McCormick & Company, Incorporated (MKC) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Thank you for standing by, and welcome to the McCormick & Company, Inc. Virtual Shareholder Meeting. Please go ahead.

Good morning and welcome to McCormick's annual shareholders meeting. I'm Lawrence Kurzius, Chairman, President and CEO. I'd like to thank you for joining us today for our second meeting in this virtual format. It's been my honor to lead this organization to a very challenging but rewarding year, where we once again delivered excellent results. Before I officially open the meeting, I want to express my sincere hope as everyone on the call and your friends and families are healthy and safe. I'd like to especially thank our McCormick employees around the world who persevered through the pandemic under extraordinary circumstances and delivered great results. They remain dedicated and focused against the 3 priorities we established during this unprecedented global pandemic to ensure the health, safety of our employees and the quality and integrity of our products, keep our brands and our customers' brands and supply and to ensure McCormick emerges stronger. I'm pleased to report that McCormick is stronger than ever because of our people, our long-term strategies for growth, performance and people, our response to changing consumer behavior and our ability to capitalize on our opportunities from a position of relative strength. Our strategies and commitment to best-in-class execution delivered excellent results and generated double-digit shareholder returns in 2020. We are confident in our ability to deliver top-tier financial results while doing what's right for people, communities and the planet we all share. And I'd like to offer my congratulations to all of our stockholders, and thank you for your continued belief in McCormick. Our stock price opened this morning at $89.59 per share. While down from our high, this price represents an $18.98 or nearly 27% increase year-on-year from the same-day last year. In 2020, McCormick launched our new purpose because now more than ever, standing together is the key to our success. I invite you to join us in our shared purpose to Stand Together for the Future of Flavor. Flavor is a positive, unifying and powerful force for good. As the global leader in flavor, we envision a world united by flavor for a healthy, sustainable and delicious go hand-in-hand. Please join us in standing with our other stakeholders, communities, employees, customers and consumers who all want to make a positive impact on the world around us. Today, you will hear about how McCormick is sustainably positioned for growth and how we will win with leadership, win with results and win with talent. Winning in these areas means we will drive undisputed herbs, spices and seasonings leadership, accelerate condiment and flavors platform growth, fuel growth through health and wellness and strengthen customer intimacy and consumer connection. Let's now turn to the highlights and successes for the year. 2020 was another year of strong performance for McCormick, even with periods of significant disruption. We delivered top-tier business results while continuing to build the McCormick of the future, with investments in our supply chain, brand marketing communities and our employees, who we protected and rewarded for excellent performance. We delivered 5% sales and 6% adjusted earnings per share growth for the year, with record cash flow from operations, which crossed the $1 billion threshold. This year was the 35th consecutive year of dividend increases, continuing our commitment to being a dividend aristocrat. Finally, for the first time in almost 20 years, McCormick completed a two-for-one stock split for shareholders of record as of December 1. We are confident McCormick is a much stronger company by continuing the ways of working we developed in responding and addressing the pandemic. Faster decision-making, prioritization and adaptability accelerated. Given the extraordinary demand for our products as cooking at home skyrocketed, we protected the health and safety of employees, while dramatically increasing our supply chain capacity and resilience to support the needs of our growing business and to service our customers. We took care of our people with measures, including working from home for office staff, premium pay for hourly workers working on site, flexibility and support for caregivers and salary assurances during periods of shutdown. Acquisitions remain an important contributor to our long-term growth strategy, and we had a very successful year with the acquisition of the Cholula brand and FONA International. Both businesses reinforce McCormick's position as a global leader in flavor. Cholula is a trusted hot sauce brand with an authentic old Mexican flavor profile that is highly complementary to our existing hot sauce business. We plan to accelerate momentum, expand distribution and drive further growth. FONA is a leading North American manufacturer of flavors, with talented people and innovative flavor technology that expands our flavor solutions capabilities. FONA will be a cornerstone for accelerating McCormick's flavor platform in the Americas. Our customer-centric culture is very similar to ours and the combination of our product portfolio strengthens our ability to meet growing demand for clean, natural and flavorful eating, drinking and nutrition experiences. We increased investments in brand marketing by 7% in 2020, as digital experiences became more important during the pandemic. Our brands gained millions of new households as consumers cook more at home and looked to McCormick to provide online flavor inspiration, e-commerce growth also accelerated over 136%, as we were well positioned to capitalize on this change in consumer shopping behavior. McCormick was recognized as the #1 U.S. Food Brand by Gartner L2 Research in their Digital IQ ranking, our seventh year in a row being ranked as a top 5 food and beverage brand. McCormick continues to make transformative investments and improve productivity to meet the growing global demand for flavor. In 2020, we made investments across all regions to expand our global infrastructure and capability. The productivity increases in North America alone are equivalent to adding an entire manufacturing plant. We broke grounds on a new state-of-the-art Northeast distribution center in Maryland and a new flavor solutions manufacturing facility in the U.K. We've made investments in new flavor manufacturing in China. In Australia, we are modernizing our facility with a new headquarters building, technical innovation center and logistics sector. In 2020, our employees not only helped deliver strong results for the year, but they also volunteered and financially supported hundreds of local charities around the world. McCormick continues to stand with our employees by matching their donations to their charities of choice. As a company, we donated over $10 million to organizations across 22 countries, including those providing COVID-19 relief, hunger relief or supporting social justice initiatives. We're proud of everyone's contribution, and we'll continue this focus in 2021. 2020 was also another incredible year of recognition for our commitment to purpose-led performance. Just this January, McCormick is ranked the sixth most sustainable company in the world and #1 in the food sector by Corporate Knights at the Davos World Economic Forum. Our continued commitment to renewable energy, 100% circular plastics, employee health, safety, diversity and inclusion, and community support were important factors driving our performance. McCormick is also ranked on the Barron's 100 Most Sustainable companies list, where we are also #1 in food. Last year, McCormick was named by DiversityInc. Top 50 Company for the fourth year in a row. Diversity and inclusion remains a top priority for our organization, and we recognize there is more work to be done. McCormick is making progress toward our goal of having 50% women in leadership positions globally and 30% ethnically diverse talent in leadership positions in the U.S. by 2025. We continue to strengthen our focus and our commitment to improve our ability to attract and retain diverse talent and ensure that McCormick is a great place to work for all employees. As we close out the review of last year's highlights and successes, I'd like to summarize by saying that 2020 was another strong year for McCormick. We grow outstanding performance and continued to build the McCormick of the future while protecting our people, supporting our communities and advancing sustainability. Now I'd like to turn to the formal business of the day. With the Annual Meeting of Shareholders, please come to order, I will now ask the Corporate Secretary to advise if the meeting is properly convened.

