Barry Bruno
Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer at Church & Dwight
Thanks, Matt, and hello, everyone. I'm Barry Bruno. And for the last several years you've been hearing from me about our international business. But in October, I took over as our Chief Marketing Officer. So, while I still love our international business and team, you're going to be hearing from me now about our U.S. domestic business. And that business which as you heard earlier represents over 75% of total Church & Dwight sales is in a great place and is well positioned for future growth.
And I can say that with confidence because, first and foremost, we compete in healthy growing categories in which we often hold the number one or two market share position. Second, there are a number of macro trends, some of which are established and some of which are just emerging, which provide huge tailwinds to our brands going forward. And finally, our two most recent acquisitions have, for different reasons which I'll get into shortly, huge room to run ahead of them.
To my first point about healthy growing categories. Here you can see the top 17 categories in which we compete and whether [Phonetic] they've grown in green or contracted in red in each calendar year. And what you'll see overwhelmingly is a lot more growth in contraction and if you look more closely at 2021 performance, you'll see sequential aggregate weighted growth across all categories of plus 6.1% in 2021, which was on top of exceptional plus 12.5% growth in 2020.
And if we drill one level deeper on 2021 performance, here you can see which categories drove that growth with gummy vitamins, dry shampoo, power water flossers and pregnancy test kits leading the way, and more than offsetting softness in baking soda, electric grooming, and cold shortening, which was driven down by an almost non-existent flu season in 2021.
Despite excellent growth, our market share suffered in 2021, as persistent supply challenges and related in-stock levels left us with demand we just couldn't fulfill. This was especially impactful on our fabric care, VMS and cat litter businesses. As supply improves throughout 2022 we see a corresponding tailwind and expects market shares to improve accordingly.
My second reason for confidence in the future as that multiple trends both established and emerging point to long-term future growth. The first trend centers around pricing where you heard Matt confirm earlier that we've taken price on 80% of our portfolio and we think pricing is a muscle we're going to continue building as we expect a prolonged inflationary environment and see future price increases is likely.
The second trend is in elevated and we believe permanent consumer focus on maintaining a cleaner and healthier home. The third is a belief that from a health standpoint, both mental and physical, prevention is the best medicine.
The fourth is that self-care has gone beyond just an occasional splurge and has become an essential and permanent part of so many more consumer's daily routines. And finally that a gradual return to normalcy despite what we've seen in the past few weeks is inevitable. And when consumers are ready to return to their pre-COVID social routines, we're ready for them.
So let's dive deeper into each. On pricing, we took price on laundry and litter in mid-year 2021 and we're taking price in VMS and across multiple personal care categories right now. We'll have a full year benefit in 2022 on the majority of those increases and the early read is that competition has followed or is following in all key categories.
Prices are sticking and elasticities are better than our initial forecast, and should we move into a recessionary environment, our value brands, which make up 40% of our portfolio, are well positioned for a consumer who is looking for deeper value.
In terms of consumers who are spending more time at home today and we think will continue to spend increased time at home in the future and will therefore be even more focused on a clean and healthy home, we see great inroads with 3 million incremental households now using ARM & HAMMER and OXICLEAN each versus pre-pandemic levels in 2019.
We don't see this going backwards and in fact see household penetration continuing to build year-over-year. In the spirit of consumers looking to stay healthy, both mentally and physically, we see a continuing trend where consumers are looking to vitamins to help out and not just any vitamins, but the gummy form in particular, which is where consumers are migrating to from pills and capsules is up 7 points since 2019.
Equally important is that we're well positioned in the category with offerings that match up nicely to all of the consumer need states that are growing, including sleep, stress, mood among the others you can see here and all of that translates to an incremental 5.7 million households buying VITAFUSION in 2021 than were buying in 2019. Likewise, brand awareness continues to grow and our aided brand awareness is up an incredible 53 points since 2012.
The fourth trend we see as not so much emerging, but is already established is the belief that self-care is not just an occasional splurge, but is an increasing part of daily routines. A few statistics that bear this out include that 87% of consumers now claim to actively practice self-care, while 70% have established specific self-care goals and 59% are practicing self-care more in 2021 than in 2020.
