Nomad Foods Limited (NOMD) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning, good afternoon, and welcome to Nomad's first ever Investor Day. I'm Taposh Bari, Head of Investor Relations. We are thrilled to have you with us today and look forward to bringing the Nomad Foods story to life with this virtual experience. As an initial matter, some of the information that we will discuss today is forward-looking including, but not limited to, information regarding Nomad's future plans, strategies and anticipated performance. In today's presentation and in our SEC filings, we will detail material risks that may cause our future results to differ from our expectations. And our statements are as of today, November 10, and we have no obligation to update any forward-looking statements that we make. With that, let's get started today with our objectives for the day, which are twofold. First, we wanted you to get to notice us better as a company. Throughout today's presentations, you will hear more about our categories, our operations and all the work that we're doing around sustainability. And second is to outline our longer-term growth strategy and financial objectives. You'll hear from many of the senior leaders within our organization today. And by the end, we hope you come to appreciate Nomad, which is not only great investment, but also a company with incredible brands, the unique culture, highly engaged employees and a portfolio that is not only well equipped in today's environment but also perfectly positioned with the future of food. So let's jump right into today's agenda. Our CEO, Stefan Descheemaeker, will kick things off momentarily with an overview of who we are and where we're going. We'll then hear from Albert Mathieu, our Chief Commercial Officer, who will provide greater insight into our fish and vegetable portfolio, these are our 2 largest anchor categories; and how sustainability is such an integral part of our company's DNA. Next, we'll take a virtual trip around Europe to hear from our 3 regional managing directors, who will each showcase examples of Nomad's growth model of work and how we went at the country level. Jason Musk, our Chief Supply Chain Officer, will provide an overview of our supply chain organization and outline some of the drivers of productivity that we have in place. And finally, Samy Zekhout, our CFO, will conclude the day with a financial perspective. We will conduct a Q&A session following today's presentation, so please make sure to submit your questions online throughout the day, and we'll get to as many as we can at the end. So without further ado, let's begin. To kick things off, we'd like to play a message from our two founders, Noam Gottesman and Martin Franklin.

Hello, everyone, and thank you for participating in our first ever Investor Day. We're thrilled to have the opportunity to speak directly to the investment community and to outline the long-term growth prospects of our company. 2020 marks an important milestone for Nomad Foods as we celebrate our 5-year anniversary. We founded Nomad in 2015 through 2 transformational acquisitions, creating the third largest frozen food company in the world and the undisputed leader in Western Europe. We unified the Birds Eye, Iglo and Findus brands under one ownership, while creating a world-class organization with unique culture, well defined values and a growth mindset. We designed and executed a new strategy, which reprioritize our core portfolio, revitalize our iconic brands and put us on a path to sustain organic revenue growth beginning in 2017. And we've not looked back ever since. We have complemented organic growth with a series of strategic acquisitions. In 2018, we acquired Goodfella's and Aunt Bessie's, two leading frozen food brands in the U.K. And now we're thrilled to announce the acquisition of Findus Switzerland, an incredibly strategic asset that will extend our footprint into one of Europe's largest frozen food markets and unify the Findus brand under Nomad ownership. Many of you have come to know us as Europe's leader in frozen food and a company that delivers consistent financial performance, generate strong free cash flow and put shareholder value creation at the forefront through the disciplined and accretive allocation of capital. We're proud of the reputation we have built with the investment community and believe we have a strong foundation. Today is about reinforcing all the qualities you've come to value as investors in our company. It is also about showcasing our iconic portfolio, the depth of our management team, progress along our sustainability initiatives and, of course, our long-term strategic program. Martin?

Thanks, Noam. We couldn't be happier with the performance of the business and the team that's defined as assembled around him. With 15 consecutive quarters of organic revenue growth in the books, it's clear that the company is executing with great cadence, while laying the foundation for sustained growth for years to come. Our people are our greatest asset, and the performance of the business is a true testament to the hard work and commitment of our nearly 5,000 employees. They share a common set of values that makes our company special, and we are grateful for their collective contribution. Noam and I are particularly proud of the way the organization has stepped up this year throughout the COVID-19 crisis by keeping our employees as safe as possible and ensuring the uninterrupted supply of our brands. It has indeed been a memorable first chapter in the Nomad story. Shareholders have been rewarded, and our company is beginning to be recognized for the world-class organization that it is. As you will hear throughout today's session, our goal is to sustain the strong organic growth profile of this company, achieve a high level of earnings power and to convert a significant percentage of our profit into cash. One of the long-term objectives that you will hear today is our intention to generate over EUR 1.5 billion of cumulative adjusted free cash over the next 5 years. This amount, which represents over 1/3 of our market cap today, will create opportunities for us to pursue our M&A strategy and repurchase our shares, which we continue to believe are fundamentally undervalued. Depending on the circumstances, it may also present us the flexibility to initiate a dividend. Both Noam and I believe that Nomad's best days are still ahead of us and we're excited by what's still to come for this fantastic European frozen food company, both organically and inorganically. Thank you for your interest in our company, and we hope you enjoy the rest of the day. Thank you. [Presentation]

Welcome, everyone, to the Nomad Foods 2020 Investor Day. It's great to have you with us today. As you know, this is our first ever Investor Day, and we would have loved to have hosted you in person, but we're very excited to bring our story to life through this personal experience [indiscernible] in that way. So I'd like to begin today with the conclusions first. These are the key messages that we hope you walk away with from this presentation today. First, we have incredible brands with strong market leadership across frozen food in many European countries. As you will see, not all frozen food is created equal, and our brands have a distinct quality premium and real reasons to win. Second, we have a portfolio that is well positioned to sustain growth at the high end of our long-term low single-digit growth algorithm. Third, we're committed to driving strong free cash flow. Over the next 5 years, we expect to generate over EUR 1.5 billion of adjusted free cash, which represents around 1/3 of our market cap today. And finally, we plan to generate EUR 2.30 in adjusted EPS by 2025 based on the drivers you will hear today. So with that introduction, I'd like to spend the time today telling you more about who we are and where we're going. I often use the word journey when describing the story of Nomad Foods. And as I stand here before you today to talk about the exciting future of the company and to outline the next chapter of our story, I think it's only appropriate to start a conversation by framing the path that brought us today where we are. So I joined Nomad Foods as CEO back in 2015. At that time, our founders, Noam Gottesman and Martin Franklin, had just assembled an incredible group of iconic brands. They just needed investment focus in the new strategic direction. Although we have just become an operating company, Nomad was at that time still considered by many to be a SPAC or a frozen food roll up. We had a highly concentrated shareholder base invested behind the reputation of founders as value creators, and for good reason, but a business that was in decline and losing market share. Fast forward to 2020, Nomad Food is in a completely different place. Just last week, we reported our 15th consecutive quarter of organic revenue growth. Our core brands, Birds Eye, Iglo, Findus, are not only growing but are thriving in their respective markets, thanks to increased media support, but also exceptional brand building efforts. We have developed Green Cuisine into one of Europe's fastest-growing plant protein brands. And we have complete organic growth with a series of strategic food -- frozen food acquisition. This includes Goodfella's pizza and Aunt Bessie's in 2018. And our latest deal to acquire Findus Switzerland as strategic assets, which further advances our goal of consolidating frozen food across Europe. And most importantly, we've built an incredible organization with highly engaged employees who share our core values and the common purpose of serving the world with better food. So that's the journey we've been on. Who are we today? To put it simply, we are Europe's leading frozen food company, full stop. With undisputed #1 market share in the category, we generated nearly EUR 2.5 billion in revenues with offices in 13 countries, and we have nearly 5,000 employees. So now let's go to our categories. First and foremost, we are a European frozen food pure play. We specialize in frozen fish and vegetables, our 2 largest categories. This represents around 60% of our revenues combined. You will hear much more expertise in these important categories later today with our colleagues. But that's what we are. In addition, we also operate in a number of other categories like pizza, like poultry, like potatoes. Plant protein is a small but explosive category. We expect it will represent at least 5% of our revenue within the next few years. We own one of the largest branded food, frozen food portfolio in the world, and we are the largest pure play. Zooming into Western Europe. We are the undisputed market leader, nearly twice the size of the #2 player. So 3 factors separate us from our peers. We tend to be either category or country specialists. One, we have a multi-country portfolio where we operate across 13 primary European countries. Two, we have expertise in multiple categories. And three, we have strong market share at the micro level when you look at category and country combinations, and that really matters. We make strategic choices within our portfolio. You may have heard the term Must Win Battles, our core. This is the part of our portfolio which receives this proportional resource and attention. Our core represents 70% of our revenues. This is where we have our strongest market share, highest margins and the most tax base for growth. The next percent represents what we call secondary branded products, which are strategic as well, but don't get the full support of our growth model. You have to choose. And then there is the remaining 10% of our branded retail business, which is comprised mostly of legacy SKUs, and we operate primarily for cash. That all adds up to 90%, which represents our branded retail business. And the remaining 10% are comprised of food service and private label. So we are the frozen food leader, but it's important also to recognize that we really focus on value-added products. This is in effect our core, our Must Win Battles portfolio, where our brands really excel. And so when you go a level deeper, it's evident that the competitive and growth properties within this part of our portfolio, 70%, are far superior to the overall frozen food category. To start, we have clear #1 market share across our core. In fact, our market share on average within this core is 50% within this group of products, which is quite different for the 14% share that we have of the total frozen food category by being selective in where we play, and we have many categories which meets this criteria. We're able to operate with impact and generate a great return on our investments. Our strategy has resulted in a history of strong financial performance. And you can see that we have reported organic revenue growth every quarter since 2017. 15 quarters. 90% of our revenues are branded goods sold in the retail channel. We, in fact, brand people, brand strength is really at the heart of our success. We have a portfolio of iconic market-leading brands. Our core brands, Birds Eye, Iglo and Findus, have incredible awareness in their respective markets. Our brands have the scale benefit of our pan-European infrastructuring organization. Yet, they act and operate with unique local adaptations, which drives strong consumer awareness at the local level. For example, we sell the Findus brand in many countries: Italy, Sweden, France, others. Each of these countries views Findus as a local brand. Fish fingers are a great example of our global local model in action. We manufacture our fish fingers in a factory in Bremen hub in Germany, the largest fish fingers plant in the world. However, the packaging of these products can vary by market. So here, you see more similarities between the U.K. and Germany, with which each have a captain. While Findus France, for example, use a different icon, Croustibat. And the Nomad ownership, we've been refining this global local model. A great example has been the modernization and standardization of our Captain. And this across all our markets, for the first time, this campaign, which launched in 2018 and will be rebooted in 2021 was an incredible success. So let's play a clip of one of our recent Captain TV ads. [Presentation]