Lawrence, the notice of annual meeting, the proxy statement and the formal proxy and the annual report to stockholders were sent by U.S. mail or electronically to each shareholder of record of the company beginning [ February 20 -- 17, 2021 ]. An affidavit to that effect will be filed with the records of the meeting. We have received proxies representing in excess of 83.4% of the voting shares.

The meeting is duly convened, and a quorum is present. The minutes of last year's annual meeting, which was held on April 1, 2020, are available for examination by any shareholder. Please contact our Company Secretary Jeff Schwartz after the meeting if you would like to see a copy. Now let's turn to the formal items of business. The company has appointed Mr. James J. Raitt, President, American Election Services, LLC, to serve as inspector of election for this meeting. The polls are now open and will remain open until all items of business have been presented and discussed. A substantial majority of the outstanding shares of voting stock has been voted by proxy, but if you still need to vote, you can do so through the voting mechanism on your screen. You do not have to vote during this meeting if you've already voted by proxy. The first item is the election of directors. I ask our Company Secretary, Jeff Schwartz, to place the nominees before the meeting.

The Director nominees for the next year and until their successors are duly elected and qualified are: Anne Bramman, who is the Chief Financial Officer of Nordstrom, Inc.; Michael A. Conway, who is Executive Vice President and President, International Licensed Markets, Starbucks Coffee Company; Dr. Freeman A. Hrabowski, III, who is President of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County; Lawrence E. Kurzius, who is Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer of McCormick & Company; Patricia Little, who is the former Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of The Hershey Company; Michael D. Mangan, who is the former President of Worldwide Power Tools and Accessories of The Black & Decker Corporation; Maritza G. Montiel, who is the former Deputy Chief Executive Officer and Vice Chairman, Deloitte LLP; Margaret M.V. Preston, who is the former Managing Director of Private Wealth Management for TD Bank; Gary M. Rodkin, who is the former Chief Executive Officer, ConAgra Foods Inc.; Jacques Tapiero, who is the former Senior Vice President and President, Emerging Markets of Eli Lilly and Company; and W. Anthony Vernon, who is the former Chief Executive Officer of Kraft Foods Group, Inc. Biographical data on each nominee is included in the proxy statement. The election of these nominees is now placed before the meeting for shareholder approval.

I declare the nominations closed. The next item of business is the ratification of the appointment of Ernst & Young LLP to serve as the company's independent registered public accounting firm for fiscal 2021. I call on Jeff Schwartz to place this item before the meeting.

The Audit Committee of the Board of Directors has appointed Ernst & Young LLP as the independent registered public accounting firm for the company for fiscal 2021. The ratification of this appointment is now placed before the meeting for shareholder approval.

The next item of business is the advisory vote on executive compensation. I call on Jeff Schwartz to place this item before the meeting.

In accordance with the rules of the Securities and Exchange Commission, the company has presented a proposal to stockholders, known as the say on pay proposal, that asks for the approval on a nonbinding basis, of the compensation arrangements for the company's named executive officers, as disclosed in the proxy statement. This advisory vote is now placed before the meeting for shareholder approval.

