fan of our classic ketchup or our flavorful combinations, we have the perfect condiments to take your chicken to the next level.
For example, Heinz Pickle Ketchup has been a huge success for us, with 50% incrementality to the category. As a result, we are now scaling across four continents. We are growing through meaningful product differentiation across our core brands. On Heinz, we are proud of our legacy as the global standard for ketchup. By applying this expertise to bring premium quality across various host foods, we are making our most loved ingredient accessible to all, and by increasing better-for-you offerings, we are improving the nutritional profile of our products and educating the flavor palates of consumers who already love our brands, with options like our Simply and Organic Heinz ketchup, as well as our lactose-free Philadelphia cream cheese.
Finally, by growing Heinz beyond ketchup, whether that is by capturing the excitement of the global trends with our new flavored Thai sauces or by inspiring consumers with the exciting flavors of Heinz mayonnaise. Now, moving to Easy Ready Meals, we are expanding usage occasions of our flavors with Kraft Mac and Cheese. By bringing flavor to the Mac and Cheese aisle, we help drive a five-year industry CAGR of over 40% of flavors. Our versatile formats make it easy to enjoy our favorite bowl of comfort any way you prefer, whether that is on the go, at the table, or anywhere in between. We are deepening consumer connections and relevance through partnerships and movies. For example, we partnered with Nintendo to introduce Super Mario Bros. shapes, leveraging the success of the Super Mario Bros. movie, the second highest-grossing animated film in history.
Ore-Ida partnered with Napoleon Dynamite to launch a campaign that resonated with younger audiences. This helped deliver an impressive 8% growth in dollar sales and an increase in household penetration by 2.6 percentage points in 2024. And we are accelerating Mexican cuisine. And in case you didn't know, Mexican food is an $8.4 billion category and is growing at an accelerated 4.5%. And Taco Bell is the fastest-growing brand in that category. We had an explosive 2024 performance driven by bold innovation and partnership with social influencers. And finally, we are redefining convenience and value by delivering solutions in the right sizes and formats, making it easier for consumers to feed their families. For example, our value-sized Kraft Mac and Cheese provides a lower price per ounce and 50% more cheesy goodness than the standard-sized blue box. And finally, Substantial Snacking.
We are expanding usage occasion and flavors by bringing the excitement and heat to snack time with Lunchables Pastry Nachos. We are deepening consumer connections relevant through campaigns like our $1 million Lunchables gaming sweepstakes and social engagement like pairing Claussen and Dua Lipa. Dua Lipa takes a feature in her favorite drink, one that included pickle juice, inspired our Claussen team to create a fictional Just Brine, which became a viral hit on Instagram with hundreds of fans begging it to be real. We are improving core product performance by renovating our Oscar Mayer bites with elevated graphics highlighting 15 Grams of protein and adding a new premium cracker. We are providing the perfect on-the-go snack catered to adults.
We're also taking our popular Lunchables to the next level by revamping our protein pack options for kids, complete with an upgrade cookie and cracker that they are sure to love. We are redefining convenience and value. And when I think of convenience, I think of 360 CRISP. Made with a 100% Kraft Heinz technology, our Delimex quesadillas come out of the microwave crispy, ready in minutes, and packed with 18 Grams of protein per quesadilla. Now, turning to away from home, we have significant opportunity to expand our presence. In North America, we see expansion opportunities across host foods and beyond ketchup. For example, chicken, as a host food, presents a huge opportunity for us as the fourth largest host food with a highly fragmented market. And across international, our penetration, especially in emerging markets, is significantly below our share in North America.
That means there is much room for us to grow. In Away from Home, we will capture the growth by going from ketchup kings to queens of condiment royalty, and it starts with growing beyond ketchup, whether that be through our full suite of amazing Heinz condiments or through Philadelphia cream cheese, and by entering the faster-growing, higher-margin non-commercial channels, which are projected to grow at a 6% CAGR over the next 10 years. Let me start with taking travel and leisure as an example. This is a huge untapped market for us in a channel where Heinz is significantly underindexed, and I am thrilled to share that we have landed our first global customer contract with Hilton, a game-changing opportunity to leverage Hilton's vast global footprint. To put this into perspective, Hilton spends approximately $40 million annually on condiments alone across over 130 countries worldwide.
