Next up, please help me welcome McCormick & Company back to the CAGNY stage. Before I start, please join me in thanking the company for their generous support of the conference by hosting the break this morning, as well as the flavor activation. Thank you, as always, for bringing the heat. McCormick is one of the few packaged food companies looking for both volume growth and gross margin expansion in fiscal 2025. As the company's investments behind brand building and price pack management initiatives have continued to yield the intended positive results, in addition, McCormick's continuing to see growth in its core flavor categories, driven by greater scratch cooking at home, as consumers continue to look for ways to stretch their food budgets. Here with us today, we have Chairman, President, and CEO Brendan Foley and CFO Marcos Gabriel. With that, I'll hand it over to you, Brendan.
Thanks for being here.
Okay. Thank you, Andrew. We appreciate the opportunity today. It is a pleasure to be here at CAGNY again. McCormick is Flavor, and we have a long-standing. Let me advance the slides there.
McCormick would like to remind you that today's discussion will refer to certain non-GAAP financial measures. The nature of those non-GAAP financial measures and the related reconciliations to the GAAP results are included in the company's materials. Additionally, today's presentation contains projections and other forward-looking statements. Actual results could differ materially from those projected. The company undertakes no obligation to update or revise publicly any forward-looking statements, whether because of new information, future events, or other factors.
Great. Okay. Let's go ahead and advance to the next slide. McCormick is Flavor. We have a long-standing tradition of excellence and innovation, and I'm excited to share how we are advancing our leadership and differentiation to drive success and build shareholder value. 2024 was an important year in which we built momentum and strengthened our leadership, returning to differentiated and sustainable volume-led growth, while also expanding margins and delivering robust earnings growth. Overall, we hope that you'll take away today that we are building on a strong foundation. The demand for flavor remains strong. We're prioritizing investments in areas that drive the greatest value. And importantly, we are reaffirming our long-term objectives. With our strategies and best-in-class leadership, we are well-positioned to continue on our trajectory. We remain a growth company. At McCormick, we create and deliver flavors that enhance the taste of food and beverages.
We have been a trusted name in flavor for 135 years. Our portfolio includes leading brands in the flavor industry, household names that consumers trust for their quality and taste, and they're trusted by our customers. In fact, over half of U.S. consumers will consume a meal or beverage flavored by McCormick on any given day. This speaks to the power of our brands, the flavor they deliver, our capabilities and reach, and our growth potential. All over the world, people desire great-tasting foods and drinks with rich, authentic flavors, and we deliver flavors across markets. We serve a wide breadth of customers and operate across every channel, from traditional brick-and-mortar to e-commerce to food service to CPG customers. Simply put, at McCormick, we truly flavor every sip and bite. We operate in great categories across both of our segments, and they continue to project strong growth.
In our Consumer segment, we offer products at every price point, from premium to value, to meet all consumer needs. Our brands have been a part of kitchens and families for generations and remain in demand as we continue to innovate. In Flavor Solutions, we know the importance of brands and develop flavors that deliver on our customers' brand promise. This segment flavors some of the world's most iconic brands and also fast-growing, emerging brands, making us part of the daily flavor moments for millions of people all over the world. I am passionate about how our two segments complement each other, and this is what reinforces and differentiates McCormick. The scale, consumer insights, and technology that are leveraged from both are meaningful and drive differentiated growth. This uniquely positions us to cater to the entire flavor market.
We often say we are differentiated among our peers, and let me explain what makes McCormick different. Others compete for calories. We flavor them. While many of our peers compete across several different food categories, we are intentionally focused on flavor, allowing us effectively to be present at every consumption opportunity. Food and beverage companies compete for these calories every day, and we are different in where and how we compete. Our opportunity continues to grow no matter where calories are shifting, and the demand for flavor continues to have a long runway. We are different in our view of the world in food and beverage, and that we deliver flavor as broadly as we do. Before I cover the growth in flavor, we're going to run a video that will bring to light the enduring importance of flavor and our role in it.
It's part of all of us. Flavor. It enriches our lives and connects us to one another. The combination of taste, smell, and texture creates a sensory experience that can evoke memories, bring comfort, and introduce us to different cultures. It plays a crucial role in our health, well-being, and happiness. The earliest records show food was being flavored more than 5,000 years ago. Spices became the driving force behind major global trade routes. From our very beginning, 135 years ago, McCormick has been focused on flavor. We were the first to campaign for greater purity in food flavoring, which led to the establishment of the Flavor and Extract Manufacturers Association. We acquired Schilling of San Francisco, the largest spice business west of the Mississippi, making McCormick a U.S. industry leader.