The next item of business is the approval of a charter amendment. I call on Jeff Schwartz to place this item before the meeting.

The Board of Directors of the company has approved and recommended that shareholders approve an amendment to the charter of the company to increase the number of authorized shares of common stock and common stock nonvoting to 640 million shares each, and to change the par value of the company's common stock and common stock nonvoting from no par to a par value of $0.01 per share. This amendment, which is further described in the proxy statement. The amendment is required to ensure the company has sufficient authorized shares available following the recent stock split. The approval of the amendment is now placed before the meeting for shareholder approval.

Please note that the polls are now closed. The preliminary vote tabulation has been completed. The inspector of election has prepared a preliminary report on the results of the voting for this meeting. A substantial majority of shares have been voted by proxy on the items of business. Those results, plus any shares voted through this meeting, will be tallied and the results will be available for shareholders to review in our Form 8-K that will be filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission within 4 business days of this meeting. I will now ask our Corporate Secretary to announce the preliminary voting results.

The preliminary voting results based on proxies received prior to this meeting and tabulated this morning are as follows: first, as provided by the majority vote standard in our bylaws, a Director nominee must receive a majority of votes cast in order to be elected. Each of the 11 Director nominees has been elected, with each director nominee having received at least 11,664,393 votes in favor or 98.5% of the votes cast. Second, the Board's request for ratification of the appointment of Ernst & Young LLP as the company's independent registered public accounting firm requires the approval of a majority of the votes cast. Ernst & Young's appointment has been ratified with 14,875,021 votes cast in favor or 99.17% of the votes cast. Third, the Board's recommendation of stockholders approve on an advisory basis, the compensation arrangements for the company's named Executive Officer, requires the approval of the majority of the votes cast. This say on pay proposal has been approved with 11,620,070 votes cast in favor or 97.9% of votes cast. And fourth, the Board's recommendation that shareholders approve the amendment to the company's charter requires the vote of the holders of a majority of all these votes entitled to be cast on the matter. The amendment to the company's charter has been approved with 14,505,894 votes cast in favor or 80.6% of the shares entitled to vote.

Thank you, Jeff. We have now completed the corporate business portion of the stockholder meeting. I now call on our Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, Mike Smith, for his report.