We are putting our customers at the forefront of what we do, whether it's through culinary innovation or equipment innovation. Our food labs are spaces where Kraft Heinz chefs and other culinary professionals can collaborate to develop new products and ideas. Our Kraft Deluxe Mayo came out of that particular space. This Deluxe Mayo is made with incredible ingredients and chef-inspired production, melts evenly, and delivers top-grade quality at a great value. And with our Heinz Remix, we can collect real-time data from the dispenser machine to gather insights on what flavors and combinations consumers like best. And the Heinz Sauce One streamlines back-of-the-house operations by delivering multiple sauces with speed and consistency. Now, let's take a look at our third strategic pillar, emerging markets. Today, emerging markets make up only 10% of our business. We see significant long-term opportunity here.
We expect the taste elevation industry alone to grow at a 6% CAGR over the next 10 years, and with only half the penetration in emerging markets as we have in developed markets, there is a lot of white space for us to capture. We have three proven levers backing our growth in emerging markets. First, through Heinz, our crown jewel in our portfolio of iconic brands. Heinz represents $1.2 billion of revenue in emerging markets and delivered impressive sales growth of 8% in 2024. Second, our go-to-market model, as we continue to drive distribution in the existing market and explore white space opportunity. Through this proven model, we expanded distribution points by 17% in 2024, and looking ahead, we have identified a meaningful opportunity to unlock an additional $75 million in untapped white space over the next three years by leveraging a global scale and the iconic Heinz brand.
With this opportunity spanning across over 100 countries, we have identified 15 countries to focus to position ourselves to drive double-digit growth and third, through Heinz-led innovation, we will continue to accelerate the growth of our Heinz brand through flavor exploration, expanding usage occasions and driving value through the right portfolio and pack size. Now, let's move into our enablers of growth, where we will continue investing to fuel our future, starting with disruptive marketing. As part of our transformation, we have changed the trajectory of marketing at Kraft Heinz. Our marketing success stems from building an ecosystem that fuels brand relevance and creative excellence. By bringing together the right internal talent and external partners, we are able to move at the right speed. Our award-winning in-house agency, The Kitchen, has been a key driver of success.
Launched four years ago, it enabled us to market at the speed of culture, unleashing marketing that matters from ketchup and Simply Ranch to our most recent collaboration with DJ Mustard. Our Brand Growth System, which I mentioned earlier, is another critical component. It provides a systematic and repeatable framework to drive brand superiority. It ensures that creative excellence is a likely outcome, not a lucky one. So let's take a look. It's that drip.
Don't come too close, it's all gas, no brakes. Don't shade the throne, girl. It's that drip. That drip. Get your body. Go round. Breathe on the heavy. Come out. Twist it over. Bend down. It connects you. The sound. Pump the speakers. Listen now. Go, go, crazy. Go, get round. Get your body, body, body. Get your body, body, body. And there it is. Don't come too close, it's all gas, no brakes. Don't shade the throat. Go up. It's that. Come to grow as long past the ribs. Don't shade the throat. Go up. It's that drip. It's that drip.
So as you got a taste from that video, we piloted our Brand Growth System on the Philadelphia brand. And as a result, we were able to identify gaps and prioritize opportunity to drive growth to reach younger consumers in places where they engage the most. We leveraged social media to showcase Philadelphia as an ingredient. This resulted in meaningful household penetration gains across Gen Z and millennials. To capture white space in growing channels, we utilized joint business plans to increase distribution, leading to a 13% sales growth across club channels. And finally, we broadened usage occasion to drive versatility to relevant innovation and messaging.
This has led to exciting new products, such as our two new whipped flavors that lead into snacking and our ready-to-eat frosting that leans into the baking. The varied use cases for our newly launched Philly frosting are a testament to its versatility. It's no surprise that many enjoy it straight from the top. It's actually amazingly delicious. As we look ahead to 2025, I am excited to scale the brand growth system across more brands aiming to reach 30% of sales by year-end. Now, let's move on to our second enabler, innovation. Over the last few years, we have stepped up our investments in R&D, leveraged tech-enabled agile scale to increase speed to market, and above all, we have put our consumers at the heart of everything we do.