This video has played across 11 markets. Using the same Captain, it is a great example of how we're leveraging the power for central resources in service of our local consumers. We sell brands that our consumers love. In fact, our brands reach over 120 million people every day across Europe. Given our mass appeal, we have breadth across the spectrum every way you cut the data, again, fundamental. However, there is a specific cohort where we tend to over-index, and that's young families. They rely on a portfolio of family favorites throughout the week. Our brands are purchased by approximately 2/3 of household across all markets every year. And these consumers have a choice. In most cases, they are willing to pay a premium to buy our brands. So why do they turn to our portfolio? Fundamental question. Our research shows that consumers value products for 4 primary reasons: taste, convenience, quality and health. Our teams have been working very hard to try to drive improvement across all these aspects, and the proof is in the results. And clearly, our ability to drive both physical and mental availability has made our brands more relevant and top of mind. Our brands offer consumers incredible value. And when I say value, I'm not only referring to the cost of the food. So let me take an example, a classical plate of fish and chips along with the side of peas, all frozen. The fish, while coated in [indiscernible] 35 is a great source of protein and omega-3. The peas are high in protein and fiber. And because they were flash frozen within 2.5 hours of the harvest, they will have preserved a high percentage of their Vitamin C and other nutrients. This entire meal provides just under 500 calories. It can be prepared in other 20 minutes and has a cost of under EUR 2. I've spoken about our portfolio and our brands. One of our greatest assets is our people. We have nearly 5,000 employees working in 13 offices and 13 factories across Europe. Each year, we run an annual employee survey, which gives our people the opportunity to express their views on our company. And so here are some of the highlights from our latest survey. 91% said they're proud to work at Nomad Foods, 83% feel energized to go the extra mile in their job and 88% would recommend Nomad Foods as a good place to work, as an employer of choice. Each of these metrics has shown improvement year after year. To me, these results reflect the culture that we are creating, but also our common passion behind the growth prospects of our brands, our category and our purpose. We have strong ties with our local communities. So examples include collaborations around food waste syndication, or pea farmers to reduce local flooding and/or improve soil health, for example. And earlier this year, we donated over EUR 3 million across our markets in an effort to help those most in need, and they are a lot. We think of ourselves as being more than a frozen food company. Earlier this year, we introduced our company purpose: Serving the world with better food. Yes, we sell food that is frozen, and which is a good thing, by the way. But we also have a portfolio of food which is nutritious, sustainably sourced, better for you and better for the planet. And when we acquire businesses, we strive to make them better where we can. As we look out to the future of food, we believe our business lives at the intersection of 2 very powerful themes: Sustainability and convenience. So let's start with sustainability. While factors like taste and price will always be important drivers of food consumption, it's clear that people are increasingly conscious around the theme of sustainability. When they have a choice, they're turning more and more to brands that are better for them and better for the planet. The good news for us is that sustainability has been a fundamental pillar for brands for decades. So let me give you a couple of examples. First, over 95% of our fish is sourced sustainably and certified through third parties like Marine Stewardship Council, or MSC. Second, with the expansion of Green Cuisine, we really are working very hard to further develop a new category, plant protein, which will only accelerate our sustainability agenda. And finally, we're proud to say that 90% of our portfolio qualifies as a healthy meal choice driven by the high-protein and vegetable content of our products. When consumers purchase our brands, they're not only getting good food sourced responsibly but also all the benefits of frozen food. Hence our fish and vegetable are flash frozen, natural preservation technique, which also lock in much of the vitamin and nutrition contents. Convenience. Frozen food is easy to prepare while also providing consumers with the year-round access to food, independent of the seasons. And finally, and again, sustainability. The fact is that frozen food helps reduce food waste. So that was a bit on who we are. We are a leading European food company, we specialize in frozen food, we have iconic market-leading brands recognized as local jewels within their respective countries. We operate in a growing category and we have a highly engaged organization, excited about the future of our company. So let's now shift gears to where we are going. So let me begin by stating upfront that we plan to sustain strong organic revenue at the high end of our long-term growth algorithm. We plan to do so through 3 core drivers: frozen category tailwinds; scaling our brands across multiple platforms; and building out Green Cuisine within the rapidly growing plant protein space. So let's begin with the category. Despite all the benefits of frozen food, the reality is that the frozen door is still opened far less frequently than the refrigerator or the pantry. When I look at these numbers, I see a massive opportunity because the fundamental properties of frozen food and our portfolio is, in particular, are just fantastic. Now the good news is that consumers are starting to recognize the value of frozen food, as evident by the categories outsized growth during the last 2 years. Historically, the category's growth rate has been 1%, and we've seen that growth rate pick up in recent years, partly due to our success as the market leader, but also, of course, over the past 8, 9 months, it's clear that frozen has been an outperforming categories through the COVID-19 pandemic. So let me spend some more time on the impact that COVID has had on our business, and why we believe we can retail a lot of the trials that's been occurring this year. Starting first with the fact. There has been a significant influx of new consumers entering our portfolio this year as a result of the pandemic. Pre-COVID, we were getting around 0.5 point of penetration. That figure's 5 to 4 points during the peak period of the pandemic in Q2 when most of Europe was on lockdown. Encouragingly, even as restrictions have -- restriction have eased, penetration has continued to grow at above historic levels. Consumption of our products has increased and stayed elevated this year for a number of reasons. One, the entire family is at home, and our portfolio index -- over-indexed to food at home and family favorites in particular. Two, we are seeing less frequent shopping trips with an emphasis on frozen, which is less perishable in nature. And three, the out-of-home eating occasion has shifted to in home. And finally, consumers see greater value in frozen food during times of economic uncertainty. We've been running focus groups and panels of our consumers this year to better understand their impressions of our products throughout the pandemic. And the conclusion is clear: These new consumers have been happy and surprised with the experience, which bodes well for retention. These are exactly the reaction that we would expect, given all the improvement that we've made to our portfolio under the Nomad ownership. Everything, from nutrition to product quality to sustainability, we have elevated our brands and are reaching more consumers with our growth in e-commerce and discount channels. In summary, new consumers are entering the category and are responding well to our significantly improved portfolio. The big question many of you have asked is what retention has looked like. Great question. We've been closely tracking data, as you can imagine, across all 3 largest markets: U.K., Italy and Germany. Overall, our goal is to retain 25% to 30% of new COVID users in 2021. And what you can see here is that retention has been building according to that plan since June, when Europe exited its first lock down. Moving on to the second pillar of accelerated organic revenue growth, which is to leverage the power of our brands. And we plan to do so across the board. We have powerful brands, which have the potential to be much larger across a number of platforms. So let's start with the most obvious opportunity, which is with our traditional retailers. We have an initiative underway, which we call space in place. This is effectively our goal of driving improved and increased distribution of our products with our local retail partners. The opportunity here is significant. Frozen is a growing category with good retail margins and limited waste and our brands perform well for our customers. One great example to share is our use of crowd sourcing technology as a way to track our in-store execution this -- much more effectively. This tool should help optimize our performance at retail. We very much like it. We're also developing other retail channels, mostly hard discount and e-commerce. And you will hear more on our success here later in the day, but it's very clear that our brands have an important role to play across all channels. Special food is a subset of our food service business, where we're leveraging our expertise in frozen food towards newer end markets, but also including health care industry. And this via our direct to consumers. And finally, geographic expansion. As one of the low -- the leading frozen food companies in the world, we believe we have a unique right to win in the countries outside of our core. We have a small but developing international business, where we partner with retailers and distributors all over the world. And we will continue to test the viability of our cost SKUs along the way. I want to come back to online, which has been an incredible success story for us especially this year. What you see on this slide are year-on-year growth rates of our sales online. Growth, which was in the 10%, 12% range in 2018 and 2019, has accelerated to a nearly 100% since the onset of COVID. As a result, online now represent 8% of our sales mix, up versus 5% at the end of 2019. The growing adoption of online benefits us for 2 fundamental reasons: First, frozen food is a category which overindexes online; and second, all brands have higher market share online than they do in store. So let's move on to Green Cuisine, our third driver of accelerated revenue growth. This exciting sub-brand officially launched in 2019, originally in the U.K. and Ireland, has since then been expanded across the continent in 2020. For those who are new to Nomad, Green Cuisine is the new and exciting range of meat-free products available in the frozen aisle and for those looking to reduce their meat consumption. We have prioritized health nutrition sustainability and most of all, taste, in developing these products. This is a business that we're accelerating quickly within our portfolio. In the past year, we have assigned a dedicated team internally to create direct accountability and have invested a significant amount of A&P to support trial and repeat purchase. Green Cuisine is, in fact, one of Nomad's first big bets, and rightfully so. We believe that the movement away from meat is a structural theme as consumers embrace the health and sustainability benefits of this brand. It also happens to be a trend that plays right into our strength. Between our market leadership in frozen food and our expertise in fish and vegetables, we have a unique right to win in plant protein. Our customers are also demanding more from their brands. Just last month, Tesco announced its commitment to increase the sales in meat alternatives by 300%. And we plan to be a part of the journey with them and are happy to be in a position to act quickly. And finally, we believe that we already have a winning formula with Green Cuisine. So let's review our performance in the U.K., where we've been present the longest, a bit more than a year, and is also the largest and most developed plant protein markets in Europe. Since our launch in 2019, market share has risen to 7%, making Green Cuisine the #3 selling brand in the U.K. While off of a low base, our business is up 10x the category, which is up itself, 26% so far this year. We'd like to say that Green Cuisine is democratizing meat-free mealtime. Yes, we'll sell burgers, but this is not a burger brand. We have a wide range of products which are tailored by market. So here you see the spectrum across all of our European markets. A great example is a sizable veteran range of more classic meat-free products like falafel and veggie fish fingers. Today, these types of products represents around 30% of Green Cuisine revenues. Finally, we also recently launched poultry in several markets. And the early signs are very, very encouraging. Great taste. I'd like to provide you also with some additional color on Green Cuisine today, which is now available in 12 markets in Europe. We expect these brands, which carries a high gross margin profile, to generate approximately EUR 30 million in revenue this year, up significantly from last year where we only had 3 SKUs in 2 countries. While we are in nearly every market, approximately 80% of revenues should come from 4 countries: U.K., Germany, France and Italy. And you will hear more about some of their plans later today. Also worth repeating here that Green Cuisine has a nice balance across product type, with half of the business in meat analogs and the other half in the vegetarian foods, ready meals and ingredients. You heard me talk earlier about our consumers where we over-indexed amongst young families. With Green Cuisine, we're seeing a clear in over-index amongst the broader set of younger consumers, which is quite interesting and a great opportunity for our portfolio overall. So we're pleased with the progress we're making in this exciting space. I mentioned earlier that Green Cuisine is on pace to achieve EUR 30 million in revenue this year, putting us on pace for the EUR 100 million plus goal that we have previously articulated by 2022. In summary, Green Cuisine presents an exciting new dimension of growth through our portfolio and should help contribute an incremental percentage points or so to our overall organic revenue growth. While we have an ambitious target to achieve by [ 2022 ], EUR 100 million in revenues, it's not certainly our end game. We are continuously advancing our strategy to build Green Cuisine into a significantly larger business, and we'll be sure to update you as this plan develops. So thank you for your attention. I hope you enjoy the rest of the presentations, which will again provide you with even further insight into where we are and where we're growing.