Since then, we have had a continuous process of international expansion, making us the number one spices and seasonings company in the world. We established scale and Flavor Solutions through key acquisitions. 2017 saw us strengthen our leadership in condiments, the largest acquisition in McCormick's history. Four years later, we became the number one hot sauce company globally. We have become the industry leader with a presence in 150 countries. Our obsession with flavor keeps us at the forefront of this industry, and we are uniquely positioned to shape the future of global food and beverages.
As you can see, the global flavor demand, the global demand for flavor, is strong. It is projected to grow 5%-7%. With our geographical footprint, McCormick's growth is projected at 3%-5%, positioning us for sustained best-in-class organic top-line growth. The expected growth in flavor highlights the runway for growth in our existing and in new markets. Consumers, and I think we can all relate to this, do not compromise on flavor. Flavor continues to be vital, regardless of age, where one comes from, dietary preferences, or income level. We see growth whether consumers are eating away from home or at home because we operate across every channel. Consumers continue to cook more at home. They are increasingly shopping the perimeter for protein and produce and eating healthier.
Our proprietary research shows that 82% cook to eat healthier, a significant increase from 75% just three years ago, which is consistent with what you would see in published research. These are secular trends and are accelerating in the context of today's environment. This increases the demand for flavor and McCormick's categories. Today, spices and extracts remain number one in center-store growth. In addition, consumers are increasingly open to flavor exploration, and we are matching that with the right innovation. Now let me touch on heat. The demand for hot and spicy is strong, which is a significant tailwind to our growth. Our global heat platform is about 20% of our sales and has been growing faster than non-heat products, and we expect this to continue. Gen Z and Millennials continue to kick up the demand for heat.
They are more experimental and prefer authentic, bold, and spicy flavors, outpacing all generations. Spicy, sweet, and savory, these are the three most popular flavor profiles, and we are positioned to deliver spicy alone or pairing with sweet or savory to meet consumers' preference in nuanced ways. Consumers are interested in complex, layered flavor profiles. Hopefully, you had a chance to stop by our booth today and taste some great heat flavors. Heat enhances and lifts flavor. It takes you on a journey from flat to high. It's not just a trend. It's a sustainable flavor profile. Importantly, we are uniquely positioned to win in heat with our global iconic brands and connected capabilities. The power of our platform is not just about one of these areas. It is how they all connect that creates powerful differentiation and advantages us. The consumer is always at the center of our thinking.
We have in-depth sourcing expertise in chilies and peppers and a resilient and extensive supplier base. Our scientists have a deep understanding of sensory science and how the origin, aging, processing, cooking, and fermentation of raw materials bring out the nuances in heat and flavor. We have an insulated technology toolbox to customize the delivery of heat for an optimal consumer experience, and we manufacture at scale. Let's now turn to our growth objectives. At McCormick, we have five priorities, and we continue to rally behind them. We made significant progress in 2024 and are on track with where we expect it to be. We continually strengthen our plans and are confident in our execution, and these will continue as our priorities in 2025. Underpinning our long-term growth objectives is a unique system of advantages that works together to drive industry-leading growth.
Our broad portfolio, powerful leading brands, and heat platform differentiate us in the marketplace. Our consumer insights benefit from the complementary nature of our segments. The insights we gain from collaborating with Flavor Solutions customers, combined with our consumer preference insights, enable us to be more innovative and more on-trend. Our global sourcing capabilities and quality expertise are driven by our long history of sourcing more than 17,000 unique ingredients from over 90 different countries and tens of thousands of smallholder farmers. We have a disciplined approach to acquisitions and an outstanding integration history, and our power of people culture is at our foundation. These advantages, together with the execution of our strategies, are critical to ensuring we deliver on our growth potential. At McCormick, we are proud of our unique culture. In 1949, C.P. McCormick published the book The Power of People.