A group of some of our most important brands including WATERPIK, SPINBRUSH, VITAFUSION, VIVISCAL and TheraBreath are benefiting from this trend already and stand to benefit even more in the future. WATERPIK in particular has a lot of runway ahead since the household penetration for Water Flossers is 23% compared to power toothbrushes at approximately 40%.
Finally we're as eager as our consumers in each of you for a return to normal and we're starting to see a reestablishment of social interaction, which is driving categories like skin and nail care, dry shampoo, hair growth and depilatories to high single-digit or even double-digit growth and we see that continuing.
One interesting statistic to make this runway real is that BATISTE, which is one of our fastest growers in 2021 still has years of runway ahead as U.S. household penetration for dry shampoo is only 4.5% compared to the UK where the brand was born, where household penetration is 8%.
Finally, one category that continues to lag is condoms, but we don't believe sex is over with just yet. So we're ready with America's number one condom brand when the category inevitably bounces back. And if that's not enough, we still have huge runway ahead on our two most recent acquisitions.
With regard to ZICAM, we haven't had a normal cold and flu season since COVID struck. As we emerge from COVID and consumers are increasingly social, experts predict there is an inevitable return of the flu and those peak seasons that we see in Q1 and Q4 will provide material growth that we haven't experienced since acquiring the brand. And now that we're launching ZICAM in a new gummy form, which I'll talk about more in a bit, there is even more reason to believe.
Finally, TheraBreath was a great holiday present when the deal closed on December 24th. And when we combine significant new distribution opportunities with our great WATERPIK dental hygienist detailing force, we see significant room for growth ahead.
Speaking of TheraBreath; just about everyone suffers from morning breadth and over 2.5 billion people worldwide or almost 30% of the world's population suffer from some sort of chronic bad breath. And that bad breath starts most of the time in the mouth, throat, and tonsils; driven by sulfur producing bacteria that lingers there.
Dr. Katz who we bought the brand from realized this not only as a dentist himself but as the father of a daughter who was struggling with chronic bad breath. So Dr. Katz invented this alcohol-free mouthwash designed to specifically target sulfur producing bacteria. It was a home run with his daughter and you can see here that it's been a home run with consumers everywhere as it has been materially outpacing total mouthwash category growth and the alcohol-free category subset every year since the launch.
Better yet there is still huge room to run ahead of us. This slide captures total retail points of distribution for our top competitors and for TheraBreath. And what you'll quickly see is that even though TheraBreath is driving category growth as you saw in the last slide, we're way behind in total points of distribution with ample room to launch new variants, new sizes, and expand into new channels ahead.
So, in summary, we participate in great, healthy, growing categories, multiple key trends are our friend, and our most recent acquisitions have tremendous room to run, all of which give us confidence in our future and we haven't even talked about new products yet.
Okay. Now, let's move over to new products where we have a long history of launching new product innovation across our portfolio of power brands, and 2022 will be no exception. So let's dive into a sampling of some of our 2022 new products. The new VMS consumer who enter during the pandemic is more likely to purchase gummies, seeks products with multiple benefits, and is a more immune conscious consumer. And as the category continues to shift to gummies, VITAFUSION set out to expand the relevance of gummies in order to continue to win at shelf.
Introducing VITAFUSION by Bi-Layer Gummies. These two-in-one gummies provide two benefits, two flavors and two colors to deliver multiple benefits in a fun and visually appealing way. This multi-plus platform clearly articulates product benefits to e-shopability, and researchers told us that the platform is expected to grow the VMS retail market basket, as nearly 30% of respondents said they would take these in addition to their current multivitamin. The immune SKU is a multivitamin, plus zinc and vitamin C. The beauty SKU is a multivitamin, plus biotin and retinol. And we're looking forward to both driving great continued growth.