Hello, everyone. I am Albert Mathieu, Nomad's Chief Commercial Officer. I've been with the company since 2016, joining from Mondelez, where I was the President for Biscuits in Europe. And before that, I spent many years with Mars in a variety of roles in marketing first and then general management across many categories and multiple countries. As Chief Commercial Officer, I have the privilege of developing our commercial strategy and then working in close collaboration with the local teams to make sure they have the right resources and capabilities to execute our growth model and deliver fantastic results. Stefan has already shared our plans to build a winning portfolio in plant protein, so I would like now to take you through the heart of our portfolio: Fish and vegetables. Those 2 categories are representing more than 60% of our revenues and are very well positioned to sustain long-term growth. Before getting into the specifics of those 2 categories, let me take a step back and speak about our broader portfolio. We believe this portfolio is competitively advantaged and is fundamentally future-proof. Why? Because food that is both good for people and good for the planet has a bright future. Our consumers and our trade partners are looking for this sweet spot between health and sustainability. You heard Stefan talk about our purpose, serving the world with better food. Between fish, vegetables and now, plant protein, we have an incredible starting in serving food better for people and better for the planet. And in categories that we have recently acquired, take pizza, for example, we are playing our part in making these products better across these criteria. As a leading European food company, we have a clear role to play in the transition to net-zero society. We have a portfolio which is flexitarian at heart, and that is fully aligned with the UN sustainability goals. We are working across all these goals, but we are focusing, in particular, against some of them, in which we can have a real, big impact. Like, for example, SDG Goal #2, responsible consumption and production, in particular, focusing on food waste reduction; SDG Goal #14, life below water, for obvious reasons; and SDG Goal #15, life on land. And as you will see later in my presentation, we are building strong external partnerships to help us maximize our positive impact in those areas. So I mentioned that our portfolio is better for people, and this all starts by providing great nutritional values. We are using a nutrient profiling tool that we've been adopting from the U.K. Ofcom model that is delivering an objective measure of the healthiness of our products. This model is taking into account the entire nutritional composition of the food and allow us to really track, year after year, the progress we are making in our nutritional performance. The model is penalizing products that are high in fats, high in sodium, high in sugar but also the model recognizes the positive value of protein, fiber and vitamins, which are nutrients that we all need. And we are proud to say that today, more than 90% of our portfolio qualifies as healthier meal choices. And you have a great example in this chart of Croustibat, which is blockbuster SKU that we have in France, targeting kids and family with kids, that has been recognized as a high source of protein and also low saturated fat levels. And the good thing is that this nutritional score, which is very positive, is going to be increasingly visible for consumers and for our trade partners, as many countries are now adopting nutritional labeling in their products. And here, you have a good example where this Croustibat is scoring A in that level. Actually in France, more than 90% of our portfolio is scoring A or B in that nutri-score labeling, which is great. So this is a bit about nutrition. And again, even when we are acquiring companies that may start with a lower starting point, our goal is to make the nutrition of their respective categories better and improve them year after year. So our portfolio is great in terms of nutrition, but it can also have a very strong positive impact on the planet. We have commissioned our research earlier this year that actually is modeling the impact of diet on carbon emissions. This research has confirmed that doubling our consumption of vegetables from 150-gram to 300 grams per week, if increased twice a week, and replacing some red meat consumption by plant protein meal substitutes can help reduce the carbon footprint from one's food by as much as 60%. And when we know that the food -- the value chain represents around 30% of total greenhouse gas emissions, encouraging our consumers to eat more of these products can drive a big change. So eating more fish and vegetables is great. But if they are frozen, it is even better. We have recently conducted a number of life cycle assessments, converting factors across entire food chain into carbon equivalents. And the results so far are looking very promising. A high level initial LCA shows that actually our fish fingers and our peas are similar or even lower in terms of carbon emission versus other temperature regimes. And the significant lower food waste is a key driver behind that. Same, you will be surprised to see that when we do these high level LCAs on our Green Cuisine products, it shows that actually the carbon emission for Green Cuisine is -- for our Green Cuisine burger is 85% lower than for a beef burger. So let's now take a deeper dive into our core fish and vegetables portfolio and specifically, take you through why we believe our portfolio is uniquely positioned and why we believe they can continue to deliver strong growth. Let me start with fish. We have a fantastic fish portfolio, which is powered by our famous Captain. This brand icon is everywhere. It's on packs, it's in our advertising campaigns. And even our executive ballroom here in Bayfront is called the Captain's Table. So we have the largest fish brand in Europe with commanding leadership in the vast majority of geographies and segments where we operate. So fish is a powerhouse. It's a powerhouse in our portfolio, and will continue to do so in the future as consumers are increasingly aware that fish is a delicious, healthy and sustainable option. But we don't stand still, we have zero complacency. Actually, we are keep -- we are keep improving our fish portfolio year after year. After having rejuvenated the Captain in our advertising campaigns 2 years ago, we will modernize the Captain's logo and improve our packaging design across Europe as of Q1 next year. We renovate our core portfolio every 2 to 3 years with improved recipes, more convenient and sustainable packaging. And as you can see in this slide, there is a great example coming from Germany with the recipe fish, which is a blockbuster there, where we've been replacing the aluminum tray by recyclable paper tray, which is better in terms sustainability and also allows consumers to cook it from the oven, but also there in the microwave. And we are leveraging more and more some of the strong assets and stories we have in sustainability with eco claims like the MSC or like the nutri-score that I mentioned before in the French example. So beyond our obsession for renovation and modernization in our fish portfolio, we have a pipeline of innovation that will drive more consumer engagements and category growth in the future. You can see some examples in this slide. Let me start with our brand-new fish provenance tool that will allow our consumers by just scanning a QR code that will be in the pack, it will allow them to know where the fish is coming from, and it will leave a fully immersive experience with augmented reality technology. This is super cool and will be launched in Q1 next year across Europe. To drive and support the increase of fish consumption, we are also working on alternative fish sourcing options and are actively developing aquaculture partnerships. And finally, we have a strong portfolio of innovation that are making our products more exciting, more modern, tastier and healthier. A good example here is our new range of fish coated with healthy and crunchy grains. So let me now move on to our vegetable portfolio. We have a wide portfolio in vegetables, but the core of our range is made of strong blockbusters like peas and spinach that have built shares in excess of 50% in the largest local segments. We have the pea markets like the U.K., Sweden, Portugal and Italy, where we have shares above 50%. And then the spinach markets like Germany, Austria, Netherlands and Belgium where, again, we have more than 50% market share. So I mean, this builds a very strong foundation of products that are locally relevant with strong brand awareness, delivering superior quality and all that translating into strong shares with healthy price premiums. So to build value perception and support our price premiums, we communicate and deliver against strong quality attributes in our vegetables portfolio. A few examples. In the U.K., we mentioned how quickly we freeze our peas after having been picked. In Italy, we play very strongly the local provenance of our ingredients in minestrone, for example, which is a hero SKU there. And in Germany, we focus on the unique balance between cream and leaf in our hero spinach SKU there. So sustainability plays a key role in vegetables, and we have been driving sustainability for years, for decades actually. We will continue to do so in the future, but importantly, we are going to make sure that this sustainability advantage is visible for our consumers. Our peas in the U.K. are the first ever to receive a gold level FSA assessment in terms of sustainability. We're extending that assessment to the rest of our portfolio with the aim of achieving gold certification on all our contracted vegetables and at least silver with the rest of our portfolio. Amongst all the sustainability stories that we can play, we know biodiversity is resonating particularly strongly with our consumers. We have always taken action in that area. For example, in Germany, we've been planting flower strips along the fields for more than 15 years, and we will soon dial up this biodiversity message by building some strong partnerships and delivering some specific campaigns around biodiversity. As much as we believe that our core portfolio like peas and spinach have a bright future, clearly, like for fish, we are building a strong pipeline of innovation to modernize our portfolio and to make sure they are also appealing to new target groups like millennials. And you can see here in this chart some great examples, ranging from vegetable mixes with trendy and healthy ingredients like pulses and quinoas on the left, modern cooking methods like wok that we are going to launch across Europe and also the implementation of recyclable packaging that is quite critical in vegetables. Our goal, by the way, is to achieve 100% packaging recyclability by 2022, which is ambitious. We will deliver it, and this will be delivered before many of our FMCG peers. Success in vegetables will not just come with market share gains. Success will mean that we are able to drive significant category growth. Doubling vegetables consumptions from 150 grams per week to 300 grams per week is fundamental for health and sustainability reasons, as we have seen before, and we want to be a driving force behind that. To deliver that objective, we are going to roll out next year our Eat In Full Color campaign that is encouraging consumers to eat more colorful vegetables, which we know is what drives health and variety. So we're going to implement this type of campaign to drive consumer behavioral change. And we are also developing new freezing technologies that will continue to improve the texture, the taste and the nutritional quality of our frozen vegetables range. So I hope that was a comprehensive overview of our fish and vegetables portfolio, which are clearly aligned with our goals of serving food that is better for people and better for the planet. These anchors will be complemented by our efforts in plant protein, which will create another important dimension to our advantage portfolio. And the work doesn't stop there. We are working to extend our pipeline across a number of breakthrough, longer-term growth platforms, like, for example, new sources of proteins; new processes for protein to stay ahead of the competition in our strategic plant protein big bets; next-generation packaging; ready meals, which is a segment where we still have a lot of white space for growth; and finally, connectivity of devices so that we can encourage the consumers to open the door of the freezer more often, which is critical for future category growth. So more to come in those areas as we are making progress. So in summary, we believe Nomad Foods has a competitively advantaged portfolio, future-proof and aligned to help drive a more sustainable food system for a better future. We have many strategic partnerships to make this a reality, as you can see in this slide, too many actually to go into details. One of our key partners is the Marine Stewardship Council, the MSC. I'd like now to a short video from the MSC about their partnership with Nomad Foods and how we are helping create more sustainable fishing practices across the industry. [Presentation]