It reinforces our commitment to employees, our high-performance, and people-first culture, which is rooted in our shared values and respect for everyone's contributions. These beliefs continue to be a cornerstone of our management approach. Our global workforce is strongly committed to growth and doing what's right to create value for our business. Our leadership team has deep experience. Each member brings a unique perspective, skills, and expertise. Together, we are harnessing the collective expertise of our talented team across the world with a renewed sense of urgency and speed to execute on our strategies. This drives continued long-term sustainable, profitable growth, ensuring we remain competitive and continue to deliver shareholder value. Our strategic roadmap remains built on the pillars of growth, performance, and people. Our strategies have been proven to be effective, growing both sales and profit and compounding that growth over the years.
We believe sustainable top-line growth is the most powerful contributor to long-term value creation. Now, putting all of these things together, flavor is an enduring trend. It's essential to food and beverage, and no one knows flavor like us and operates in flavor like we do, operating in strong categories with the capabilities to flavor across food and beverage. Last year at CAGNY, you heard me lay out our robust plans to reinvigorate volume growth in a profitable manner, and we delivered. We did so by focusing on our core categories, investing in the areas that drive the greatest value, like innovation and brand marketing. We funded investments through the virtuous flywheel of our continuous comprehensive improvement program, and this led to results that are on track with our plans and significantly ahead of what you're seeing in the broader market.
We delivered strong and sustainable volume growth this past year, and we expect this momentum to continue. Our guidance for 2025 takes into account the current environment and calls for continued volume growth. This supports our confidence in our near-term and long-term objectives. Today, we are reaffirming our long-term objectives, which are to drive sales growth of 4%-6%, operating income growth of 7%-9%, and earnings per share of 9%-11%. I am constantly inspired by the high energy level across our organization and confident in our ability to deliver on these objectives. Long-term, on an organic basis, we expect to drive about 3%-4% growth. Underpinning our expectations is our broad and advantaged global portfolio anchored by high-growth, profitable categories.
Our focus on investing in the areas that drive the greatest value and also market share improvement in core categories and geographic expansion across high-growth regions and categories. Let's turn to our growth plans across core categories, which include spices and seasonings, condiments and sauces, branded food service, and flavors, starting with consumer and with spices and seasonings, where we have made significant progress and our plans are expected to continue to drive momentum. It all starts with great brands, which are loved by consumers. We have number one positions in leading household penetration in our key markets. This brand strength is a key benefit to retailers as they prioritize our brands and implement our category management recommendations. Our growth strategy remains consistent. That is to drive volume and distribution gains with leading brand marketing support, innovation and renovation, and category and revenue management.
As we continue to see success, we plan to continue investing in these areas. Speaking of brand marketing support, let me share with you some of our recent spices and seasonings ads.
Every bottle of McCormick is Flavor Sealed for fresh flavor everyone notices.
Bon, les amis, on parie sur quoi aujourd'hui? Un plat fade, comme d'hab. Oh non, il va commander! Ou un vieux truc du siècle dernier. Non, mais je rêve! Sentez-moi ça! Délicieux!
Alors là, tu t'es vraiment décarcassée.
Ouais, ouais. Duc ros! On se décarcasse, je vous assure.
Now, let's move to the category shelf where we provide the most extensive end-to-end solution for the category. We have a portfolio that meets all consumer needs, price points, and occasions. Our category management solutions leverage our portfolio and deep insights on shoppability, and where it's been implemented, both the category and McCormick growth rates are accelerating. Let me spend a minute on revenue management. For the past decade, revenue management has been a key capability and where we have invested in a dedicated team and technology. In fact, we were one of the first to pull these levers with customers in 2024, leading to volume improvements. And we have done this through a surgical approach at an SKU-by-SKU level and by leveraging our advanced analytical tools and expanded talent. We implemented this with around 80% of retailers, and it drove one-third of overall growth in 2024.
Importantly, advertising, distribution gains, and innovation drove the remaining two-thirds. Turning to innovation, it drives one-third of our long-term growth objectives. Globally, we doubled net sales contribution from innovation since 2022. We are successfully winning in new households in spices and seasonings, bringing in more than six million new households in 2024. As we move forward, we are going to continue to launch the highest share of category innovation, and here's how. Launching items in half the time it has historically taken, getting on-trend flavors to shelf faster, using technology to create flavor differentiation, and testing more new ideas through e-commerce, giving us real-time data as consumers vote with their wallets. Renovation is also a foundational element to continue to win. It started with our core red cap packaging renovation in 2023, highlighting freshness and flavor, which resulted in a 14% increase in velocity in 2024.