Our approach is creating a foundation for growth as we have significantly increased innovation as a percentage of our sales from 1.6% in 2022 to almost 3% in 2024. The key to successful innovation is providing consumers with sustainable value, and how we do that? By satisfying consumer desires with flavors and cuisine exploration, by expanding accessibility and relevance through value channels and occasion, and by meeting consumers' evolving needs, by providing them with unique benefits worth paying for. Now, let's watch a video to see how that works in action. I'm sure that makes you a little hungrier for lunch. Moving to our last enabler, sales excellence. With our newly created global omnichannel office, we now have the structure to quickly scale best practices and move globally with speed and agility. As a result, we have strengthened our sales capabilities across three levers.
First, by scaling our proving repeatable go-to-market model, we have increased distribution points by nearly 175,000 since implementation. Second, we are strengthening customer relationships through joint business plans. As we aimed for top quartile ranking on the Supplier Advantage Survey, we have significantly improved our net payable score from retailers in the US by 27 points since 2020, and third, we're working to perfectly execute across retail online and away-from-home channels through advancements of analytics and technology. We have been able to improve retail execution metrics by 5% in 2024. We are also unlocking new avenues for growth online by ensuring that we have the right products in the right places, with Kraft Heinz showing up at the top of 68% of searches across our top five retailers.
In Away from Home, we have successfully secured a robust pipeline of new business wins, representing a twofold increase in revenue compared to 2024. With that, let's move to our three competitive advantages, starting with Agile Scale. Agile Scale gives us the fuel to outpace our competition. It maximizes organizational impact by unlocking speed and efficiency boosted by technology and distinctive ways of working. Through agile ways of working and teams, we are powering our organization to unlock value for our customers and consumers. The results speak for themselves. Agile Scale is meaningfully unlocking efficiencies and accelerating innovation globally. Let me share some examples to bring Agile Scale to life. The first example is our connected shop floor. We roll out a digital process and collaboration platform across all of our plants in North America.
This tool delivers $35 million in value by improving yield and reducing labor hours, with 100% adoption by more than 1,200 plant employees. Moving to our second example. As we are experimenting with AI solutions, we recognize the importance of security. That is why we built our own Kraft Heinz AI, our internally built AI engine. Our Kraft Heinz AI is more than just a tool. It is a catalyst for transforming our ways of working. From idea to launch in 180 days, it is helping to elevate the skill of our organization, from optimizing factory flow processes, streamlining SAP rollouts in China, to automating routine financials. Our Kraft Heinz AI is becoming an integral part of our total workflow, and the third example is our Mexican Food Agile Pod. This cross-functional team launched seven new Mexican food products in under 12 months, generating $32 million of sales in 2024.
Now, our second competitive advantage is our unique approach to strategic partnerships. For example, in collaborating with Turing Labs, we developed a machine learning model that enables us to reformulate nutritional profile products faster. In Brazil, we reduced added sugars and sodium by over 30% in our Heinz tomato ketchup, all while maintaining the same great taste. We are now expanding the use of this technology with ketchup in other countries, as well as exploring the possibilities of reformulation across other products in our portfolio. We partnered with Microsoft to build a world-class control tower, enabling data-driven decisions in real time, shifting our approach from reactive to proactive across our supply chain, and finally, Highbury Canco proved to be the ideal partner for our Taco Bell innovation, enabling us to launch in record speed, achieving a 50% reduction in time to market.
The openness with which we approach these partnerships allows us to accomplish our goals faster in new creative ways. Our third competitive advantage is our ownership-centric culture. It has turned Kraft Heinz into a talent destination, attracting top talent from other companies. Our employees embrace our unique culture of ownership and meritocracy. We encourage and empower our people to think and act like owners, to take results personally, to be accountable, and to treat each dollar as if it's our own. The investments we have made in our people and our capabilities are paying off. With engagement at an all-time high, I am especially proud that we have seen meaningful improvements across both our salary and hourly employees. The results we're seeing internally also have earned recognition externally. We have earned Great Place to Work certification in 22 countries, up from zero in 2019.
