Mondelez International

• 1. Introduction

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  Mondelez International takes its name from two scraps of language. One is the Latin word mundus, meaning world. The other is delez, a shortened echo of the word delicious. The company writes its name with a macron over the second e, and it is pronounced MON-də-LEEZ. It is an American snack and confectionery company based in Chicago, operating in about 160 countries. Its annual revenue is roughly 38.5 billion dollars, and in the 2021 Fortune 500 list of the largest United States corporations it ranked number 108. The name is barely a dozen years old, but the business behind it is far older. How did a firm built to consolidate ice cream makers become a global snack maker? What did it cost to swallow Cadbury, and why did Hershey say no? And why do campaigners, courts and regulators keep returning to this company?

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• 2. Cheese And Ice Cream

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  On the 10th of December 1923, Edward E. Rieck and Thomas H. McInnerney founded National Dairy Products Corporation. They had a rollup strategy for the fragmented United States ice cream industry, buying up many small players to build one large firm.

  Kraft Cheese Company was founded in 1924 and listed on the Chicago Stock Exchange. Two years later it gained a listing on the New York Stock Exchange. In 1928 it bought Phenix Cheese Company, which Jason F. Whitney Sr. had founded and which made Philadelphia Cream Cheese. The enlarged business took the name Kraft-Phenix Cheese Company.

  In 1930, National Dairy acquired Kraft Phenix. The combined company kept the National Dairy name and its management, while the Kraft Phenix side continued to operate largely independently.

  Kraftco Corporation became the company's name in 1969, and Kraft Inc. followed in 1976. In 1989 Phillip Morris acquired it and merged it with General Foods Corporation. The business was renamed Kraft Foods Inc. in 1995. Altria, the former Phillip Morris, sold its stake in 2007. Just two years after that exit, Kraft Foods would launch a hostile bid for a British chocolate maker.

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• 3. Cadbury Takeover

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  On the 7th of September 2009, Kraft made a hostile offer of 10.2 billion pounds for Cadbury, the British group behind Dairy Milk and Bournville chocolate. On the 9th of November, Cadbury rejected the bid, by then valued at 9.8 billion pounds. It called the offer "derisory". Kraft increased its offer on the 4th of December.

  The bid met significant political and public opposition in the United Kingdom and abroad. That opposition led to calls for the government to bring in economic protectionism against takeovers of large companies. On the 19th of January 2010, Cadbury approved a revised offer valuing it at 11.5 billion pounds, or 19.5 billion dollars. Royal Bank of Scotland provided some of the funds.

  Cadbury's own sales were flat after the purchase. The deal still lifted Kraft's overall sales by 30 percent. Even so, Kraft's net profit for the fourth quarter fell 24 percent, to 540 million dollars, because of the cost of integrating the UK business.

  Kraft spent 1.3 billion dollars on integration, aiming for estimated annual savings of 675 million dollars by the end of 2012. It also raised prices to offset rising costs for corn, sugar and cocoa in North America and Europe. Chief executive Irene Rosenfeld struck a cautious note: "We expect it will remain weak for the foreseeable future." Earnings per share fell by about 33 percent right after the purchase.

  In August 2011, Kraft's leadership would announce a plan to divide the company in two.

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• 4. Splitting The Company

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  In August 2011, Kraft Foods announced that it would split into two publicly traded companies. One would be an international snack-food company, and the other a North American grocery company. The snack company, called Mondelez International, would be the legal successor of the old Kraft Foods. The grocery company would be a new business named Kraft Foods Group.

  The split was completed in October 2012. It was structured so that Kraft Foods itself changed its name to Mondelez International and spun off Kraft Foods Group as a new listed company. Three years later, Kraft Foods Group merged with Heinz to form Kraft Heinz. In some international territories, Mondelez has made Kraft-branded products under license from Kraft Heinz since 2012.

  In 2014, the company announced a merger of its coffee business with the Dutch firm Douwe Egberts. The merger was confirmed on the 6th of May 2014 and completed on the 2nd of July 2015. The new company was named Jacobs Douwe Egberts, which is now JDE Peet's.

  With coffee gone, snack foods and confectionery stood as the company's core businesses.

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• 5. Deal Making Years

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  In January 2016, Mondelez announced that it would source 100% cage-free eggs globally by 2025. Later that year, on the 30th of June 2016, it made a 23 billion dollar offer for its smaller rival Hershey. The deal was half cash and half stock, and it valued Hershey shares at 107 dollars each. Hershey's board unanimously rejected the offer.

  In 2016, Terry's was among several brands that Eurazeo acquired from Mondelez, and it later became part of Carambar & Co. In January 2017, the company sold its Australian grocery business, including Vegemite, to Bega Cheese. In August 2017, it was announced that Dirk Van de Put, the Belgian chief executive of McCain Foods, would succeed Irene Rosenfeld in November 2017.