We plan to continue to drive renovation across our portfolio. This includes a similar Grill Mates package renovation, which will be ready for this year's grilling season. We are also rolling out our new Gourmet renovation, which will begin to ship later this year. We have the strongest equity in the Gourmet category, and it's important to stay ahead of consumer expectations. You see, the younger generation wants a bottle that's countertop-worthy, and we're bringing this to life through a new vibrant gold cap that seals in freshness, provides a more modern look, and highlights that we only use the best raw materials. This renovation is expected to drive an increase in purchase interest and velocity. To wrap up spices and seasonings, I'm proud to say that our plans are working. We are growing unit consumption, volume consumption, distribution, and as the chart illustrates, we are making improvements in volume share.
I will also add we are outpacing private label on volume for the last two quarters. Our opportunity continues to expand. Let's move to condiments and sauces. In this category, our brands have leading positions and are globally recognized across many segments, and we have a deep understanding of consumer needs. They do love our brands. To fuel growth, we are focused on household penetration across three pillars: building hot sauce to be the condiment of the next generation, strengthening our mustard leadership, and growing our regional powerhouses. Let me start with hot sauce. It's pretty incredible that in the U.S., Gen Z and Millennials spend more on hot sauce than they do on ketchup, and they use more hot sauce than any other generation. Our brands, Frank's RedHot and Cholula, resonate with younger consumers and are advantaged to win.
Both brands have strong loyalty and repeat rates, and Frank's RedHot has the highest household penetration in the category. We continue to dial up our efforts on recruiting, innovating, and expanding faster internationally. Starting in the U.S., where we have the largest hot sauce market and the largest brand with Frank's RedHot, we have underlying health in the business and have been improving share performance. Our plans are working. We drove unit, volume, and dollar growth in the fourth quarter. Sequentially, we drove significant improvement in dollar and unit share trends. This improvement was driven by distribution gains, increased brand marketing, and innovation, and in the last two quarters, we have grown unit share on our core original business. As we go into 2025, we will invest and strengthen in our plans further to continue this momentum.
On Cholula, it's all about authentic Mexican flavor, and it's the number one Mexican hot sauce globally, but it's only in a fraction of households. So there is significant upside for growth given its appeal. Gen Z and Millennials are the first generation to prefer Mexican cuisine over Italian and Chinese. And while Cholula was born a hot sauce, it has proven to stretch potential beyond. The launch into salsas and taco recipe mixes has done very well, and it's been highly incremental to the category. Also, around 75% of the buyers are new to the Cholula brand, and we expect to launch even more innovation with Cholula. And lastly, on hot sauce, this isn't just a U.S. story. The global opportunity is significant, and in many markets, the category is fast-growing but underdeveloped.
Since acquisition, we have more than doubled the net sales of Cholula and Frank's Red Hot internationally, and it now represents a higher percentage of net sales. We plan to continue to develop the category in our top existing markets while also launching into new markets. Moving to mustard, we continue to strengthen our leadership. For the U.S., our largest French's market, we are focused on volume, distribution, and brand marketing. We have improved performance with over a point of unit share growth in the last two quarters. As we go into 2025, we will launch a new creative campaign that celebrates French's as the official flavor of summer. We will dial up innovation behind new flavors and formats, leading ahead of trends like we did on creamy dill pickle mustard.
In condiments and sauces, just like spices and seasonings, we have a significant amount of innovation driving our growth in line with our long-term plans. Globally, in hot sauce, our new products are successfully bringing in new younger households and growing household penetration with Millennials. Now I want to show you how we're building excitement through brand marketing initiatives with Frank's RedHot. We've had some very successful Super Bowl activations over the past few years, leveraging very different celebrities. They all love Franks. This year, we partnered with Paris Hilton, and this activation has surpassed all previous campaigns, capturing 5.6 million impressions. Let me share it with you.
Why do I have to double my Frank's RedHot? Because I put that shit on everything. And this glamorous bottle plus Frank's RedHot for life can be yours. Show me how you're kicking things up a notch with Frank's RedHot for the big game. It could be any food: buffalo chicken dip, wings, waffle, ice cream, caviar, chips, pink chips. I love this. And that's not just hot, that's RedHot. So what are you waiting for?
