Ingredion performed exceptionally well and once again displayed resilience in 2023, delivering more than 20% operating income growth while expanding gross margins for six consecutive quarters. We achieved strong financial results in the face of challenging market conditions, generating record net sales, profitability, and cash flow while advancing our safety and sustainability agendas and improving service deliveries to customers.

Ingredion's net sales reached an all-time high of $8.2 billion, up 3% from the prior year. We posted record operating and adjusted operating income of $957 million, up 26%, and $969 million, up 23%, respectively, as our teams managed the impacts of raw material price fluctuations and customer inventory destocking. Reported and adjusted earnings per share grew by 31% to $9.60 and by 26% to $9.42, respectively. Additionally, cash from operations exceeded $1 billion, and we returned $295 million to shareholders.

Executing Our Strategy

Throughout the year, our teams focused on executing against the four strategic pillars of our Driving Growth Roadmap designed to deliver shareholder value by accelerating customer co-creation and enabling consumer-preferred innovation to advance specialties growth. Driven by double-digit growth in starch-based texturizers, specialty ingredient net sales rose by 4% and represent 34% of 2023 consolidated net sales. Among the standout segments were Food Systems, driven by strong private-label demand, as well as Pharma and Personal Care, reflecting economically resilient, high-value wellness offerings.

We made notable progress in commercial excellence as our technical service teams engaged with customers to provide the right ingredient solutions to meet rapidly evolving consumer demand worldwide. Customer engagements both in person at Ingredion Idea Labs^® and through our virtual innovation studios grew by 26% in 2023, demonstrating the breadth and relevance of Ingredion's diverse portfolio of ingredients and solutions.

In addition, we enhanced our go-to-market capabilities in line with our strategy to become a more comprehensive solutions provider by investing in solutions and consultative selling. Additionally, our investment in supply chain systems improved forecast accuracy and on-time delivery as we fulfilled customer orders while carefully managing inventories. The cumulative effect of these commercial initiatives led to improvements across all regions in our Net Promoter Scores.

The progress against our growth agenda was complemented by the progress we made in cost competitiveness through operational excellence. We strengthened our global procurement team, increased the spend under corporate procurement management, and invested significantly in category management training. These investments are providing early paybacks, delivering meaningful year-over-year savings, reducing risk, and improving supplier collaborations.

Our operations teams responded with agility to softer demand, mostly during the first part of 2023, by adjusting production schedules. As customers rebalanced inventories and destocking lessened in the second half of the year, our ability to adjust production enabled us to end the year with balanced inventory positions.

In 2023, several third parties validated our commitment to cultivate a purpose-driven and people-centric growth culture. We earned a perfect score in the Human Rights Campaign Foundation's Equity 100 Award, and we were pleased to once again be included on the Bloomberg Gender-Equality Index and named one of the world's most ethical companies by Ethisphere.

We notched gains against other important metrics as well. The safety of our employees and contractors has always been a foundational element of our culture. In 2023, we reduced our recordable and lost time incidents to record lows, and we continued to operate at world-class levels of safety performance. And with approximately 66% of our five priority crops now sustainably sourced, we are on track to meet our 2025 commitment of 100% sustainable sourcing.