So far today, you've heard Stefan and Albert showcase the advantages of our portfolio. They also articulated our growth strategy across a number of interesting and hopefully, new dimensions. Let's now shift gears by taking a closer look at how we went across Europe where we apply our growth model at a country level. Over the next 30 minutes, you will hear from our 3 regional Managing Directors: Wayne Hudson who oversees the Northern European countries; Steven Liebermann, who manages our Southern European countries; and Antje Schubert, Managing Director of Western Europe. They'll each focus on a specific Nomad market, outline the actions behind our success to date and articulate what's still to come in the future. [Presentation]

Hello, everybody. For those of you on the call that I've met before, it's great to get the opportunity to speak to you again. And for those of you who have not met me, my name is Wayne Hudson. I'm the Managing Director for Northern Europe, which includes the U.K., Ireland and the Nordic countries. A little bit about me, I've been in FMCG marketplace for about 38 years, and I've had the fortunate pleasure to work in every single temperature regime, whether that's ambient, chilled or frozen and have also worked with multinational brands, domestic U.K. brands as well as having extensive experience in private label. I joined Nomad at the start of the Nomad journey in January 2016. Obviously, Nomad was founded earlier, in 2015. And I initially joined the exec as Managing Director for the U.K. and Ireland business. In January this year, January '20, the Nordics were added to my accountability. And a few words on those a little bit later as we come to the end of my section. As you can see, this region accounts for 45% of total Nomad revenues, so it's a hugely important region for the business. So just a quick snapshot of some of our key brand icons across the Birds Eye portfolio in the U.K. and Ireland. Under the Birds Eye brand, this business is represented way beyond our core of fish and vegetables. With the exception of ice cream, we actually are represented in all of the large categories, which includes pizza, value-added poultry, potatoes with the roast dinner occasion, there's many -- as well as many, many others. So they're hugely important segment and a very, very complex portfolio. Back at the start of the Nomad journey, the Birds Eye business, both in the U.K. and Ireland wasn't, to be honest, in great shape. The category itself had had a number of years of decline and the Birds Eye U.K. and Irish business had suffered even greater declines. What we started to do in 2016 was the turnaround journey for total Nomad and specifically, for Birds Eye U.K. and Ireland. And what we did in those initial stages was we invested very heavily in our products, in our people, in our categories and also in our communication. That led us to some growth in 2017 and growth actually accelerated throughout 2017. Midway through 2018, we acquired the pizza business in April. And we followed that very quickly with the purchase of the Aunt Bessie's business in July 2018. What we then set about doing was actually consolidated all of those 3 businesses from July '18 onwards into one Birds Eye U.K. and Ireland operating business. And all of that became effective right from the start of January 2019, where we created one Birds Eye business with the three iconic brands. So with Birds Eye, with Goodfella's and with Aunt Bessie's. And one of the things I want to confirm to you today is that in the next 7 weeks, in the Birds Eye business for U.K. and Ireland, we will actually hit a critical milestone. So if you remember a few seconds ago, I talked about a series and years of decline, what we will achieve in 2020 with Birds Eye U.K. and Ireland is 4 consecutive years of growth, and that's unprecedented, actually, in the Birds Eye U.K. and Irish history. Another key fact is that actually since Nomad's acquisition of Birds Eye, since the start of January 2016, in 7 weeks' time when we close out the year, the Birds Eye U.K. and Ireland business under Nomad ownership will have actually doubled in size, both through organic Birds Eye growth and through M&A. So a tremendous milestone for the business as we close this year. Over the next few slides, I'm going to talk specifically a little bit more in detail about how we've done that, but also more importantly, how we continue and intend to continue the growth story and continue with Birds Eye being a growth and powerhouse for the overall Nomad business. So I'm going to focus specifically on the U.K. The U.K. is a business account for just under 30% of Nomad revenues. And actually, it's a hugely important business as you've seen. We really, really focus on strategic business plans or joint business plans with our key retailers. And we have a really laser focus on our consumer, our shopper and our customers. That focus actually has been there ever since the start of 2016, and it's been crucial to the Birds Eye business' success, and it will also be crucial to our ongoing growth story. What we started to do, way back in 2016, is actually look at the category from a holistic perspective. So we think about the category approach. We think about our retailer specific strategies. And then through that, we actually find opportunities to grow. So what we do, first and foremost, is 3 stages. We think about category opportunity. We think about customer opportunity, and then we think about how can Birds Eye leverage that and grow as a consequence. So in essence, what we're doing all of the time is we're aligning and marrying the macro consumer and shopper trends with individual retailer strategies to find avenues of growth, either margin or revenue for them and for ourselves while satisfying consumer demand. So one of the key areas that we do this is we work with retailer strategies, whether that's existing ones or new emerging ones. What we ensure that we do is that we really work with our strategic business partners and with our key retailers on those plans to make sure that we capitalize on the opportunity. The [ JV piece ] are also multichannel. So it's not good enough to think about a retailer holistically. If you think of someone like Tesco, Tesco has an estate that covers superstores, supermarkets. It covers convenience and high street as well as a significant online channel. But it's really important that we have specific joint business plans for every single channel that the retailer is working with. One of the key things that's driven our success is also a laser focus on the core of our business. Again, referring to years of decline, we lost a bit of focus and focused heavily on innovation. The core of the business is absolutely crucial because it underpins the ability and the opportunity to develop into other categories. Some of those categories like we're just entered into this year like Green Cuisine in plant protein are going to be hugely important for the future growth of the business as we go forward. And as I said, really focusing on the core is hugely important. In the last quarter of this year, the Birds Eye brand, including Green Cuisine, will have achieved an incremental 16,000 distribution points in quarter 4, which are all going to be critical, not just to the outturn of this year's numbers, but really for 2021 and beyond. Again, as you've seen in the media, one of the emerging channels is the channel of e-commerce. And that's accelerated quite a lot since COVID really hit the U.K. market in March. And I'm going to talk to you a little bit about that in more detail over the next couple of minutes. So a couple of stats, first and foremost. U.K. is Nomad's largest online market. It actually accounts for around about 66%, 67% of total Nomad revenues. So it's hugely important. Additionally, it's not only important to us and our customers, it's actually vitally important to our consumers and shoppers because, actually, the Birds Eye brand is the second largest brand in the online channel, second only to Coca-Cola. So hugely important for all of our key stakeholders. As I said, whether that's a customer, whether it's a consumer or whether it's a shopper. As you can see on the graphs, frozen and Birds Eye, specifically Nomad, this channel is hugely important. So pre-COVID, the average participation of the grocery channel was about 5% or 6%, with frozen being about 9% -- 8% or 9%, and the share of our revenues being about 13%. So frozen, very, very important as a category online. And also Nomad, very, very important to the category at a total frozen level. What we've seen most recently in our year-to-date numbers is that the category has exploded. Retailers have coped with the incremental demand and challenges of the online business because they've had to increase the number of slots. They've had to increase the number of deliveries. And the channel in frozen has taken a large proportion of that growth. So the overall category in frozen has grown around about 50% year-to-date. And conversely Nomad, again, has outstripped that growth. So we've grown, as a business, around about 60%. Resourcing this channel is crucial. And it's really important that we not only get that right now, but we get that right to capitalize on the future growth potential. So the category dynamics are really in our favor. They're in favor of frozen. They're in favor of us as a business. And as I say, we'll continue to do so as all metrics continue to get exceeded. If you look at this a little bit deeper, the key levers that we pull are really focusing on the basics, making sure that we win in at point of purchase. So we think of the online challenges in exactly the same way as we think about bricks and mortar. Our brands have to be visually represented in a way that makes it very, very easy for shoppers to actually purchase our products. We spend a lot of time making sure that we get on to favorite lists, and we make sure that we get all of the brand hierarchies and the communication right when that shopper goes on to a site and wants to make a purchase. What we also do additionally in the online channel is we think about how can we solve shopper missions, create more demand and drive incremental purchase and transaction size. And a key way to do this is to link our own products together, so you can do a bundle deal on things like chicken and -- as is chips, Birds Eye peas and get the 3-meal solution products for a specific price. Or alternatively, you can link, like the picture depicts, on a meal occasion like big night in with pizza and beer. So real opportunities for us, for the retailer and ease for the shopper and the consumer with simple solutions. So we're also, with retailers, getting more traction as what we call category captains. So that's where specific retailers look to us to provide advice on how their website should be laid out in things like frozen, what the hierarchy should be. And that allows us to really drive on performance of the category and then obviously, the Birds Eye business' performance within it. So we are trusted partners to many, many retailers, specifically online but also in bricks and mortars as well. The last angle that I do want to touch on is how we focus on retaining and rewarding those consumers. So we use all of the tools that are available, whether that's a coupon in for retention and repeat purchase at points-of-sale or on the tills when people go through the till and pay for the shopping or indeed in consumer marketing, where we're marketing direct-to-consumer and utilizing social media very, very heavily to talk about our brands. So we're using all of the tools that are available to us, either within retailers or within the wider market to improve our overall performance. So in summary, the U.K. has been and will continue to be a strategic powerhouse for Nomad, but we will never ever lose sight of what has made us successful. So there is absolutely no new news here. What is going to be making us successful in the future is actually what's also made us successful in the past. So a real focus on the core of our business. The strategy is really clear about that, and it remains laser-focused on that. We will continue to grow and leverage the core, while still so ensuring that we adopt and adapt to macro consumption trends like plant protein with our Green Cuisine brand. So we've got great consumer and customer traction with Green Cuisine. We have got a 3-year growth plan with Tesco in this particular arena, which is fantastic news. But that there is huge potential because it really links into macro eating trends, macro sort of consumption occasions, and we're very, very well pleased with a lot of different types of products, satisfying different types of consumer needs. The online channel will become increasingly important. It will take an increase in participation of total grocery sales. So it's really important that we remain focused on that as well as making sure that we adopt and adapt to retailer strategies as they change and seek out further growth opportunities. As I said right at the beginning of this presentation, the Birds Eye business has been through a transformation phase. It's got a huge opportunity for growth. And to close on Birds Eye, we have had 4 consecutive years of growth, totally unprecedented. And this year, we'll see the key milestone hit of doubling the size of the Birds Eye business since Nomad ownership, a fact and a figure that all of the organization is usually proud of. And just before closing, it would be remiss of me not to give you a few words on the Nordics and on the Findus brand, in particular. The great news for me is that what I see in the Nordics and Sweden, in particular, which is the largest Nordic market to us, there's a lot of similarities now with when I joined Birds Eye in the first place. We've done a lot of consumer research this year. Consumers love the Findus brand in the Nordics. So that gives me a great sort of comfort that there is huge opportunity. It's also been an incredibly busy year. So in Finland, the smallest of our Nordic markets, we continue year in, year out to grow the business and to grow share. In Norway, we've returned the business to market share growth in the last couple of months, and we'll continue to do so over the months ahead. In Sweden, we've created a completely new senior leadership team with enhanced capability. We started to focus, just like we did in the U.K., on the category, on the retailer, and then actually, can we have simple solutions to help their growth story. So I'm pretty confident that the future -- without sort of specific targets and measures to share at this stage, that the future for the Nordics is bright.