Let me wrap up the Consumer segment by speaking to brand marketing, our most efficient and effective investment to drive brand growth. At McCormick, we have the highest share of voice in the categories we operate in, and we continue to increase working media to drive incremental brand growth. Importantly, digital is 77% of our spend. That's why our continued focus on digital transformation is paramount. Moving to Flavor Solutions, we have a diverse portfolio, and let me break it down. Starting with flavors, this is roughly 60% of our segment and concentrated in the Americas and EMEA. We flavor products in a wide range of end-market applications. Think about flavor in every aisle of the grocery store. McCormick is there. We are recognized as a global leader in seasonings, which is more than just a blend of ingredients.
Many of our seasonings have flavor technology embedded in them and span all types. Specialty flavors are complex flavor systems, which can have up to 40 ingredients in them. Examples are flavor encapsulation, flavor modulation, and natural extracts. We've gained greater scale, capability, and capacity in these areas with our FONA and Giotti acquisitions. Next is branded food service. This is about 20% of the segment and concentrated in the Americas. These are our consumer brands, but think of larger sizes being used back of house by chefs in restaurants, hotels, cafeterias, and other venues, or sitting on the tabletops in those places. Significant brand equity drives gross margins like the Consumer segment. And finally, custom condiments is about 10% of the segment, and coatings and ingredients is another 10%.
These products are concentrated in Asia-Pacific and EMEA and largely sold to quick service and casual restaurants and are lower in margin compared to flavors and branded food service. Let me start by reviewing our branded food service business. Our brands are paving the way for success across this industry. We have broad reach and presence in every segment, and we seamlessly connect our branded food service and consumer businesses, each fueling each other. Consumers want to find the brands and flavors they love when they are eating away from home. And for operators, it elevates their offerings when they feature our brands in their restaurant or menu. To continue this momentum, we will be investing across these three areas: innovation and renovation, reaching consumers and operators with brand marketing, and expanding our channel presence.
We are also leveraging the iconic power of our brands to reach consumers away from home. In 2024, we drove a 34% increase of branded menu placements in new locations behind such leading brands such as Frank's RedHot and Cholula. For example, in Qdoba, we have two bottles of Cholula on every tabletop and rotating Cholula-branded items on the menu. Lastly, we will continue to expand our channel presence in three key areas. In retail food service, our brands are on the perimeter where consumers are shopping for convenient value-added prepared meals. In Hispanic food service outlets, we are leveraging authentic brands such as McCormick Mayonesa. In the growing non-commercial sector, including travel, hotels, college, healthcare, our brands elevate the food experience. We're encouraged by our results in 2024, where we outpaced the industry. Our plans are delivering.
Our core categories continue to drive growth, and branded food service is extending our reach and our impact. Now let's move to the final category: flavors. I'll cover the industry, our positioning, and our growth plans. How do we explain our business without telling you who our customers are and what products we flavor? We are the secret flavor behind many global icons today and many future icons of tomorrow. Whether it's the sauce in your fast food chicken sandwich, the seasoning on your favorite chip, or the taste of a new alcoholic cocktail, we are the ones customers call when they want to achieve iconic status. We operate in an attractive industry. Flavor is everywhere. Think about it. People all over the world, three meals a day, snacking and drinking in between, and it all needs flavor. That is our opportunity.
It's technically insulated, and the margin profile is attractive. Flavor is the number one thing that will determine our customers' success, but it is one of the smallest costs, and with consumer trends, industry regulations, and sustainability goals, a healthy tailwind of innovation continues to fuel the industry. Within McCormick, flavors is one of the fastest growing in our entire portfolio. We've outpaced the rest of the flavor industry when it comes to organic growth. We flavor nine out of the top 10 CPGs and have many regional and fast-growing customers as we continue to grow and diversify our customer base. We do this across a diverse set of end-market applications, including savory snacks, performance nutrition, beverages, dairy, bakery, and health applications. From a sales perspective, we are the number one flavor house in North America with a runway for continued growth.
As we expand into other McCormick markets, we will leverage this North American expertise. We're also different than other flavor houses. It starts with a 100% focus on flavor. We have a deep culinary foundation and a natural food heritage, and we're the only ones who also are a global consumer brand leader. We know what it takes to drive brand equity and interact with consumers. Because of this, we have more touchpoints across all channels, leading to deeper consumer insights. This distinct positioning sets us apart. In terms of our growth plans, we are focused to win across our taste competencies. Let me explain what we mean. To win a taste competency, we must have the talent, expertise, integrated supply chain, and capabilities across the organization for us to be the partner of choice.