Thank you, Lawrence, and good morning, everyone. Please note that our remarks will include forward-looking statements and non-GAAP financial measures. You can find the GAAP to non-GAAP reconciliations for this presentation on McCormick Investor Relations website. Now let's begin with our financial objectives and 2020 results. We are differentiated by our top-tier growth objectives. When you compare our long-term guidance to our packaged food and flavor house peers, McCormick is best-in-class for both our sales growth targets and our expected increase in adjusted earnings per share. And over the past 5 years, we have delivered against each of our long-term constant currency growth objectives. During this period, our 5-year compounded annual growth rate was 7% for sales, 11% for adjusted operating income and for adjusted earnings per share, our growth rate was 11%, while meeting or exceeding our long-term constant currency growth objectives. In our most recent fiscal year 2020, we delivered strong financial results despite great disruption from the COVID-19 pandemic. Starting at the top line, total company sales rose 5% in 2020. We significantly grew Consumer segment sales driven by consumers cooking and eating more at home. Partially offsetting this growth was a decline in Flavor Solutions segment sales as COVID-19 restrictions in most markets as well as consumers' reluctance to dine out, reduced demand from our restaurant and other food service customers. Taken together, our segment results demonstrate the strength of our diverse offering. Our breadth and reach created a balanced portfolio to drive consistency in our performance in a volatile environment. For 2020, adjusted operating income, excluding the impact of special charges, increased 5%, and for the first time, exceeded $1 billion. The increase was driven by higher sales, favorable product mix and CCI-led cost savings, partially offset by COVID-19 related costs, higher employee benefit expenses and brand marketing investments. Turning to our Consumer segment, we grew sales 10%, driven by an increase in demand resulting from consumers cooking more at home and fueled by our brand marketing, strong consumer digital engagement and new products. In 2020, we increased adjusted operating income 16% with higher sales and CCI-led cost savings, more than offsetting a 7% increase in brand marketing, higher employee benefit expenses and COVID-19-related costs. In our Flavor Solutions segment, sales declined 2%, driven by lower demand from restaurant and other food service customers due to COVID-19 restrictions and consumer reluctance to dine out, partially offset by higher sales to consumer packaged food customers. Adjusted operating income declined 20%, driven by lower sales, unfavorable product mix, COVID-19-related costs and higher employee benefit expenses, with a partial offset from CCI-led cost savings. Adjusted earnings per share ended 2020 at $2.83 compared to $2.68 in 2019. This growth of 6%, which includes the impact of unfavorable currency rates, was primarily driven by higher adjusted operating income performance and lower interest expense, with a partial offset from a higher adjusted income tax rate. Now turning to cash flow. We have a long history of generating robust cash flow from operations and returning cash to shareholders. In 2020, we generated strong cash flow from operations, reaching a record high of $1 billion, an increase of 10% for 2019. And since 2015, we have grown cash flow from operations at a compounded annual growth rate of 12%. Our 2020 strong cash flow was primarily driven by higher net income, and we're very pleased we used a portion of this cash to fully repay the term loans related to the acquisition of the Frank's RedHot and French's brands. Based on our demonstrated track record of paying down debt and our anticipated strong cash flow generation, we are confident we will pay down our recent debt related to the Cholula and FONA acquisitions according to our plan. We are also committed to returning cash to our shareholders through our dividend. At the end of 2020, our Board of Directors approved a 10% increase in the quarterly dividend, marking our 35th consecutive year of dividend increases. We have paid dividends for the past 96 years since 1925, and we are proud to be a dividend aristocrat. Our focus on growth, performance and people is driving strong long term results, which generated double-digit total shareholder return in the past 1, 5, 10 and 20-year period. And in 2020, our 12% return compares favorably to a 7% return for our peers in the packaged food index. Let's now turn to our 2021 outlook. At the top line, we expect to grow constant currency sales 6% to 8%, including the incremental impact from Cholula and FONA acquisition. We expect to drive organic sales growth in both our Consumer and Flavor Solutions segments in 2021, driven by our brand marketing, new products, category management and differentiated customer growth plans. We expect to increase constant currency adjusted operating income 7% to 9%. This increase reflects strong underlying growth from our base business and acquisitions as well as continued strong performance from our CCI program. This is partially offset by incremental business transformation expenses as well as increased COVID-19 cost, which are largely driven by third-party manufacturing costs to support demand. At the bottom line, we expect adjusted earnings per share in the range of $2.97 to $3.02, which is up 5% to 7% from 2.83% -- or $2.83 in 2020 and includes a favorable impact from currency. This increase reflects our strong base business performance and acquisition contributions, partially offset by incremental business transformation and COVID-19 expenses, as well as a significant headwind estimated from a higher 2021 adjusted effective tax rate. And along with higher profit, we expect 2021 to be another year of strong cash flow for the company. Now let's take a quick look at our 2021 first quarter results. As you saw yesterday, in the first quarter, we grew sales 20%, with growth in both our Consumer and Flavor Solutions segments. Base business, new products and our latest acquisitions, Cholula and FONA, all contributed to the sales growth. Our Consumer segment grew 32%, driven by increased demand resulting from consumers cooking more at home and fueled by our brand marketing, consumer digital engagement and new products. And our Flavor Solutions segment sales rose 3%, driven by our acquisitions and growth with our consumer packaged food customers, partially offset by lower demand from branded food service and other restaurant customers. Adjusted operating income increased 32%, driven by higher sales, favorable product mix and CCI-led cost savings, partially offset by COVID-19-related costs and higher brand marketing expenses. At the bottom line, our first quarter adjusted earnings per share was $0.72, an increase of 33% from the first quarter of 2020. To conclude, our strong 2020 results as well as the continued strong performance from our first quarter of 2021 through the strength of our business model, the value of our products, our capabilities as a company and the successful execution of our strategy. We are confident that the momentum of our business is sustainable, and we will continue to build value for you, our shareholders. It is now my pleasure to turn the program back over to Lawrence.

