JDE Peet’s reports full-year results 2020 - Seite 2

Corporate Responsibility
JDE Peet's' Corporate Responsibility strategy is built on three pillars: Common Grounds, addressing the priority issues in our supply chain; Minimised Footprint, aimed at reducing our environmental impact; and Connected People, engaging our employees and our communities.

In 2020, we made good progress on our Corporate Responsibility Programme. Under our Common Grounds programme, we increased the share of responsibly sourced coffee, and significantly increased the number of smallholders we reach through our collaborative programmes, despite the pandemic. In 2020, 87% of our primary and secondary packaging was either reusable, recyclable or compostable, while 33% of our packaging came from recycled materials, which is restricted by current regulations limiting the use of recycled content within packaging which is in direct food contact. We successfully relaunched our leading Senseo brand, with an industry-first compostable coffee pad containing 100% certified coffee and low-environmental impact appliances to create a truly sustainable offering for our consumers. Most recently, we partnered with Nestlé in the UK to launch Podback, enabling consumers to return our Tassimo T-discs and L’OR coffee capsules more easily through a variety of methods.

Outlook 2021
While uncertainty remains regarding the future implications COVID-19 may have on global markets, we believe that vaccination programmes around the world will lead to a gradual lifting of lockdown measures in the course of 2021.

Within this context, we expect organic sales growth of 3 to 5% in FY 21, assuming a moderate recovery in Away-from-Home. To fully capture the growth opportunities we see in the coming years, we will step up our investments for growth in 2021, notably in marketing and innovation support. With these investments in growth, we expect organic adjusted EBIT growth to be in the low single-digit range in FY 21.

We remain committed to reducing our leverage to below 3x net debt to adjusted EBITDA.

Medium- to Long-Term Targets
Following the unprecedented developments related to the COVID pandemic and the long-lasting changes the company expects they will have on consumer behaviour, the company has reviewed its strategy in recent months.

While management has concluded that the company's strategy will not be subject to any material changes, we are further encouraged by the future growth opportunities the team has identified. Consistent with JDE Peet's commitment to focus on the quality and sustainability of its organic sales growth and profitability, the company has decided to link its profitability target more closely to its organic sales growth target.