We have the clear right to win in savory and heat, and already well-established as market leaders. We have sourcing advantages due to our scale and heritage in natural ingredients and culinary expertise, particularly in seasonings development and heat application. Our customers are McCormick brand consumers too, and they see us as experts in these taste competencies, and in Naturally Sweet and Citrus and Fruit, we have regional expertise, primarily in the Americas and EMEA, and we're building this globally. For Naturally Sweet, we have unique flavoring expertise across vanilla and warm spices like cinnamon and nutmeg. For Citrus and Fruit, we have strong technical capabilities through our Giotti and FONA acquisitions, which can be used in a wide range of applications. We see additional growth ahead and plan to increase our global presence through organic investments and potential partnerships.
Overall, our taste competencies define our strengths within the flavor industry and represent large addressable segments with strong growth rates. We have two different product types: seasonings and specialty flavors. Seasonings is where we have more scale, and we talk about it as the tip of our spear. We use it as a new way to expand our customer base and enter new markets, and the global snacks market is large and growing. We have significant capabilities and expertise in snacks, particularly with seasoning application science. Heat expertise also drives our growth, particularly through innovation. Because of this, we're well-positioned to support key consumer trends. We talk a lot about the growth of heat, but also applying it to other trends like health. In fact, we have found heat is a great solution for customers looking to reduce sodium without losing flavor.
Now focusing on specialty flavors, the combination of McCormick, Giotti, and FONA has increased our scale and reach and is driving speed and agility to partner with a wide range of customers, both existing and new. Whether it's the chocolate flavor for a new protein shake, the lemon flavor for a popular seltzer, or the strawberry flavor for a fiber gummy, we flavor them all. Talent is also a critical enabler, and we continue to invest in driving internal development, like our Flavorist training program that provides a multi-year career path at McCormick. Finally, we continue to invest in proprietary technologies to support all of our taste competencies. We remain confident in flavor and seasonings expertise to successfully meet consumers with where they are. We are all witnessing shifts in consumer preferences. They are becoming more health conscious, and this trend is gaining momentum.
We are partnering with customers to launch new products or reformulate existing ones to fit healthier lifestyles. For example, in EMEA, we helped a confectionery customer reduce the sugar content of their cereal bar using our technologies. Our exposure to high-growth innovator customers allows us to win several high-growth categories, many of which are benefiting from the trend towards healthier eating. For example, we collaborate with many customers in creating great-tasting high-protein powders and shakes that are low in sugar. Hydration is a growing trend, and we are helping our customers introduce a variety of exciting natural flavors and their electrolyte offerings with a clean label. The connection of compliance and consumer choice is revealing a dynamic regulatory landscape around the globe. Our history in spices, herbs, and seasonings, natural extracts, and flavors positions us to work with customers in redesigning products aimed at using natural and clean ingredients.
Wrapping up on flavors, we're focusing on the four taste competencies where we have a right to win, and seasonings will be the lead in all regions. We'll continue to expand our specialty flavors portfolio. Our strengths and go-to-market approach differentiates us from other flavor houses and provides significant opportunities to drive continued growth for McCormick. I wanted to wrap up the growth section by concluding that no one knows flavor like McCormick, and our Flavor Forecast is a great example of this. It pinpoints emerging flavors and culinary trends, and many of our predictions have stood the test of time, from pumpkin spice to chipotle and many others. Our 2025 Flavor of the Year, Aji Amarillo, has just launched in consumer and branded food service.
We hope you enjoy the flavor in the chicken shawarma pita sandwiches during our break this morning, and we have a bottle for you in our gift bag. Now, let me hand it over to Marcos.
Let's see if we can get it down. Thank you very much. Thanks, Brendan, and good afternoon, everyone. I'm going to start by covering our historical performance, address the growth drivers behind our long-term objectives, and discuss our capital allocation strategy. We'll also focus on the investments worth making behind our business, particularly in technology. Our top priority remains to drive differentiated volume-led sales growth, consistent with our historical net sales performance as seen on this slide. Turning to operating income, after a challenging 2022, we met our cost recovery plans and delivered margin expansion in both 2023 and 2024.
We focus on investing back in our business to drive volume, while also continuing to grow our operating income and expand our margins. Our investments are yielding results, and we expect our volume and operating income improvement to continue. As you heard today, we operate in great and advantaged categories and are intentionally focused on investing to drive growth. Looking back from 2015 to 2024, we delivered 4% organic sales growth. In addition, our successful M&A contributed 2% to our growth over that time. In total, we delivered 6% compounded annual growth rate in line with the high end of our long-term objectives. Historically, we have driven our organic growth through volume. In 2024, we made significant progress in sequentially improving our volumes and delivered positive volume growth for the year.