Now, moving over to our specialty haircare franchise, you heard me say earlier that over the past several years, there has been a shift in consumer priorities towards selfcare. And during COVID, this trend has been magnified as consumers are spending much more time at home. One example of the desire to pamper and treat oneself can be seen in 23% growth in hair treatments, and within that segment, 72% growth specifically in hair masks. Hair masks represent an opportunity to care for the health and condition of hair. However, they typically take around 10 minutes to work and need to be rinsed off in the shower.
Introducing BATISTE Leave-in Hair Masks, which deliver selfcare on her terms. These lightweight conditioning formulas are infused with plant-derived proteins and vitamin E and allow her to nourish hair and seal in moisture between washes with no rinsing required.
Now, over to health and well-being, where two-thirds of consumers believe that products sold in the cough, cold and flu aisle are more effective than those sold in the VMS aisle. And the ZICAM consumer is already buying over $40 worth of competitive immune products sold in the cough, cold and flu aisle. So, we're losing out on potential sales by not having any immune products in that aisle.
So, now I'm pleased to share that ZICAM is launching its first immune supplement gummies. The formula features ZICAM Zinc and also has 100% daily value of the top three immune ingredients. The line includes a regular formula and a night-time version with melatonin, as immune plus sleep is one of the fastest growing sub-segments and VMS. Both products are also designed to provide a terrific value versus the competition.
Now, over to fabric care, where the baby detergent segment is currently a $136 million category and is the second fastest growing segment in liquid laundry detergent. However, ARM & HAMMER doesn't have a product here today to meet mom's needs, where we know she is looking for a hardworking product at a reasonable price, so she doesn't have to compromise on what's best for her baby.
Introducing our first ARM & HAMMER baby launch detergent, which is designed to help families do what's best for their babies with zero compromises. Specially created with our ARM & HAMMER babies in mind, it's gentle enough for baby skin, tested by pediatricians and offers a hypoallergenic formula that has zero preservatives, no phosphates and no dyes, and it's even EPA certified as a safer choice. We're very excited about this launch because a baby liquid laundry detergent also helps us down-age the ARM & HAMMER brand, increasing the lifetime value of each consumer.
Let's take a look at some videos that bring this new offer from ARM & HAMMER to life.
So, in closing, these are just a few highlights from another great year of innovation from Church & Dwight.
Okay. Now, let's switch gears and move over to the steps we're taking on our path to a more sustainable future. Starting with the reality that climate is more relevant than ever, especially for our younger consumers. Gen Z in particular is two times more likely than baby boomers to say they've been personally affected by climate change. And the expectations for businesses and brands are very high. Consumers expect companies to take care of the planet and make progress on societal issues at the same time.
As a company, our recent actions such as offsetting 100% of our global electricity demand by moving to green energy and in partnering with Arbor Day Foundation to plant millions of trees in the Mississippi River Valley have helped set the stage for our next move, which is formalizing our climate strategy by submitting our application to the Science Based Targets initiative. We recognize the importance of taking a science-based approach to the environment and ensuring that the targets we set and corresponding actions we take are aligned to industry standards and best practices. Included in our application to SBTi is a commitment to slow the warming of the planet, increase the use of renewables and report on our progress through our annual sustainability report.
So, you can see that we're taking this problem seriously at a corporate level. But our consumers, who have always been proud problem solvers, want to get involved as well. And our goal is to engage them through the power of our most iconic brand, ARM & HAMMER, which is why today, we're pleased to announce, we're kicking off a new campaign starting with ARM & HAMMER baking soda to show consumers we're taking responsibility for our impact on the environment, brand by brand. To get started, we measured our carbon footprint on baking soda and are working to reduce it to zero, initially through verified carbon offsets.
Allow me to share a video with you that illustrates how we plan to bring this to life.
Throughout this journey, our goals are to drive awareness, engage consumers and inspire action. We'll have more news to share on this space around how we can work in partnership with our consumers to multiply our efforts and invite you to follow our journey as we build new strengths here and do our part to protect the environment.
Okay, now over to my friend, Mike Read, to talk about our growing international business.