Now, let me pass it over to Andre to discuss our sources of our funding and capital allocation.
Thank you, Carlos. Hello, everyone. I'm pleased to be speaking with you today. As I reflect on 2024, I am proud of our ability to unlock efficiencies. We are not done. We have a robust pipeline of opportunities ahead of us. Let's dive into some examples. Within revenue management, we created a dedicated organization and have expanded the use of digital tools. We're also testing multiple deals online in categories such as Kraft Singles, Kraft Mac and Cheese, and pasta sauce. Using a third-party partner, we can create and test various promotions prior to implementing in retail stores. Together, these advancements resulted in a 15% improvement in promotion ROIs since 2019. There is more opportunity to explore here.
We are aiming for 60% of promotional spend with net positive ROIs. And to get there, we expect to further reduce negative ROI promotions, continue to expand capabilities internationally, and increase positive contributions through mix. We're also stepping up improvements across our supply chain. We are well on our way to hit our target of $2.5 billion in gross efficiencies by 2027. Over the past few years, we have generated best-in-class productivity levels above 4% of COGS and well above our long-term algorithm of 3%. We have made significant strides across our operations, including working capital, where we have improved forecast accuracy and reduced excess inventory. And we continue to progress on other operational metrics such as OEE and Waste, all moving towards best-in-class benchmarks. However, we have a lot more potential when it comes to further improvement. Let me walk you through some of those opportunities.
We have successfully unlocked $1.3 billion of gross efficiencies since the beginning of 2023, when we set our $2.5 billion goal. We are very confident in our ability to unlock at least an additional $1.2 billion. And this will be achieved across manufacturing, logistics, and procurement. Some examples include further extending digital tools to reduce breakdowns and improve yield loss, improving mode of transportation mix and warehouse efficiency, like increasing our use of rail, and further embedding end-to-end design to value across the organization. Moving to our third source of funding, marketing effectiveness. At 4.5% of sales, we believe we are approaching sufficient levels of market investment. Our main focus this year will be on quality. In other words, on the return of that investment. Before 2024, this is an area where our visibility was very limited, and we have made progress to gain visibility on our most relevant brands.
However, we still have a compelling opportunity to optimize spend. It all starts with increasing the percent of our marketing spend that is consumer-facing. This is an area where we see meaningful room for improvement as we aim to increase the percentage from 65% to 85% of the total marketing spend. And that is about optimizing returns on consumer-facing dollars where we still have a relevant to any percentage point gap to best-in-class returns. We are working to close the gaps by continuing to optimize allocation across brand and media types and improving the quality of our messaging. Finally, we are capturing efficiencies and improving service by expanding our centralized shared service centers and capabilities. Within only two years, our centralized service function has delivered $35 million in cross-savings, driven by the creation of our captive centers in India and Mexico, where we are continuing to expand teams, capabilities, and scope.
We still have a lot more value we can unlock by connecting our finance backbone globally, enabled by SAP S/4, enhancing automation and process optimization, and continuing to expand the scope of our centralized service. As you can see, we have maintained top-tier margins while continuing to reinvest in the business and improve the shape of our P&L. In 2024, we increased our operating margin by two percentage points versus 2022 while investing across marketing, R&D, and CapEx. When I became the global CFO, we implemented the use of EVA to better allocate capital, helping us make more informed, data-driven decisions. This has enabled resource optimization, driving long-term value creation and supporting our goal of delivering sustainable, profitable growth. At the same time, we are generating superior cash flow, with improvement expected to continue as we work and progress towards our goal of 100%.
This has been a result of several strategic initiatives, including generating working capital efficiencies, mainly through improvement in inventory and payables, adding cash flow conversion as an incentive metric for all employees. In 2025, our improvements in working capital will more than offset tax headwinds as we expect to deliver historically strong performance at 95% cash conversion. In 2024, we returned approximately $2.7 billion in capital to stockholders. Of that, $1.9 billion was through our industry-leading dividend, with a yield of more than 5%. And $800 million was through our share repurchase program. This still leaves about $1.9 billion remaining against our $3 billion authorization. But as a reminder, our share repurchase program is non-programmatic, a function of excess cash, and takes into consideration the macroeconomic environment. We provided our 2025 full-year guidance last week.