Thank you, Mike, for providing the financial report. Our fundamentals are strong, and our performance gives us great confidence that we can continue to build long-term shareholder value. We remain steadfast in our focus on growth, performance and people. I'd like to spend the next few minutes on growth and how we plan to win with leadership across our Consumer and Flavor Solutions business segment, winning with the results that fuel our growth and drive transformative investment is finally how we will win with talent. The global demand for flavor continues to surge as consumer interest in healthy flavorful cooking grows even stronger. This long-term trend is the foundation of our sales growth. The global pandemic has accelerated the need for great flavor and McCormick trusted brands that inspire digitally-engaged consumers as they look to bolster their cooking skills and improve their health and wellness. We are well positioned to continue to meet this increased demand, both through our products and our flavor solutions customers products. Our breadth, reach and alignment with these consumer trends is one of our greatest competitive advantages. Interest in health and wellness was magnified during the pandemic. McCormick continued to raise the awareness of the health benefits of herbs and spices by providing healthy flavor options and solutions. We continue to fund important research through the McCormick Science Institute, and we were pleased to see that herbs and spices were included in the 2020 through 2025 dietary guidelines for Americans as a strategy for making healthy meals more flavorful without adding sodium, sugar or fat. Now let's look at our Consumer segment, where we continue to win from a leadership position by strengthening our connections with consumers. Performance in our Consumer business was exceptional in 2020. We achieved 10% sales growth in constant currency, driven by an increase in cooking and eating at home, increased investments in brand marketing, strong digital engagement, innovative in-store merchandising solutions and new products. Our brand marketing campaigns generated strong returns in 2020. In the U.S., McCormick launched digital campaigns focused on consumer education and building confidence in the kitchen as well as new TV commercials promoting flavorful Frank's RedHot product during the large Super Bowl eating occasions. In Europe, strong brand communications, bringing to life unique sourcing and product superiority stories about the sustainability and naturalness of our flavors, drove growth in all key markets. And finally, in China, we continue to leverage partnerships with online communities and drive digital and direct-to-consumer strategies to reach new cooks, millennials and Gen Z consumers. Digital experiences became even more important as cooking from home accelerated during the pandemic, as we expect this trend to continue. Our proprietary research shows that the majority of consumers are cooking more from scratch, enjoying the cooking experience and adding flavor to their meal. They're looking for real-time flavor inspiration and recipe ideas across their favorite digital platforms, and we deliver solutions. e-commerce growth accelerated by over 136% in 2020. Our digital leadership is a true advantage for McCormick, but we were well prepared for the significant change in consumer behavior as consumers anchored in their homes and shopped online. We activated several new initiatives to make digital touch points shoppable by allowing consumers to browse, click and shop more easily with one click without leaving their favorite sites. McCormick built significant momentum in trial with the launch of new products like our Schwartz One Pan recipe mixes, Vahiné baking product, Frank's RedHot Frozen Bites, McCormick Instant Pot Recipe mixes and McCormick [indiscernible] hot pot sauces. Long term, we believe that differentiated innovation and new products will continue to be a driver of growth for McCormick. In the U.S., we introduced an initiative to reinvest the in-store experience for spices and seasonings with new merchandising elements to improve navigation and shopability. This new approach provides an opportunity for McCormick and our retail partners to capitalize on the growing consumer demand for flavor. We reset over 5,000 stores despite the pandemic, we continue to expect -- we expect to continue the rollout in 2021. Now let's shift to our Flavor Solutions segment, where we continue to win with leadership by strengthening customer intimacy. Performance on our Flavor Solutions business was impacted by the increase in remote working from home, lockdown and a global slowdown in the restaurant industry. As the impact of the pandemic continues to ease, we are already partnering with our customers on their 2021 recovery plan. Despite the significant disruption in our Flavor Solutions business last year, McCormick continued to drive customer intimacy through innovative digital collaborations with our culinary teams around the world, helping customers adapt to the changing environment was crucial to maintaining our position in the industry as a trusted partner. The customer migration to better-for-you portfolios continued in 2020. Our broad flavor solutions technology platform, along with our culinary foundation, allowed McCormick to deliver great tasting, differentiated, natural flavor solutions to customers to meet this growing demand, helping customers achieve their health and wellness goals remains a major growth opportunity for McCormick. Our performance strategies are designed to win with results. We're making transformative investments to sustainably meet our growing demand and enhance our competitiveness as we continue to build our global supply chain of the future. Throughout the company, we continue to expand our infrastructure to optimizing our distribution network and modernizing our manufacturing capability. These investments allow us to further increase efficiencies and create capacity to fuel our growth and build shareholder value. In APZ, we're investing in flavor capability to drive flavor solutions growth by expanding our facility in Wuhan, China to enable development of advanced liquid and spray dried flavors. Throughout 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic challenged our supply chain in unexpected ways. With most employees continuing to work on site, our supply chain team in every region ensured the continuity of our business are working to keep our brands and our customer's brands and supply, as facilities quickly pivoted to increase production to meet demand and execute business continuity plan. Our global sourcing organization has been an advantage for us as we manage the challenging transportation logistics and continue to source raw materials from over 85 countries around the world. Although we're still challenged to meet the extended elevated demand for certain product lines, particularly in North