Hi, I'm Steven Libermann, Managing Director of Nomad Southern Europe region, which consists of Italy, France, Spain and Portugal. Together, this cluster represents approximately 30% of total company revenues. I have [ 17 ] years of comprehensive experience in the frozen food business, originally as part of the Findus Group and then Nomad Foods since 2015. I've held several roles within the company across marketing, sales and general management functions across Europe and earlier in my career, held a role at Nestlé and BIC. Today, I would like to spend some time discussing the incredible success that we have had in France, which recently surpassed Sweden to become Nomad's fourth largest market by revenues. Here, you see a snapshot of Findus France, which has a portfolio highly concentrated in 2 core categories, fish and potatoes. These 2 categories combined to represent approximately 90% of our revenues in France. Vegetables represent a large part of the remainder. And as we will discuss shortly, Green Cuisine will provide an important new dimension to our portfolio. Going back to the early days of Nomad in 2015, France operated both the Iglo and Findus brands. Ultimately, we decided in 2016 to consolidate the market into one brand, Findus. This created a baseline for us to build on our market share, which was already relatively high across our core categories. You can see that we have delivered strong performance since 2016 with market share increases across the board. Since 2016, our revenues have grown at a CAGR of 5% per year, gross profit at 6% and EBITDA at 10%. I would like to provide some more background on the drivers of our success in France, a market where many FMCGs companies often struggle. Core to our success in France has been the successful adoption of Nomad growth model. This included establishing product superiority. We improved the nutritional and sustainability profile of our products. Today, we are proud to say that 95% of the Findus portfolio scores green in the Nutri-Score labeling system, and that 100% of our fish is MSC- or ASC-certified, meaning that it was sustainability sourced. We also built on the scale of the overall group. A great example was the introduction of the fish and chips range. These products were existing within Nomad countries, but we tailor-made the concept for France. Today, the fish and chips range is a EUR 15 million business with accretive margins. As a branded business, we increased our media impressions through improved media efficiency and strong [ areas ]. In fact, we reached an index of 175, well above the food media norms in France. And finally, we delivered strong commercial execution across distribution, assortment and in-store. With our internal sales force, we are helping our retailers to make frozen looks good for shoppers. France is a great case study of all the Nomad growth model or playbook, can be applied to other countries or potentially newly acquired businesses. Turning to the future. We are currently in the process of introducing Green Cuisine to the French market. This exciting use of brand will help Findus to develop another leg of growth, in addition to fish and potatoes, and help develop our vegetable business as well, which is relatively small in this market. Again, applying our must-win path of strategy, we are using the 360-degrees approach built around: a dedicated TV copy as part of our new communication platform in France; digital activation with 500 influencers; dedicated promotion in stores and in e-commerce; and finally, great execution in store. We are covering 1,200 point of sales with what we call our green blocks with secondary placements. And close to 5,000 stores will carry specific point-of-sales materials to generate visibility. Thank you.

Hi, everybody. My name is Antje Schubert, and I am the Managing Director of Nomad's Western European region, which includes Germany, Austria, Netherlands and Belgium. These markets, which account for approximately 25% of our company revenue, a home of the Iglo brand. I've been with Nomad since 2014 after spending my career on an international journey in markets like Poland, Spain, U.K., Netherlands and Austria. And I had the fortune working with our many large FMCG companies such as Kraft, Reckitt Benckiser and Danone. Today, I'd like to share with you some perspective on the success we've had in Germany, which has been our fastest-growing country since 2016 with an organic CAGR of 11% and an EBITDA [ CAG ] in the mid-teens. How did we do this? Well, we base our success on 3 pillars. First, we invested heavily in rebuilding our brand heroes and reestablishing the emotional value. Second, we masterminded the execution of all elements of our growth model and improving in particular the distribution by ensuring that either was accessible to as many German shoppers as possible. After all, we are a brand for every household, and we must be present where those people shop. Third, we put focus on our people. You can have the greatest products but without the right mindset and values of our people, you cannot be successful. Hence, we reengineered our culture and leadership profile. We are a branded food company, and it all starts with consumers' love for our brand icons and our portfolio. Iglo Germany stands for fish, vegetable, Captain Iglo, Blubb spinach and increasingly, Green Cuisine. We have made a lot of progress over the last years to become a loved brand. The situation, however, was quite different back in 2016. At that time, we had a much -- we knew we had a strong consumer awareness and great products, but we saw a fundamental need to enhance and sharpen what our brand stood for. So what did we do about it? Each of our core categories were set up with a dedicated 360-degree campaign, which contemporize a very -- every element of our brand. To mention just a few examples here. We strengthened our communication model. We reactivated our brand heroes, Captain Iglo and Blubb spinach and spread our comps into a much wider media channel mix to reach our target audience at all channels they were viewing. We optimized our portfolio with very clear innovation focused around our company purpose with a very rigor look onto health and sustainability, establishing salt- and sugar-reduction programs, just to give you a few examples. We executed very rigor category management, and we successfully [ pulled for ] the introduction of Nutri-Score in Germany, front-of-label packaging, which helps consumer with a better orientation on healthy and nonhealthy products. This helped us to strengthen our position in the market. Just last month, we received an innovation award for Iglo, given by an independent jury of retail partners, market researchers as well as market participants. This is a great recognition on what we did over the past years. With our brand in a healthier place, we recognized that we were significantly underrepresented in important segment of the food market discounters. Discounters like Aldi and Lidl represent 40% of retail in Germany. Hence, if you like to be where your shoppers are, you also need to be there. Hard discounters originated in Germany, when the first Aldi store, at that time called Albrecht, was opened in the 1960s. Back then and for decades to follow, the discount channel followed a very, very simple model: low prices, simple shopping, no brands. This segment or where the market has evolved both within Germany and globally ever since. As discounters reached store saturation, they began to introduce A brands into their assortment. They also began to carry more SKUs and run promotions. In effect, then started to behave a bit more and more like traditional retailers in their effort to drive more sales. In Germany, the discount channel currently has approximately 50% market share of the frozen foods segment and one where our brand Iglo had historically been underrepresented. In a dynamic and ever-evolving retail landscape, our goal is to follow the consumers by ensuring that our brand is widely available. After all, Iglo is an iconic A brand in Germany, and one which should indeed be accessible to all consumers across all channels. And as a result, we have [indiscernible] as well. Our growth in discount channels enabled us to gain new shoppers, hence, grow our penetration and respective share. Now you may say, this is the right pocket, left pocket, right, cannibalizing the classical retail business. The answer is no. All channel, traditional retail as well as discounters grew in share over the past 4 years, and this is absolutely critical. And it comes back to the power and strength of our brand. This is what we wouldn't have been achieving without a strong effort on our brand. Our approach is to continue to develop our loved brand and our portfolio. As you know, Germany is one of Nomad's largest market for Green Cuisine. We look forward to extending this exciting new sub-brand and building on our brand strength across our network of retail consumers. So to sum up, stay close to your consumers, particularly, ensure where they fill their baskets and evolve with them. Brand visibility is key to business success. Especially when it comes to in-store activation, it's all about best-in-class execution to create brand experience. To make it a bit more colorful, let me take you with us on a virtual journey, going shopping, filling our baskets in German retail. [Presentation]

So let's now enter our third and final section of the day. As Europe's leading frozen food company, our ability to source, manufacture, distribute in a competitive price is a key enabler of our success. Jason Musk, our Chief Supply Chain Officer, will introduce you to this critical part of our organization and the initiatives that we have underway. Following Jason, Samy Zekhout, our CFO, will conclude our Investor Day by summarizing everything that you've heard today into numbers.

