Organically, long track record again of above 4%. So the median for 2024 is 4.5% or the average. And we’re going to — that’s better than our 10-year average better than our new evergreen model. So to have 4.5% or so above the 5.3% is, again, growth on top of growth. And it matters where that’s coming from. In years past, before all the COVID noise and all the pricing and the inflation, we’re a volume-driven company. 100% of our organic growth was really from volume. Many companies right now are talking about the return to volume. We’ve already returned to volume. The last two quarters consecutively, we have volume growth. We expect that in 2024 as well. About two-thirds of our growth we expect to be volume-driven growth in 2024. On gross margin, this is a slide to spend some time on.
So we had a fantastic gross margin expansion, 220 basis points in 2023. That got us to 44.1%. Our eyes are on our high of 45.5% back before COVID, the 2019 number. If we hit the middle of our 50 to 75 basis point outlook, then that means we have 80 bps remaining to get back to that kind of pre-COVID number. Now we also have tailwinds from acquisitions that we didn’t have back then. But our eyes are firmly on recovering back to 45.5%. And that’s also why we have confidence and raised our gross margin outlook for the next few — for the future. Here’s the bridge. So this is always the detail that folks want to see. 2023 price/volume mix as expected, very strong tailwind from price. In 2024, not as much. We have some carryover price, but it’s not the driver.
Manufacturing costs for a headwind of 240 basis points last year. We expect that to be closer to down 130, down 140, about $85 million. It was about $125 million in 2023. Acquisition is a tailwind in 2023. We don’t expect to have acquisitions in 2024 from carryover impact on gross margin. Productivity programs up 150. That was one of our best years ever. It was our best year ever for our productivity program. And then in 2024, we also expect to have a really strong productivity program. Gross margin change would then be 220 in 2023 and then 50 to 75 in 2024. I’ll spend a minute on manufacturing costs. Inflation is still there. I would say it’s moderating. So maybe a few months ago, I would have said inflation, I would say it’s moderate inflation.
And the nuance in 2024 is a small piece of that is commodity-related. And whether it’s resin prices or natural gas or sugar, those costs are up. But the bigger part for Church & Dwight is some of the costs and investments we’re making in capacity. So the new depreciation on the capital that we’ve put in. We added a new distribution center. We’re outsourcing international supply in some cases until we can bring it in-house. We have higher third-party manufacturing costs and higher labor costs. So that’s the bigger makeup of the pie, largely capacity driven as we grow into it. Moving to marketing. So 11% with 4% to 5% net sales growth, this is an investment of $35-or-so million. So this is real incremental dollars year-over-year to help drive the top line and share.
SG&A, we continue to believe we’re going to leverage SG&A. And I walk through even in the future evergreen model, leverage of 25 basis points to 0. So those investments behind international and e-com are key. And all that leads to great consistent strong EPS growth over time, double digit in many cases, or high single digit, and we have a great outlook in 2024. Turning to cash flow. So cash flow is what we believe drives value. And our free cash flow conversion, which is free cash flow divided by net income, is industry-leading. So for 10 years, our average was 119%. In our recent history, because we’re making huge capital investments on CapEx, that number is down, but still right in line with the industry or maybe even a little bit better.
But we expect that to continue to inflect positively. Our cash conversion cycle. This has been a track record at Church & Dwight. We’ve taken our cash conversion cycle from 52 days down into the 20s. We had a spike up this year largely because of acquisitions. But again, that’s going to work its way back down over time. Strong balance sheet, one of the strongest positions we’ve ever been in. So we ended this year at 1.8 times levered. We expect to end next year closer to 1.6 times. And this chart is updated. So even from a few months ago, back in September when we presented at Barclays, our financial capacity is about 20% higher. And why is that? It’s because we’re generating even more EBITDA. It’s because we’re generating and paying down cash at such a rate we’re paying down debt as well and so those things are just, again, virtuous cycles when we look at doing acquisitions and deals to grow our business.
So number one, far and away for capital allocation is M&A and we’re laser focused on M&A. Number two is CapEx for organic growth and our Good to Great program. Number three is new products. Number four, debt reduction, and number five, return cash to shareholders. We’re not a capital-intensive company. We spiked up in 2022, 2023 on the way down in 2024, and we believe we’ll be at 2% of sales back to normal in 2025. Then finally, we announced this morning in the press release, we have a 4% dividend increase right in line with our capital allocation strategy. And I’ll turn it over to Barry to talk about the domestic division and new products. Thank you.
Barry Bruno: Good afternoon, everybody. I think Rick likes when I go right after the dividend slide to remind me I’ve got an obligation to keep it going, so 123 years strong and some more good quarters ahead. So I’m Barry Bruno. I’m responsible for our US business. I’m going to talk a little bit about our categories, the US consumer and what I think is some really great innovation that we’ve got in our key categories going forward. I’m going to start with a slide I left you with last year, which was we’ve got great confidence in our future. If you look at the categories in which we compete, and I’ll show you a look at the old power brand and the new power brand categories to break them out for you, we’re not only leaders in those categories.