This performance was driven by our proven growth levers, including brand marketing, new products and packaging innovation, category management, and proprietary technologies. Turning to our sustainable long-term objectives, net sales of 4%-6%, operating income of 7%-9%, and earnings per share of 9%-11%, which we reaffirmed during our investor day in October, and I'm reaffirming today as well. Now, I'm going to cover the key drivers for these objectives, as well as discuss our prioritized investments, including our digital transformation and our capital allocation priorities. Starting with net sales, our long-term objective remains to drive 4%-6% growth, driven by base business, new products, and acquisitions. The contribution to our long-term sales objectives has historically included the benefit of acquisitions. We are committed to retaining the discipline we have historically demonstrated in this area, which I'll discuss shortly.
But first, let's discuss the components of our organic sales growth objectives. Brendan shared earlier what drives our confidence in our organic growth expectations. Now, let me go a level deeper and speak to the details of our plans. First, in consumer, starting with the Americas, we'll continue to invest in brand marketing to support our plans. We expect to improve market share by expanding distribution, launching new packaging, and innovating. In addition, we'll remain committed to our revenue growth management initiatives. Our plans are similar in EMEA, where we're looking to continue to drive growth with our global brands, including Frank's, Cholula, as well as regional brands such as Ducros in France and Schwartz in the U.K. We plan to continue to expand across various channels. In APAC, our expansion in the region will accelerate our growth in the Consumer segment as we focus on restoring growth in China.
Looking at Flavor Solutions in the Americas, we continue to focus on our growing flavors and branded food service business. In EMEA and APAC, we're focused on further expanding flavors, as well as through collaborations with our QSR customers and further building on these relationships through innovation. And lastly, our plans to expand in Latin America will contribute to growth in both segments. Let's move to acquisitions, which remain a key growth driver of our long-term objectives and are expected to contribute about 2% growth. Our history demonstrates our success in creating value through acquisitions, which is rooted in our tailoring strategies and financial discipline. We filter opportunities to ensure they fit our vision of being the leading flavor company, meet our financial thresholds, and deliver shareholder value.
We focus on assets that are key to our sales growth rates, our margins, and our earnings, and contribute to our operational capabilities. All of our capital investments, including M&A, are viewed with an EVA and ROIC lens. We are committed to retaining the proven discipline. We're pleased with our current portfolio and confident in the organic growth it will deliver. Additionally, as we actively evaluate assets in the market, we're excited about the possibilities to add great acquisitions that complement our portfolio and enhance our organic growth. We have a track record of investing for long-term growth, leveraging our growth flywheel of margin expansion to fund investments and continue to drive strong top-line results. This is foundational to McCormick and has enabled us to deliver long-term profitable growth. And we remain confident that we can deliver on our long-term objectives of driving operating income growth of 7%-9%.
In 2024, we expanded gross margin by 90 basis points as we benefited from improved product mix and CCI savings. In 2025, at our implied guide, we're going to be halfway to our committed operating margin expansion of 200 basis points and reaching 17.5% by 2028. We expect most of the operating margin improvement to come from the Flavor Solutions segment and margins in this segment to expand by approximately 400 basis points by 2028, or 80 basis points per year, about double the average for total McCormick. These improvements will come through four different levers: volume growth, as we expect operating leverage to contribute to margin expansion. Portfolio migration, as we continue to shift to higher margin categories such as flavors and branded food service. Robust cost savings and efficiencies program. And we're exiting low-margin businesses as we continue to optimize our portfolio.
In addition, it is important to note that we plan to continue to invest to further drive growth and differentiation. So this is not only a margin play. It is a top-line and margin expansion coming together. As we discussed, we are focused on investing to drive growth. We're investing in brand marketing, category management, innovation, and research and development, as well as in our digital transformation. As you can see in this slide, the investments we've made are yielding results. Let me now speak to our digital transformation. Over the last few years, we have been well underway on our digital transformation journey and are pleased with our progress. Our priorities continue to expand the growth, performance, and people pillars of our strategic roadmap.