Hi, I'm Jason Musk, Nomad's Chief Supply Chain Officer. I've been with the company since 2017, and I'm responsible for our entire supply chain organization, including procurement, manufacturing operations, distribution and our continuous improvement and transformation programs. I spent my entire career in FMCG, specifically food and beverage operations with an international career, the companies including: San Miguel and Molson Coors, 2 of the world's largest global brewers; and the 2 Sisters Food Group, Premier Foods & Bakkavor, who are synonymous for excellence in food manufacturing within Europe. I'd like to spend the time today to provide you with greater insight into Nomad's supply chain, and to outline the drivers, which will help enable our longer-term value creation and productivity objectives. Our supply chain is an expansive operation, which incorporates procurement, manufacturing and distribution functions, amongst others. Simply put, we are responsible for sourcing raw materials, manufacturing them at a cost that makes our products competitive and ensuring they are distributed at the right location and time for our retail customers. Our supply chain in totality has around 3,500 employees with a sustainable engagement level equivalent to high-performing operations at 84%. Here, you see a high level split of Nomad's EUR 1.6 billion in cost of goods from 2019. And what you'll see is that 69% of our costs sit in procurement, making our scale and ability to source raw materials critical to our success. 40% of this spend is associated with buying fish, 20% for vegetables and a further 20% for meat and dairy products. Similarly, manufacturing represents 1/4 of our cost of goods, and this is an area that we constantly focus on to ensure we continue to create value for our organization, both through leveraging our scale and footprint alongside efficient operations. So let's talk about fish. This is our largest category, representing approximately 40% of our revenues. And so naturally, it's also a critical area for our procurement team. We purchased over 100,000 tonnes of fish from the world's oceans each year with a spend of around EUR 450 million. 40% of this spend is associated with pollock, making us one of the world's largest buyers in whitefish. 96% of all of our fish is sustainably sourced through the Marine Stewardship Council, the MSC, and the Aquaculture Stewardship Council, the ASC. Vegetables are another important category for us. We work hand-in-hand with over 700 farmers with a European agricultural footprint, which spans over 17,000 hectares. We harvest in excess of 360,000 tonnes of vegetables each year with a spend of EUR 190 million. Peas, potatoes and spinach are our premier scale areas, representing more than 65% of the total vegetable sourced. We also have a dedicated center of excellence for breeding and growing our own exclusive varieties of peas for the Nomad Food Group. So that was procurement. Let's now shift to manufacturing, where we have a high-performing and agile network across 13 factories in Europe. Our network is well positioned and scaled to serve all of our customer markets with 3,300 highly engaged employees in our factories. Our flagship and scale sites in the U.K., Germany and Italy are also supported by a network of smaller satellite sites and an extensive co-pack network, ensuring that we consistently meet our demand requirements. Together, we produced in excess of 750,000 tonnes of finished products. So that was a quick update on who we are in supply chain, and we certainly come a long way under Nomad ownership. Our journey has really been centered around 3 key phases: firstly, integration, essentially building and expanding our business across the first 3 years; secondly, setting solid foundations for growth, embedding strong operational practices, a standardized operation model and creating high-performing teams across all areas of our supply chain; and last but not least, enabling and empowering positive transformation through the disciplined execution and leveraging of our scale. We believe our supply chain has and will continue to create value for our organization. And through our transformation journey, have a productivity program that we expect to drive 2% plus annual cost out. This program is based around 4 key pillars: firstly, our fuel for growth pillar, an enterprise approach to consistently and constantly improve the way that we source our raw materials and services across our enterprise; secondly, the operational excellence pillar, challenging every aspect of loss, waste and inefficiency within our European factory network; thirdly, logistics excellence, which entails optimizing the cost of shipping, storage and general logistics costs whilst driving more efficient routes to market; and finally, our network design, where we constantly assess our operational footprint to ensure we have the right scale and processing capabilities in the right location. So in summary, Nomad's supply chain is an integral enabler by growth ambitions and will play a critical role in ensuring that the growth comes with the right margins. We have a clear productivity plan in place and know which levers to pull to achieve our ambition of 2% cost out on an annual basis. We also have a good and solid track record behind us, but of course, there's more to come. And I'd like to conclude by playing a quick video of our recent U.K. Birds Eye pea harvest, which should provide you with some additional perspectives on the scale and complexity of our operation and our passion for food. [Presentation]

Hi, everyone, and thanks for being here with us today. Before we jump into the financials, I'd like to go back to one of today's primary objective, which was for you to get to know us better. We are a company that is committed to delivering great financial results and generating strong shareholder value. But beneath that layer, Nomad Food is a dynamic organization with highly engaged employees, expansive pan-European reach and profitable growth mindset. I hope that came across throughout today's presentations. As you already heard, we are on a journey. This year marked our 5-year anniversary, and it has indeed been a fulfilling first chapter in our story with strong financial performance. Based on our latest guidance, we expect to have achieved revenue, adjusted EBITDA and adjusted EPS CAGRs of 7%, 9% and 11%, respectively, since 2016. And as you will see momentarily, we expect to maintain strong momentum into the future. Strong free cash flow generation has been a defining characteristic of our company. And our ability to sustain strong cash flow conversion, even as we fuel growth has been a key enabler of our success. One of our measures of success is our ability to convert over 100% of our profit into free cash. And you can see here that we've been in this range every single year since Nomad was created in 2015 and plan to exceed it this year. We are committed to driving top quartile tier services to our peers, and we are pleased to see that our performance has allowed us to achieve that goal, thus far, with 3-year share appreciation ahead of both the S&P 500 and the Food index. That was the past let's now shift our attention to the future. Throughout the day, you heard us talk about our ambition to sustain elevated organic revenue growth and drive strong cash flow. What I'd like to do now is translate all of that into numbers. Today, we are introducing the following long-term targets. First is our goal of exceeding EUR 3 billion in revenues by 2025. This will be underpinned by our goal of sustaining strong organic revenue growth at the high end of our low single-digit growth algorithm. Second, we expect to generate at least EUR 600 million in adjusted EBITDA by 2025 driven by a modest level of margin expansion in our existing business. And third, we plan to generate over EUR 1.5 billion of adjusted free cash flow over the next 5 years. We plan to achieve these targets through a combination of organic growth and bolt-on acquisition consistent with our stated M&A strategy. From a profit standpoint, we expect gross margin to benefit from supply chain productivity and favorable mix. And SG&A to be relatively unchanged as expense discipline in indirect will help fund investments in A&P. Finally, a goal of more than EUR 1.5 billion cumulative free cash flow is built on our expectation of 100% cash flow conversion each and every year. This will be underpinned by disciplined working capital management, CapEx in the 2% to 3% range, a relatively low cost of borrowing and a tax cash rate of 21%. Translating these long-term targets into EPS, we plan to achieve adjusted EPS of EUR 2.30 by 2025, which equates to double-digit compounded EPS growth over the next 5 years. This target assumes the aforementioned organic growth expectation and our plan to allocate cash in a manner that is accretive and enhancing for our shareholders. This brings me to capital allocation, where we have 3 key priorities. First is to invest in the business. And as I had mentioned earlier, our annual CapEx spend is expected to run in the range of 2% to 3% of revenues. Second, M&A, which are returned to momentarily, will continue to be a key area of focus as we look to further consolidate frozen food across Europe. And third, finally, with the significant excess cash that we expect to generate, we will likely continue to return capital with share repurchases as the most likely means. Going further into M&A, you may recall that we refined our strategy earlier this summer by sharpening our scope to European frozen food consolidation. This continues to be the case. We have specific criteria that we consider when evaluating acquisition candidates and will remain prudent in our approach in order to generate strong shareholder value. As you have seen, we are pleased to announce our intention to acquire Findus Switzerland from Froneri for a purchase price of approximately EUR 110 million. We are thrilled to announce this deal, which clearly meets our M&A criteria. Strategically and operationally, this acquisition makes sense for us in many ways. First, it expands our reach into one of Europe's most attractive countries, Switzerland, through the market-leading frozen brand, Findus, which is already present in many Nomad's existing countries. Second, Findus Switzerland operates a range of value-add frozen food categories, including fish, ready meals and vegetable, which are highly complementary to our existing portfolio. And further, this acquisition is expected to be immediately accretive to EPS upon closing, which we expect to be in early 2021, with multiple opportunities to create value across commercial, supply chain and indirect. We will continue to manage our balance sheet appropriately. We have historically maintained leverage consistently between 2 and 4x and are likely to stay within this range given our strong free cash flow generation and our capital allocation strategy. In summary, we are proud of the model that we have built and believe we have the strategy and resources to sustain strong performance in the near and long term. Our goal from day 1 has been to build a sustainable growth model by acting as owners and maximizing long-term value creation. To repeat what we stated in our Q3 earnings call last week, we intend to achieve growth across organic revenue, adjusted EBITDA and adjusted EPS metrics in 2021. This is based on our latest 2020 guidance. When reflecting these figures on top of our extraordinary performance in 2020, growth in 2021 would imply a significant acceleration on a 2-year basis. And as we stated throughout the day, we intend to maintain the momentum over the next 5 years by converting organic revenue growth of 2% to 3% at the high end of our long-term growth algorithm into double-digit adjusted EPS growth. When taking all of this into account, we believe NOMAD will be one of the few companies who will demonstrate growth before the pandemic, during the pandemic and after the pandemic. I'd like to conclude our Investor Day by coming back to the same key messages, which Stefan led with earlier today. First, we have a portfolio of iconic marketing brands. They leverage the benefits of our large pan-European infrastructure and have a local touch. Second, we have the portfolio strategy and category tailwinds to sustain strong organic revenue growth over the next 5 years. Third, our business generates a significant amount of cash, and we expect to generate over EUR 1.5 billion of cumulative free cash flow over the next 5 years. This equates to approximately 30% of our market cap today. And fourth, when taking our organic growth and capital allocation strategy into consideration, we expect to achieve EUR 2.30 in adjusted EPS by 2025. And with that, I'd like to once again thank you all for your participation and attention, and we will now turn to the question-and-answer session, which will be moderated by Taposh. [Operator Instructions] Thank you. [Presentation]

Good morning to all of you. I hope you like this presentation, and you learned 1 thing or 2. And before starting the Q&A, let me say a quick word on behalf of the whole Nomad Foods. So the people you've seen or have in front of you are the exec. And we, collectively, are very proud of what we have achieved over the last 5 years. And I can tell you, very excited with what we can see and what we're going to do over the next 5 years and beyond. This being said, I can tell you, we're all aware that nothing would be possible without the collaboration with the 5,000 employees of Nomad, white collars, blue collars, working in all the countries, especially during these very testing times, during COVID. And I hope you understand that. You appreciate that. These are not empty words. This is really something where that has been put to test. The people you see on the screen, as I said, are the exec. Obviously, with the special times, we are speaking from different places, some from the U.S., others from London, others from Belgium, France or Germany. But I hope also, it's very clear that what we have achieved and we're going to achieve over time wouldn't be possible without operating as one single team. That we would have loved to be together, we can't today. But definitely, what you need to understand, it's really a collaborative work. And with that, I think also what's important to understand is we all have -- not only we're working collectively, but we're working with the same goals in terms of value creation in terms of purpose. So with that, I will leave it to you, Taposh, and obviously, to the Q&A that is coming.

