As we approach our 75th year and a milestone in the company’s history and journey, Thai Wah continues to strengthen our extensive Asia-Pacific network and capabilities now totally 15 locations in 5 countries as we continue to develop a global sales and marketing strategy from a uniquely Southeast Asia production base across the crops of tapioca, mung bean, rice, sweet potato and others. 2021 has been an exceptional year for us in terms of results delivery and business performance, as we delivered new record highs in revenue, sales growth, margin delivery and significantly improved absolute dividend that we seek to sustain in coming years. Group Revenue grew by almost 30%, and EBITDA more than tripled compared than 2020.
We continue to embark on our continuous transformation to be a higher valued added players in the agri-food space, now with a much deeper and broader network of offices and deep go-to-market capabilities in Thailand, Vietnam, China, Cambodia and Indonesia. We have become far more customer-centric than ever before – enabled by Covid to lay in place strong digital, supply chain and distribution capabilities. Building these capabilities pre-Covid has served us well, as witnessed by strong revenue growth for 30% in our starch business, 79% in our Vietnam Food Business, and 25% in our Food export business. Commercial excellence and go-to-market capability remain a key focus for us in the medium terms, as we strive to serve our customers faster and better. Our R&D and Technical Service capabilities – now accounting for more than 25 people globally across 4 offices, continue to play a key role in how to deliver creative and comprehensive food solutions to our customers in global markets. Building and integrating strong, passionate, and talented technical and commercial teams have been integral over the last 12 months.
Covid 19 has revealed the core importance of brand trust – in the Thai Wah brand and corporate reputation, and our product brands Double Dragon, Phoenix, Double Kilin, Rose and now RosEco across all B2C and B2B consumer product and solutions. Many of our product brands have been in the market for decades – and the strong growth over the last 2 years reminds us of the need to continue to execute with the highest standards of excellence possible, and now working seamlessly to drive digital excellence into how we serve our customers from Farm to Shelf.
Our Food business delivered strong results driven by growth in Modern Trade, Van Sales, and Exports. Our export markets grew over 25% and our Vietnam food business doubled for the second year in a row. We will relentlessly continue to strengthen the offers in our product portfolio to serve convenience segment with high-quality noodles and Ready-to-Eat solutions. The Food Business profit improved year on year by 23% driven by the strong demand for high quality, trusted brand in noodle and food solutions, testament to the strength of our brands and our commercial excellence. Underpinning this sales growth is also a continuous LEAN transformation program across all our production facilities and plants, where this year is the first for us to conceptualize TBS Thai Wah Business System as a key enterprise-wide platform to drive operational excellence across Safety, Quality, Cost and Delivery.
Agriculture and Food are cornerstone elements of the Southeast Asia Economy and we continue to play a key leadership role in catalyzing change and innovation in this space. In 2021, we partnered with several of the leading collaboration platforms in the region such as Future Food Asia, Asia Pacific Agri Innovation Summit, and looking forward to 2022 we will be hosting the first ever Southeast Asia Agfood roundtable. Operationally, our deep commitment and collaboration seeking to empower smallholder farmers with sustainable practices and innovation has begun with over 10 pilot projects over the last 2 years, as we strive to develop SEA as a key global center for Agri Bio tech hub for the region.
With a journey that originated pre-Covid, in 2021 we marked a double launch of Thai Wah Bioplastics and Thai Wah Ventures. Our bioplastics brand RosEco is the first of its kind in Southeast Asia. It is fully plant-based with other biopolymers and is fully biodegradable. This first generation of tapioca-bioplastics will be cost effective and highly functional as a compound solution to many aspects of sustainable film and flexible packaging. We have also launched Thai Wah Ventures as the first B2B Food and Agriculture Venture Innovation platform focused on Southeast Asia, focusing on key themes such as Farm Tech and Innovation, B2B Supply Chain and Analytics, Novel Ingredients and Bioplastics. This is just the beginning of our efforts to create a novel ecosystem platform for us to partner and drive disruptive change in the coming decade.
With strong performance in 2021 compared to previous year and strong cash position and balance sheet, we continue to invest with discipline by measuring Returns on Invested Capital and our policy on generating long term equity value for shareholders, focusing on improving operating cash flow as one of our key performance metrics. This filters down to the way we manage supply chain, working capital, maintenance and renovation and new capital expenditure. Overall, our net operating cash flow improved in 2021.
All-in-all, the Company’s net profit for the period from 1 January to 31 December 2021 based on its consolidated financial statements amounted to Baht 323 million (Baht 0.37 / share). On this note, the Board of Directors has resolved to recommend a dividend payment of THB 0.2159 per share in respect of the full financial year ended December 31, 2021 which is subjected to shareholder’s approval at the Company’s Annual General Meeting on 22 April 2022.
We are also proud to announce that Thai Wah was selected to list on the “Thailand Sustainability Investment (THSI)” in 2021 by the Stock Exchange of Thailand (SET) and were awarded the Sustainability Disclosure Award by Thaipat for the third consecutive year. We were also awarded the award for Asia Corporate Excellence and Sustainability Awards (ACES) with special recognition in the Green Initiative category in 2021. This is driven by how we embed sustainability targets in farming, environment, safety and health standards and strive to operationalize our sustainability framework. In addition, we won the Winner of The International Innovation Awards (IIA) 2021 for Bean Vermicelli Double Dragon Balance (DD Balance) product by Enterprise Asia and received the Outstanding Disability Employer Awards of the year 2021 from the department of Social Development and Welfare for the 4th consecutive year. We are proud to have received “Excellent CG Scoring” rating for the second year in 2021 for our corporate governance from The Thai Institute of Directors Association (IOD). These awards are testament to our passion to drive change, accountability and transparency across our entire value chain.
Finally, we embrace diversity in the best possible ways. One-third of our independent directors are female, 50% of our leadership team are female, 40% are non-Thai, and 60% of our top 25 leaders are female. Half of our leadership team is now under 45 years old, signifying the leadership, talent and energy needed for the next decade, as we strive to create a world-class One Thai Wah Team.
The transformation journey that began in 2015 will continue into this coming decade. Our Thai Wah family remains focused and committed to catalyze and drive change with a vision to create sustainability and innovation from Farm to Shelf. As we forge our future and our path into the next decade, the enduring Thai Wah spirit to be bold, creative and passionate endures. We celebrate our 75th anniversary this year and I am personally grateful to the dozens of pioneers, leaders and associates who have built Thai Wah to what it is today. We forge the future into the coming decade from a position of strength and exceptional momentum.
Keep Safe, and I look forward to seeing many of you in the coming weeks and months hopefully face to face!