As you recall, we are expecting organic net sales in the range of flat to down 2.5%. The most significant decline is expected to be in the Q1 , primarily due to Easter shift. This is expected to result in organic net sales in the Q1 down approximately mid-single digits, with improvement in each subsequent quarter. At a consolidated level, pricing is expected to be flat to slightly positive. This assumes mid-single digit pricing in emerging markets and pricing for commodity inflation, such as coffee in North America. Excluding the price for coffee inflation, our pricing in North America is expected to be down year over year. Keep in mind that gross margin expansion from unlocking efficiencies is expected to more than offset inflation and incremental investment in price, resulting in a flat to slightly positive year-over-year adjusted gross profit margin.
Due to trade timing and commodity inflation, we expect the gross margin to be more pressured in the H1 of the year, with a recovery in the H2 . Constant currency adjusted operating income is expected to be down 1% to down 4% for the full year, and we expect the adjusted EPS to be in the range of $2.63 to $2.74. This reflects a $0.07 headwind versus the prior year from lower variable incentive and a $0.23 headwind from an effective tax rate of approximately 26%. We anticipate 2025 serving as a year of stabilization, 2026 marking a return to growth, and 2027 to be on our rhythm. As we enter 2025, we have tangible wins taking hold. For example, we have secured 75% of new customer wins in away from home and are building on a 17% distribution increase in emerging markets.
In North America, particularly, we are investing in price, product, and marketing. 75% of our 2025 innovation sales will come from products already launched. We are also prioritizing brand spend through the brand growth system, investing in technology to fuel efficiencies, and shifting more marketing towards consumer-facing spend. These wins and dedicated investments, along with our sharp focus on executing with excellence, give us the confidence that we will stabilize our performance in 2025. Last year, we discussed key performance indicators to make sure we are on track to deliver our long-term algorithm. We have proven we can unlock efficiencies consistently. We have been reinvesting the business as we committed to do. Now, the key focus for us is powering brand and product superiority through the brand growth system. We have common incentives for both short-term and long-term performance, fully aligned with the goal of delivering top-tier shareholder return.
These incentives reinforce the importance of a balanced contribution between top and bottom-line growth, as well as free cash flow. This was a newly added incentive last year, and we have seen progress as a result. We continue to be excellent stewards of capital. By taking a disciplined approach to financial management, we have created a healthier balance sheet and optionality for capital allocation. Our priorities remain the same: to continue to invest in organic growth, actively manage our portfolio, and return incremental capital to our stockholders. When it comes to portfolio management, our priority is to do M&A that strengthens and accelerates our organic growth strategy. We have defined strategic and financial parameters for both acquisitions and divestures, and we have actively rotated nearly 20% of our total business over the past six years.
As a reminder, our criteria for either potential acquisitions or partnerships is aligned to our portfolio strategy: sufficient scale while remaining accretive with a bias towards both options. In the case of divestitures, our strong balance sheet positions us to take a disciplined approach to fair valuation. As Carlos mentioned, being the leader means that we consistently deliver top-tier shareholder returns. We are committed to our objectives and are taking a deliberate approach, combining business fundamentals and capital allocation to make progress towards our goals. With that, I will turn it back to Carlos.
Listen, as I stand here, I'm very optimistic about our future. We have a talented team, we have the right strategy, and a strong company culture rooted in ownership and meritocracy. Our focus remains on acting with urgency and discipline as we execute with excellence against our strategic pillars. We're committed to making the right investment for the now, the near, and the next while continuing to return capital to our stockholders.
There is so much more opportunity ahead for us. We will lean into our strategy and empower our people to achieve our ambition to be the leader in elevating and creating food that makes you feel good. With that, we hope you will join Andrew and me and several members of our Kraft Heinz executive team for lunch. You will get a chance to taste some of our delicious innovation, ask us questions, and as always, thank you for your attention and time today. And your interest in Kraft Heinz. See you soon. Great. And in lieu of a breakout, as Carlos mentioned, Kraft Heinz management will be out at lunch, downstairs and outside, and we'll see everybody there. Thanks again for sponsoring lunch.