Okay. Thanks so much, Stefan, for that opener. Thank you all for your participation. We're now going to get into the Q&A part of the program. [Operator Instructions] We have about an hour of Q&A, and we have a number of questions that have come in throughout the course of the presentations. We're going to take the first one, which comes from Jon Tanwanteng at CJS. I'm going to read the question verbatim, which is, "does the announcement of an effective vaccine change your outlook or the calculus for your near-term or long-term planning at all?" And Stefan, I think that's a question for you, please.

Thank you, Jon. And before answering, by the way, I would say more globally, it's a very good news. It's a very good news that the vaccine is coming. The sooner, the better, by the way, not only for the whole world, but also for us, by the way. I think someone said that we are -- we've been growing without COVID. We're growing with COVID. And we're seeing increased retention, and we're going to grow without COVID, post-COVID. So back to your question, the clear answer is no. We don't need it and it's not going to change our algorithm, neither the algorithm short-term nor the algorithm long-term. So you remember that what we said 2 days ago is we're planning to grow in 2021, and it's going to be based on a "normal 2021," which is probably the definition of a vaccine for all of us starting day 1 in January. So that's very much in line with the vaccine coming in. What's probably going to happen, Jon, is what we see in -- right now is we're off to a very strong start in Q4. There will be, probably, momentum starting Q1. And then at some stage, God knows when the vaccine will come. So all in, it's going to be an offset. So we're not changing anything. And I would just remind people that after a fantastic year in 2020, growing in 2021 is -- or can I say, not bad and probably it's a European understatement.

Okay. Thanks, Stefan, and thanks, Jon, for your question. The next question that we're going to take is from John Baumgartner at Wells Fargo. And the question is about the topic of product mix and I think broadly innovation. So the question, "aside from Green Cuisine, which when we think about the core frozen fish and veg business, what are the opportunities or potential to launch innovation/renovation at higher price per pound or margin per pound at this point? We're already seeing some of the gluten-free and flavored colorings -- or coatings out there. How do you assess the opportunities for mix accretion from here?" And I think, Albert, that's probably a good question for you.

Yes, Taposh. John, thanks for the question. So yes, as we have said in the presentation, we have a whole pipeline of innovation beyond Green Cuisine. So we [ can't win ] in Green Cuisine, we have other initiatives. And yes, they do provide an opportunity of mix accretion. I mean in the past, every single innovation has been gross margin accretive and net sales per tonne accretive. And just to give you some stats, innovation that you have seen in the presentation for next year on fish will be priced 10% higher per tonne on veg, close to 40% and 50% because they are kind of -- they are comparing with lower-priced, natural veg. So yes, they drive net sales per tonne increase, and they all deliver accretion at gross margin level. So it's a key driver for our gross margin expansion road map.

Okay. Thank you, Albert. Thank you, John. Next question we're going to take is from Andrew Lazar at Barclays. This question is pertaining to our long-term EPS target of $2 or EUR 2.30. So his question, which I think is probably for Samy, "is the EUR 2.30 EPS target organic? Or does it factor in M&A? This target in 2025 reflects over 11% of EPS CAGR over that 5-year period. If you do mid-single-digit EBITDA growth compounded, this means 5% annual reduction in share base each year in lieu of M&A. Does that sound correct?" And again, Samy, I'm going to turn that over to you.

Very good. Thanks, Taposh. And Andrew, thanks for the question. So our plan, as we have said, I mean, over the next 5 years is to grow organically our revenue, I mean, at the high end of our low single-digit algorithm. That will result into growing our EBITDA at mid-single digit, which will drive incremental margin, as we have talked. That will enable us to turn all of that into cash, and we will be generating -- we intend to generate EUR 1.5 billion in cash over the next 5 years. That significant amount of cash will be maximized in order to deliver the best possible return for our shareholders, and that will be focusing through M&A and share repurchase.

Maybe I could add something, Taposh?

Would be great.

I think that in the classic tradition of Nomad, I think that what happens in 5 years' time is so much driven by how not just the organic business evolves, which I think has been conservatively outlined, but also how EUR 1.5 billion will be spent. And that, frankly, is something where if there is opportunity to create a higher return over 5 years than that, it will be founded how opportunistic we are with capital allocation, and that's something where, at least over time, I think we've had a historical advantage. So I think that there's opportunity there, but really depends on what happens in the world over the next 5 years.

Thank you for that. Thanks, Martin. Thanks, Samy. We're going to take the next question from Faiza Alwy at Deutsche Bank. Question is, "I would like to know more about the plant-based protein category. There's been so much focus on this category. Can you tell us more about the competitive landscape and what differentiates Green Cuisine in the market?" All right. So that's about market share and more about category growth. So I think we're going to start that one with Stefan, and perhaps Albert can elaborate. Stefan?

Yes. Thank you very much, Taposh, and thank you for the question. Overall, as you know, we are extremely excited by Green Cuisine from the start, but also what we see with different countries. So probably the most obvious example is in the U.K., where from start -- from 0 in a reasonably developed market like in the U.K., we've gone from 0% to 7% market share and still growing a lot. And I think what we see is really a combination of a leadership in frozen food and Green Cuisine, obviously, does very well with frozen food, combined with the great product. So we're really in some sort of a sweet spot between taste, health and sustainability. And I would invite you to test the product. This combined with a great, obviously, relationship with the trade. Wayne mentioned, obviously, that Tesco, for example, with a stated objective of growing 300% within the next few years, and we're going to be part of this. So that's a bit in a nutshell, what we see in the U.K. In the other countries, where in U.K., as I said, it's a bit of a market share gain, but also growing the category. So we have competitors, but we also all want to grow, let's say, structurally this category. What we see on the country is we're starting from the -- from scratch in countries like Italy, for example, where Steven is leading. And we are -- from day 1, we are the category leader. So it's much less the question of growing market share. Much more the idea is obviously to make sure that we're going to grow the category as a result and vis-à-vis meat but also vis-à-vis chilled. So that's the global approach we are taking right now, so different by country. That's why I think we're good. We are global in local. Some countries are different. Some countries, it's much more fighting against other players. In some of the countries, we have to build the category. But definitely, with what we see, we have what it takes.

Well, I mean I can follow up just with a few -- just a few data points. I mean the category today is EUR 1.4 billion in [ F&B ] across Europe and produced a growth of double digits. So we see that category overall in frozen and chilled to be close to EUR 3 billion in 2025. Players, you have a mix of big, large players like Unilever and Nestlé but also a whole bunch of local players, big or small. And actually, I think the sweet spots where we are in is that we want to have -- and we are having the agility of small players and the scale and the ability to really expand across Europe that the major players are having. So it's a big opportunity. And the only piece of data that I find very encouraging, to add to what Stefan, was saying, we have recruited more than 8% of the U.K. households in terms of penetration, and the repeat is close to 43%. And in food, the repeat in percentage is basically the most strategic indicator that shows that consumers, as Stefan has said, are delighted with the products we are offering, so a big opportunity ahead.

Fantastic. Thank you, Albert. Thank you, Stefan. We're going to take our next question from Mark Purdy at Ash Capital -- or Ash Park Capital, excuse me. And this question is for Noam and Martin. We're now halfway through a 10-year journey to the new targets you expect today. How does where you're now compare to your expectations when you created Nomad back in 2015? And what do you see as the key risks and challenges in achieving the 2025 targets?

Noam, you want to start?

Sure. Thanks for the question. I think we're incredibly proud of the team that you see in front of you. Stefan has -- is terrific. The whole team is terrific. There's a great culture within the organization. It's cohesive and it's executed brilliantly before COVID. It did an extraordinary job during COVID. And it frankly continues to do so. As we've seen, the company tends to underpromise and overdeliver serially, and we feel very good about that. We feel very comfortable with all the forecasts that the company makes. We are -- when we first began this, we told the organization in a meeting with all the employees that we're not renters. We're owners, and that's how we look at the business. And that's exactly how we feel, and that's exactly how we are. And I'm not sure we're halfway through. We could be quarter the way through. There's no rush, and very, very excited to have the platform that we have and the opportunity that we have to be not only a consolidator in Europe but also to create great shareholder value going forward.

Well said. I completely agree with everything that Noam just said. I would say that having confidence in the future is looking at what you've done in the past. And I think that the team have come together tremendously well. And one of the great things about being a CEO is the people you bring around you. And I think that, as Noam said, building a first-class team around Stefan has been the strength from the finance roles and the commercial roles to the regional operating roles, it's really been a very smooth, consistent improvement of the cadence and level of operation in your whole organization over the last few years. I don't see any reason that should stop either. And so as Noam said, owners, not renters. We're in this -- building this for the long term, and I think that -- I will tell you that 5 -- [ John ] used to set goals and manage to find opportunistic ways of exceeding them in those 5-year periods. And I think that the same kind of opportunity exists here because the team is there to be able to execute. So we're very happy with where we are.

Okay. Thank you. And thank you, Martin. Thank you, Noam. Thanks for the question, Mark. We're going to take our next question from Andrew Olsen at UBS. This question is about M&A specifically about Findus Switzerland. So I understand the strategic merit of adding Findus Switzerland to your portfolio. But this is a new geography for you, that being Switzerland. Can you provide some insight about the Swiss market and what makes it attractive? How can you leverage your scale in this geography and also neighboring regions to gain advantage in this new market? I'm going to pass it over to Stefan to try to address.

So thanks for the question. And let me start with the new geography. I think it's great to have a new geography. It was one of the remaining Western European countries where we didn't have a meaningful presence. And we're starting from scratch with a #1 position, 20% market share even further if including [ the low part ] of the private label. So it's exactly in line with our plan. Actually, our average market share in Europe is around 14%, 15%. So we're even ahead of this, which is perfect, great brand, brand that was a bit an orphan in the middle of a big giant. Now we've fully focused. So we have everything that it takes to develop our Must Win Battles strategy and it's -- you've seen that it works in all the countries and, on top of that, just will give you a bit of Q1 or 2 numbers. The portfolio is very similar. So you have fish. You have vegetables. You have meat. Great opportunity, by the way. There is nothing like Green Cuisine. So we're going to come with -- from scratch with Findus Green Cuisine, perfect. And the second data is 80% of the business is co-pack today, co-pack. And the average for us is 20%. So I'll let you imagine what we can do with this. With our fish, for example, we can -- you heard about Bremerhaven, the largest fish fingers plant in the world. And you can imagine the kind of transfer price we can generate for our Swiss friends. Same thing with procurement. We are the biggest buyers in the world in terms of pollock, so same thing, so a lot of things we can do coming from the different geographies around Switzerland. So it's -- what can I say, even not including the fact that we are reunifying the brand, which is, at least for us brand people, it is absolutely fundamental. We love to fully control the brand. And this brand was -- has -- and I understand the data from Steven, who is a Findus veteran. He told me that the brand was separated, I think, since 1998. So after more than 20 years, the brand is back as a worldwide brand. And we all -- brand people, we know the power of what a -- of a brand can be when it's in the same roof. So this is a bit in a nutshell. And I could [ explain it long ] always and always behind this, but it's, in a nutshell, what we -- how we see this combination with Switzerland.