We continue to make progress in data and insights, where we're focused on accelerating the usage of AI and machine learning technologies across the company. Enabling this overall effort is our Global Business Solutions Organization, or GBS, which is a critical contributor in standardizing and automating processes globally. In our enterprise digital foundation, including our S/4HANA implementation, which is well underway in the Americas. Let's now double-click into some specific examples of investments in these areas, starting with those that are driving top-line growth. We're leveraging data and analytics to meet consumers where they are. We targeted brand marketing content and media, and we're investing in technology to create a personalized ecosystem where we're capturing, enriching, and leveraging consumer data across multiple channels. This allows us to surround them with tailored content, insightful recommendations, and curated experiences on their path to purchase.
In addition, we are enhancing our revenue management capabilities with digital simulation tools, scalable dashboards, and predictive analytics. Our revenue management efforts contributed to our volume growth in 2024. And finally, we continue to enhance the speed and insightfulness of our innovation pipeline. We're leveraging our consumer insights in combination with tools such as our Idea Shaker, which generates creative inspiration to enable new product ideas, as well as SAGE, our Smart Agile Growth Enabler, our AI-enabled product development tool that brings speed and unique solutions to our innovation processes. From a supply chain perspective, we're investing to drive efficiencies in sourcing and procurement, leveraging machine learning to identify historical patterns to predict future pricing, using predictive analytics and AI for risk mitigation, inbound cost reduction, and supply assurance.
We're also deploying digital shop floor collaboration tools globally at targeted sites and expanding our robotic process automation capabilities to drive further efficiencies, and we are enhancing our planning and forecasting processes with improved tools and AI capabilities, enabling continued improvement in working capital. We are realizing the benefits of these programs and are excited to continue the journey to further strengthen our supply chain. Now let's move to capital allocation. Our priorities remain consistent. We expect to drive shareholder value through strong cash flow generation and a balanced use of cash, fund investments to drive growth, returning a significant portion to our shareholders, and maintaining a strong and flexible balance sheet. Our balance sheet puts us in a position of strength and gives us the flexibility to continue to invest in the business organically and inorganically to support our growth.
As we think about ROIC, we are expecting a 10%-12% range in the near term. Our operating cash flow generation remains strong. We expect to continue to drive robust cash flow through 2028. Our growth will be driven by higher net income from revenue growth and margin improvement, as well as our focus on working capital improvements. We have a structured program in place covering all levels of working capital. We've made great progress, especially in optimizing our inventory levels through improved integrated business planning processes and the use of technology. Lastly, we continue to expect that on average, more than 95% of net income will be converted to free cash flow. We expect capital investments to be at 3.5%-4% of net sales. Approximately three quarters will be in capacity, capabilities, and efficiencies, and about one quarter will be dedicated to IT and digital transformation.
We remain committed to returning cash to our shareholders in the form of dividend payments or share repurchases. We have paid dividends since 1925, increased our dividend for 39 consecutive years, and are proud to be a Dividend Aristocrat. We anticipate dividend growth to be in line with earnings per share growth. In the absence of acquisitions or debt paydown, we'll return cash to shareholders also by repurchasing shares. With our balanced use of cash approach, we are committed to maintaining strong balance sheets to give us flexibility to make future investments. We remain committed to a strong investment-grade rating and have made excellent progress in paying down our debt. Looking forward, we expect our leverage ratio to continue to improve, providing the flexibility to either pursue acquisitions or return capital to shareholders. We reaffirm our outlook for 2025.
It remains the same as we have provided on our fourth quarter earnings call in January. Our guidance reflects continued momentum from a strong 2024 performance. Now, let me provide a perspective on tariffs. The situation remains fluid. We have been monitoring and working with our teams on multiple scenarios, and we'll provide updates when there is more clarity. What we can say now is that we know that tariffs can result in an inflationary environment, and we would execute as we have in the past. We look for CCI savings first, then robust revenue management and other actions to offset cost increases. Now, to wrap up, we're pleased with the progress we made in 2024 and expect the momentum to continue in 2025. We're prioritizing our investments to drive impactful results.
Our continuation of volume-led growth, coupled with margin expansion, underscores that we're moving in the right direction. We remain confident in the underlying fundamentals of our business and delivering on our 2025 financial outlook, and we are committed to our 2028 objectives that we set at Investor Day, as well as our long-term objectives. Thanks very much for your attention today, and we'll now move to the other room for questions.
Please join me in thanking McCormick again, and we'll head over to the breakout.