America, our ability to meet increased customer demand and execute during a global pandemic highlights our ability and agility, and I want to recognize McCormick employees around the world for driving our momentum and success and thank them for their efforts and engagement through this crisis. At McCormick, we're committed to improving the lives of people, the communities we share, communities where we live, work and source and our planet. We call it purpose-led performance. Delivering top-tier financial results and doing what's right remains a priority for the company, and I'm excited to share progress on our major sustainability initiatives. To reduce our greenhouse gas emissions and power our operations sustainably, McCormick, in partnership with a regional energy company and other businesses, have committed to purchase the output from the Skipjack Solar Center, enabling us to power our Maryland and New Jersey based facility with 100% renewable energy by 2022. This project alone will reduce our global greenhouse gas emissions by 11%. We've also invested 100% renewable energy from a wind farm in Texas to power our operations there. We've made significant progress to reach our goal of having 100% circular plastic packaging by 2025. To underscore that goal, we joined Ellen MacArthur Foundation's New Plastics Economy Global Commitment where we, along with other global companies, have committed to creating a circular plastic packaging to eliminate plastic pollution. To further emphasize this commitment in Canada, we partnered with Loop, a global reuse platform to enable us to help consumers make the shift to reusable plastic packaging. At McCormick, we win with our talent because our employees are central to all of what we do. Their performance is key to executing our strategy and driving growth. The power of people has remained a core pillar of our strategic road map, and it has never been more important for now to ensure our people are engaged, rewarded and developed. As we navigated COVID-19, we quickly adapted our ways of working for many employees and moving to a virtual working environment in our offices and where our front-line workers worked on-site every day to produce our product, we implemented health and safety protocol. Employees who could work from home were supported and with enhanced technology, online training opportunities and a global communication and care campaign to keep them connected and focused. Those working on-site were supported with on-site temperature checks, distribution of personal protective equipment and enhanced benefits and flexibility. Ensuring the health and safety of all employees has remained a top priority during these uncertain times. To support employee wellbeing, McCormick delivered premium pay to those continuing to work on-site, offer paid [ leaves ] for family members and maintained 100% pay if operations were suspended. Around the world, McCormick employees have a profound legacy -- sorry. So folks, this is real-time. Around the world, McCormick employees have a proud legacy of supporting local communities. [ Benefit ] those impacted by the pandemic, employees in the U.S. and Canada donated to relief funds, provide grants to restaurant operators and others to keep businesses running. In China, employees donated to provide masks and help purchase necessary food supplies for underserved community. And in the Asia Pacific zone, employees donated to the Prime Minister CARES Fund to support COVID-19 research and expand treatment availability. Following their individual donation, employees in the U.S. also amplified their efforts by taking advantage of McCormick's matching gift program, for all donations are matched dollar-for-dollar by the company. As we faced social and racial justice crisis last summer, McCormick quickly responded in order to stand with our employees and communities to support social and racial justice. McCormick's leadership signed a pact to stand against racism, made internal and public commitments to support Black lives, held panel discussions, focus groups and increased training for our employees on subjects such as unconscious bias and race matters. While we know we have made progress, we also know we have opportunities for improvement and we're committed to making a difference for all of our employees. At McCormick, we value diversity at all levels of the organization, including on our Board of Directors, which represents 40% ethnically diverse talent and includes 4 women directors. As we continue to focus on diversity and inclusion, we've progressed in our goals to increase proportion of ethnically diverse talent in the U.S. and women across the company. We've also expanded our leadership development program to provide employees with the tools they need to grow and have leveraged our employee ambassador groups to promote inclusion within the company. Every year during this meeting, we recognize employees who embody McCormick's same commitment to their communities as they volunteer selflessly to make a positive impact. Now in its 18th year, the Community Service Award perfectly represents the power of people at McCormick. One grand prize winner will receive $25,000 for their charity, and all remaining finalists will receive $5,000 for their charities. With that, the Community Service Award finalists for 2020 are [ Claire Lorenzen ] for her work with [ Nepal Payback ]; [ Rob Johnson ], for his work with [ Colby ]; [ Charles Gabriel ] for his work with [ Pergy Plant ]; [ Ian Play ] for his work with the [ French Roundtable ]; and [ Sandreen Iyeth ] for her work with the [ Magdalena Project ]; [indiscernible] [ Dave Laurente ]. Before I announce the winner, I'd like to congratulate all finalists for your commitment to your community. The winner of the 2020 Community Service Award is [ Claire Lorenzen ] for her work with [indiscernible]. The [indiscernible] works to provide food, housing and education to over 700 children. [indiscernible] spending since 2008 [ Claire ] has worked with the organization to renovate buildings, provide school supplies and further [ vocational ] opportunities for children living in the village where she was born. Through our work, we're Standing Together for the Future of Flavor. And we're creating a world United by flavor where healthy, sustainable and delicious go hand-in-hand because of successful business driving people and a flavorful future depends on it. We're well equipped to execute our strategies and we'll continue to drive growth and shareholder value as we respond to changing consumer behavior and capitalize on new opportunities. I want to thank our 13,000 employees around the world for their hard work, effort and dedication. I'm proud of the way we've performed in these unprecedented times, and together, we are a stronger McCormick. I would be happy now to receive your questions and comments who are able to submit questions through the virtual shareholder meeting website.