Okay. Thank you for that. We're going to move on -- we're going to take another question that's coming from Faiza Alwy at Deutsche Bank. I'd like to know more about e-commerce. Is the acceleration here mainly from click and collect? What are the implications of this growth? Why is Nomad market share higher in e-commerce than in-store? Is e-commerce essentially cannibalizing in-store shopping? Is there more data you can share? What are the profitability implications? And are the investments that you need -- are there investments that you need to make? Or what do you need to do to fully capitalize on this strength? So thank you for the question, Faiza. I think we're going to start that one with Albert. And then maybe Wayne and Steven can kind of elaborate further given their markets' high penetration in e-commerce.

Yes. It's a good idea to then move on to Wayne and Steven because actually, to the first question, situation is different across the countries. So clearly, in France, it's mainly drive, what we call also click-and-collect. And in the U.K., it's mainly delivery at home, home delivery. So to the question about the level of cannibalization, we -- it's hard to know, but actually, before COVID, the assumption was between 90% and 95%. And the interesting insight is that since COVID, we have much less cannibalization. Actually, more than 75% of the new consumers we've been recruiting during the acute phase of COVID came through e-commerce. And we see a strong retention. So our expectation is that cannibalization will be lower in the future as we are implementing specific programs for retention. Quick question on the key drivers. I mean first is getting the bases right. So we've been investing for a long time in capabilities to have the right level of information, the right product shots in every single site, selling our products. There is an element of digital marketing and marketplace advertising as well that we've been implementing in the past and we've been reinforcing with retention. And lastly, it is clear that when it comes to e-commerce, there is an advantage of being top of mind and having built equity and awareness in the past. But maybe, Wayne, you can go more into the specifics on that question.

Thanks, Albert. And thanks, Faiza, for the question. So yes, as Albert said, it does vary by market. The U.K. specifically has grown its click-and-collect offering. But every single retailer has significantly improved and increased the infrastructure for delivery to home. So every retailer, without exception, has more than doubled the number of deliveries to in-home during the period, and that's a trend that will continue. A couple of other parts to the question. What about the profitability? Obviously, from a retailer perspective, it comes with more cost. But from a retailer, the manufacturer perspective, delivering solutions is a lot easier, and promotional participation online is a lot less than in bricks and mortar. So the opportunity to do bundled deals and specific meal occasions are a lot more appropriate and a lot easier to execute in the online channel. Why does it over-index in terms of participation? Well, it's actually one of the only shopping experiences where frozen is absolutely competing on a level playing field with everything else in the store. Someone is shopping on screen, making selections from the information that's presented in front of them and from a visual image as opposed to having to move around the store, where frozen quite often is at the end of the store because of the temperature regime. So those are some of the key reasons for the differentials. Steven, I don't know whether there's anything more that you want to add about your markets.

Thanks, Wayne. If I'm coming back to France, France is clearly a click-and-collect market where we have a higher market share compared to our normal stores. And if I take Italy, we have a mix of click-and-collect and also home delivery with the traditional retailers. We have applied the Must Win Battles strategy also in e-commerce, meaning that we have a dedicated team. We worked a lot on the assortment, the promotion, the visibility of our product, and it's delivering. The market is growing by 3-digit percentage both in Italy and in France. And we are clearly beneficiating from the solid work that we have done dedicated to e-commerce.

Okay. Fantastic. Thank you, everyone, for that comprehensive answer. We're going to go now to Jason English at Goldman Sachs. He's got a couple of questions. So we're going to start with the first one, which is, I was surprised to hear you highlighted international expansion as one of your growth strategies. Can you elaborate more on this? Which markets are you already working with distributors to expand with? And how far from Europe, if at all, are you willing to go? So Stefan, why don't you pick that up and we can hand it over if necessary?

Thank you, Jason. It's a very interesting question. And when we started in 2015, we innovated a bit of hot spots of many different businesses coming from Findus, coming from Birds Eye, coming from -- and we try to put it together but, quite frankly, in a bit of, let's say, opportunistic way more than anything else. And now this time, we have decided to apply more specifically in some sort of Must Win Battle concept. We've -- we know where we're very strong, and then you heard it loud and clear during the presentation. It's, first and foremost, in fish. And we have fish superiority, I can tell you, very clearly in terms of product as such. Also, the coating is really something that is great. And we will see that, by the way, with the Green Cuisine poultry, there is no -- or the poultry-less products, but that's on the side. So we're going to really focus our international mindset behind fish, maybe a bit of Green Cuisine on the side. And then we're going to focus on a limited number of countries. And then I will give the word to Albert, who is in charge of international, to go -- to give -- he's going to give more -- you more detail about where we're going right now. But it's going to be more focused product-wise and more focused behind in terms of country with also A&P investment.

Yes. Thanks, Stefan, and I could speak hours on it. So let's be concise. I mean international is -- represents today -- the real international, so outside of our core geographies, represents 1% of our revenue. So you can imagine that there are multiple opportunities. So as Stefan has said, in fish, we will prioritize distribution -- a distributor model to start with. And in terms of geographies, a vast array of geographies actually, starts with Central Europe, where -- which is close to our home and where our Captain, for example, has already some awareness. We are piloting the U.S., as you may have seen, hopefully. We have 650 stores, and first rate of sales results are quite encouraging. We managed to deliver a superior product with -- we still have a great margin. Beyond the U.S., we have Asia as well. We have the Middle East, where we are distributing in Dubai, and Australia as well. So I think the key point here is to place the big bets. In the U.S. is one of them, Asia as well. And we have been building a team that is an expert in what we call export -- expert in managing distributors and more to come, but it's definitely an exciting growth avenue for us.

Great. Thank you for that answer. I hope that helps, Jason. Jason has another question that we're going to ask now, which is revenue growth in the 2-year period preceding COVID was driven in part by the pass-through of higher cost inflation. As such, your low single-digit organic revenue growth was accompanied by gross margin declines or pressure. What has changed looking forward that gives you confidence in your ability to surpass that prior organic revenue growth level while also expanding gross margins? So Stefan, why don't you start? Or maybe we can hear from Samy as well on that one.

I think I'm going to come back to all our different building blocks. One is innovation, obviously, and then Green Cuisine. Green Cuisine is a good portion of our plans. And as Albert mentioned, Green Cuisine is going to be margin-accretive. So that's one example. All the other innovations, again, same thing, but again, the difference this time is the -- let's say, Green Cuisine is going to be much more material than any of the -- of innovation in the past. So that's going to make a big difference. The second piece is to your point I think in terms of -- and I'll come back to the P&L. After 2 years of highly, let's say, difficult COGS, I would believe that way, this year has proven to be better. And obviously, that's going to generate less pressure with the retailers. It doesn't mean that there won't be any pressure. You know this, Jason. It's always the kind of -- and it's -- we're in the middle of this right now. But it's going to be at least a more -- a bit of less tense negotiation than we had in the past. The third piece is now and that you've heard from Jason, after '15 -- '16, '17 that were more in the 1%, let's say, cost-cutting, cost reduction in terms of COGS. So we're deliberately moving to 2% and potentially even further in the future, and this together with net revenue management that hasn't changed. So all these elements make us quite [ fine ] in terms of confidence, in terms of organic growth, in terms of gross margin and obviously the impact in terms of EBITDA. M&A is something else. We know that M&A, every time you have to come back and then obviously recreate the whole thing, but organically, that's how we see the whole thing with obviously the building blocks in terms of sales. Maybe more for you now, Samy.

Yes. Stefan, thank you. You said it all. And the only thing I would add is with the points that have been raised and -- so Stefan, there's one thing I would like to insist on, which is the fact that we are really gearing up on our cost-saving program and our productivity to really make it if you want more of a systemic approach. And that's where the 2% is coming. We have not done that in the past. Savings were coming in, the best we could. Now we're really putting in place a highly structured program from a lean standpoint across the site. And with a brand-new organization around procurement, we'll be able to drive out effectively further efficiencies in there. So the balance between effectively the help coming from the top line, the mix and the innovation that Stefan was talking and the COGS is going to rebalance with a stronger contribution coming from the COGS productivity program we are putting in place.

Great. Thank you. It's a good segue actually to our next question from Andrew Lazar at Barclays, which is the 2% of cost-out annually from supply chain. Can you maybe talk about how do you get there and how critical that is to the overall algorithm? So Jason, why don't you maybe give us some more context around some of the key building blocks there? And Samy, if you can just maybe elaborate more on how important that is to the algorithm.

Thanks, Andrew. Great question. So I think the 2% is key for me because if you take out 2019, which was a highly inflationary year, outside of that, typically, inflation has been 1.5% to 2.5%. At 2% algorithm, we have around cost-out, means that we can deliver total delivered costs flat into our organization. We're doing that for a number of ways, most predominantly leveraging the strategic relationships with our supply base. COVID has been a really challenging year, but it's the strength of those relationships with our key fish suppliers and vege suppliers, some of which date back 60 years actually or 20 years within the fishery market that have meant that we've taken pole position when it comes to those choices. That's really key and will set us in good stead. Also within our factory network, I think what is true that we've got a great lean program, our operational excellence program across all of our manufacturing estate at the moment. And we serve our local markets well. The great thing for me is there is more opportunity and upside to come when we start to think how we serve Europe well as a continent, leveraging scale but also making sure we have centers of excellence and local ability to deliver those costs well. That also link into logistics. So I think if you look back through my presentation, the typical 1% cost-out has now become typically 2% cost-out, and we plan to raise the bar for that in 2021, taking it to 2% plus. Very much my mantra across the supply chain now is repeat and scale, locking what we've done, do more, do it quicker, better, faster.