[Operator Instructions] And we have a number of questions that have already been submitted, and we'll turn straight to them. So the first question comes from the Carpenters Union Pension Fund, and ask how the company thinks about stakeholder capitalism as an alternative to shareholder capitalism and how we balance our commitments to the stakeholders and shareholders. So as you've heard through my prepared remarks, the company has a strong commitment to stakeholder -- all of our stakeholders that manifests itself in any place, our purpose-led performance principles that people deliver top-tier financial results benefit for the shareholders, while doing the right thing for our people, for our communities and for our planet, [ straight ] to other stakeholders. The best -- we don't see a disconnect between serving the shareholder and serving other stakeholders. The best employees want to work for good companies that are doing the right thing and consumers want to buy brands of companies that are good actors in the world [indiscernible] well, this is especially true of younger consumers. I'll add that McCormick is no stranger to this topic. C.P. McCormick said long ago at 1949 [indiscernible] that could be relevant today that the purpose of a business is to sort of make the society we live in better, not just to earn a profit for the shareholders. And this is completely relevant today. Our corporate governance guidelines have recognized the importance of stakeholders for many years. And not that long ago, the Business Roundtable organized a group of 181 CEOs to restate what they believe the purpose of a corporation is. And what I think is a historic document, and I believe that this question is referring to that the purpose of a corporation is to serve a broader universe of stakeholders than just a shareholder. And I'm proud to say that I was a signer of that original document. We also have a question now, how has McCormick fared against private brands in terms of shelf space in 2020 and out in 2021? Yes, this has really been an interesting phenomenon as we've gone through the pandemic. Consumers have looked for things that they can trust and for security. And part of that has been a return to a major brand. And so across the whole industry, brands have done better than private label in terms of performance. In our business, specifically, we have gained market share in most markets and in most categories of the world. There are a few exceptions. In some parts of the world, we've been challenged on being able to supply the extraordinary demand and so our shelf stocks have run out. [indiscernible] to buy whatever was available. And in those cases, we've lost some share, but I'm confident that we're going to redeem that again. It's not just the COVID phenomenon though. We were already seeing a trend before the COVID crisis hit consumers, especially younger consumers, returning to brands for which they had nostalgia, which tend to be large, most trusted brands, along which are, of course, McCormick. So we believe this is a trend that's going to continue and will be a benefit for us as a company. Now there are a number of questions, and I'll try to group these -- on this idea altogether about -- I'll read this one, but a number of questions are similar. While shopping at our local grocery store, I've been experiencing many out of stocks on McCormick products that manufacturing products with consumer demand. So there are a lot of questions along this line. I'm only going to answer one. But in our consumer business in the U.S., the surge in demand has been extraordinary and far beyond our capabilities business as a manufacturer or any manufacturer to keep up with. Many of you saw during the early days of the pandemic, count the shelves on almost every product category in the store were wiped out. The famous experience of not being able to find toilet paper anywhere. Our brand is not one that consumers stock up on. Our brands are -- our products are products used to actually do all of that cooking from home and to prepare the foods that have been stocked up on. So the demand for our product has been very long and very sustained. And we have ramped up production capability in the U.S. steadily as we got through the year. And clearly by the beginning of this year, that added the equivalent of a whole manufacturing facility in the Americas to meet this incredible demand. And we are getting caught up. But in the meanwhile, to keep our best-selling products in stock, we suspended hundreds of secondary SKUs and we've had to allocate -- ration the market as we went through last year, in order to be fair to all of our customers. We're working through that now, and we've restored nearly all of the items that we had on suspension. Roughly 50% of the holes in the shelf have been filled, and we're continuing to work to fill those. And we think that over the coming weeks and months, you'll see retailer conditions return to normal as we meet this incredible demand. You heard Mike talk about the huge demand that we still are experiencing, even this last quarter with consumer demand is running very strong. I'll add to that also that this is really a U.S. or a North American phenomena. In the rest of the world, while there's been a surge in demand, we've made investments in capacity and we have the capacity to reach that -- achieve that demand, the scale of the market outside the U.S. is different. So we've been able to keep up with the demand in really, in all parts of the world outside of North America and have gained significant market share in many of those markets as a result because local competitors haven't been able to keep up. Now I'm going to give this next one to Mike. There's a question about where do you see free cash flow in the next 3 years? And are buybacks possible in 2021?

Thanks, Lawrence. Well, if you remember from my presentation, we have a slide on operating cash flow, where we hit $1 billion this year, and you see the great growth we've had over the past 5 years. So we are bullish on cash flow. We continue to drive it hard. Cash flow should grow at approximately the same rate as our long-term growth algorithm for earnings per share, which is 9% to 11%. We don't give a forecast for cash flow necessarily, but we continue to think we will generate our business, great cash flow. As far as uses of the cash, regarding buybacks, I mean, we have capital allocation priorities to use the cash. The first is growth. We're a growth company. We wanted to drive our growth, and that's what differentiates us versus our peers. So we like to use it to drive innovation, to make acquisitions, to make capital investments in our supply chain. So that's the first use of cash. We also like to pay a great dividend to our shareholders. And as you saw, we're a dividend aristocrat and we'll continue to do that. The third priority is paying down debt. When you make great acquisitions like Frank's and French's or FONA or Cholula, we pay down debt, and we're committed to that. Buying back stock is at the fourth tier. If we -- if there's enough cash at the end of the buyback stock, we will, but we're really focused on these top 3 priorities at this point.

I'm going to go to the next question. And Mike, I'm going to throw this one to you as well. When can we expect the dividend increase?

Well we don't forecast that either. But you can see from, again, my presentation where we paid dividends every year since 1925, and we're a dividend aristocrat and have increased them for the past 35 straight years, and we did that again in November of 2020. So I would say, look to your e-mail in November of 2021, and we'll -- we want to continue that trend, obviously.

The next question is about online presence. How are you increasing your online presence? And how do you battle against the increasing presence of being sort of a big box force or any other unconventional or growing channels? Actually, well, a big part of our strategy and our growth success is that we are going after all channels, and many of these channels are growing faster than conventional grocery. The online channel is growing. We look at online in 3 different ways. The first is that as we consider the pure-play e-commerce sellers -- I don't like to name specific customers in a public forum, but you all know who some of those are because you're probably buying from them. The pure-play customers are great customer partners. We're experiencing tremendous growth with them. And so we actually are if you don't see that as a threat to our business. We, in fact, see it as an opportunity. The second is the e-commerce efforts of our regular brick-and-mortar customers, it's what we call the omni-channel. Really, I think those retailers recognize that they have to have some sort of online component to their business in order to be successful long term and we are working with all of them on their omni-channel programs. This actually is -- becomes the largest part of our e-commerce growth. And then the third is a direct-to-consumer effort where we actually sell directly to consumers through our digital properties, our websites, our pages on things like Facebook and Instagram and where consumers can click directly on a recipe and order products straight from us. We see all of those as positive contributors to our business that praise them all. The next one is what emerging market countries offer the most potential for the company? Well, I'm going to say that, first of all, we're in most of the markets that we want to be. So our efforts in emerging countries is to strengthen and scale the business that we already have. I will just pick out 2 to comment on. China is a large market for us where we have a very large consumer business under the McCormick brand and also under the DaQiao brand, which is a Chinese company that we acquired some years ago. And in addition to that, we serve our global flavor solutions customers for their China business. The products that we sell in China are predominantly made in China and the manufacturing there to support that. And this is a market with over 1 billion people, rising income, a tremendously attractive consumer market for us. The other that I will talk about is Mexico. And we don't show Mexico in our results because it's a joint venture. We have a 50-50 partnership with Herdez, one of the largest food companies in Mexico for the -- joint venture is called the McCormick de Mexico, is not consolidated. So if you look at our financial statements, you'll see a line called unconsolidated income, most of that is our joint venture in Mexico. It is a very large growing business. Again, Mexico has a growing population, our brands are very strong there and we're really pleased with that. And I think that those 2 markets are -- even though as large their our businesses in those markets, those 2 markets continue to create opportunities for our growth outside of the U.S. Let's see. Is there a way to get to an innovative product to try? I would be thrilled for you to go to your local store or find them and buy them. And I'm hopeful that a year from now, we will be having this meeting in person. I'm not going to commit to that because there's many a twist and turns in this pandemic. But as you know, that when we've had these meetings in person, we've had the tradition of giving a gift bag with our -- some of our new products. And I hope that we would give shareholders the chance to enjoy that again.

I think also, Lawrence, you can go to mccormickkitchens.com, I think it is or the McCormick site, you can get innovative new products, you can buy them, things like everyday bagel with Frank's RedHot Sauce. So it's a great way to trial some of our new consumer products in the U.S.

That's a great point. Is -- I think we answered this one. Are there any plans to consolidate manufacturing operations to increase cash flow? I'd say that the answer to that right now is no. We're really investing in additional manufacturing capacity, we have a new flavor solutions plant under construction in the U.K. We have a major distribution center under construction here in the U.S. There is a need to repurpose some of the manufacturing operations that we've got to reflect a change in consumer demand and customer demand and the shift that has happened as a result of the pandemic that we've just gone through. But there's no plan to consolidate any flows in manufacturing. And then also -- we'll pick one, this one. Do you see M&A in overseas company? So -- and this will unfortunately be the last question that we have time for. Our M&A is a contributor to our growth strategy. So I'm often asked what's your M&A strategy. And I said, well, let me tell you about our growth strategy is M&A supports that growth strategy. And our strategy is to be a global company. So we certainly will consider M&A outside of the U.S. The 2 that we have happened to have just [ have ] are U.S.-based, but we have looked at many opportunities outside the U.S. and we'll continue to do so. And perhaps the next one will be outside. So with that, we're at time. And so I'd like to bring us to a conclusion. And in conclusion, our focus on growth, performance and people is relentless as we continue to drive McCormick forward. We're confident the momentum of our business is sustainable, and our strategies position us to continue our growth trajectory and build long-term value for our shareholders. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much for attending the meeting and for your continued support of our great company. I declare the meeting adjourned.

This concludes today's program. Thank you for participating.