  On the 6th of May 2018, Mondelez agreed to buy the cookie maker Tate's Bake Shop for about 500 million dollars. The purchase was completed on the 7th of June 2018. On the 19th of June 2019 it agreed to buy a majority interest in Perfect Snacks, owner of the refrigerated protein bar Perfect Bar, and that closed on the 16th of July.

  On the 25th of February 2020, Mondelez announced a majority stake in Give & Go, a Toronto-based maker of two-bite brownies. That deal was completed on the 3rd of April 2020. In January 2021 the company bought Hu Master Holdings for more than 250 million dollars.

  The Greek snack company Chipita S.A. was the target on the 26th of May 2021. Chipita was a high-growth player in croissants and baked snacks across Central and Eastern Europe. Mondelez announced the completed acquisition on the 3rd of January 2022. In May 2022, it was announced that Mondelez had bought Ricolino, the confectionery business of Grupo Bimbo, for roughly 1.3 billion dollars.

  On the 10th of May 2022, Mondelez said it would sell its gum business in developed markets, including North America and parts of Europe. It also said it would sell the entire Halls cough drop business. Both had once belonged to Warner Lambert. In June 2022 the company announced it would buy Clif Bar for 2.9 billion dollars, adding Clif, Luna and Clif Bar Kids.

  On the 19th of December 2022, Mondelez announced the sale of its North American and European gum business to Perfetti Van Melle, the makers of Mentos. The sale covered Trident, Dentyne, Chiclets and Bubblicious, and it closed on the 2nd of October 2023. Mondelez kept its gum business in Latin America, Africa, Asia and Australia.

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• 6. Brands, Bases And Money

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  Oreo, Ritz, Triscuit, Wheat Thins, Chips Ahoy! and Belvita all belong to Nabisco, one of several billion-dollar components of the Mondelez portfolio. The company makes chocolate, cookies, biscuits, gum, confectionery and powdered beverages. Other biscuit, cracker and candy names include TUC, LU, Sour Patch Kids, Barny and Peek Freans.

  The chocolate list runs through Milka, Côte d'Or, Toblerone, Cadbury, Green & Black's, Freia, Marabou and Fry's. Halls and Stride cover cough drops and gum. Tate's Bake Shop supplies cookies, and Tang is the powdered drink brand.

  Mondelez Canada holds the rights to Christie Brown and Company, whose brands include Mr. Christie, Triscuits and Dad's Cookies. Its head office is in Toronto, Ontario. It also has operations in Brampton and Hamilton, Ontario, and in Montreal, Québec.

  The global headquarters is in Fulton Market, Chicago. In 2020 the company announced a move there from suburban Deerfield, Illinois. The North American headquarters was then set up in East Hanover, New Jersey. A global innovation center opened in 2023 in nearby Whippany, also in Morris County.

  For the 2017 fiscal year, Mondelez reported earnings of 2.922 billion dollars on revenue of 25.896 billion dollars, a decline of 0.1 percent. By October 2018 its shares traded at over 42 dollars, and its market capitalization exceeded 58.8 billion dollars.

  In the first quarter of 2020, lockdowns for COVID-19 sent people stocking up on sweets. North American sales grew by 15 percent, and overall revenue rose by almost 3 percent.

  The company's own yearly table shows a long shrinking of the workforce. It lists 94,000 employees in 2005, a peak of 127,000 in 2010, and 79,000 in 2020. By 2024 the figure was back up to 90,000, with revenue of 36.441 billion dollars. The share price in the same table rose from 14.42 dollars in 2005 to 69.72 dollars in 2022.

  In September 2017, the cocoa behind the chocolate would draw a damning investigation from the group Mighty Earth.

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• 7. Cocoa Forests And Children

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  The investigation by the group Mighty Earth, in September 2017, found that a large amount of cocoa used by Mondelez and other major chocolate companies had been grown illegally. The cocoa came from national parks and other protected areas in Ivory Coast and Ghana, the world's two largest cocoa producers.

  In several of those protected areas, 90% or more of the land had been converted to cocoa. Less than four percent of Ivory Coast remains densely forested. The report said that the chocolate companies' laissez-faire approach to sourcing had driven extensive deforestation in Ghana. In Ivory Coast, chimpanzees were pushed into a few small pockets, and the elephant population fell from several hundred thousand to about 200-400.

  Mondelez said it had mapped almost all of its cocoa suppliers in Côte d'Ivoire, Ghana and Indonesia by 2018. In November 2018, Greenpeace International found that 22 palm oil suppliers to the company had cleared over 70000 ha of rainforest from 2015 to 2017. On the 2022 Chocolate Scorecard for Agroforestry, Mondelez earned a yellow rating, the second of four possible. The scorecard described that as starting to implement good policies.

  In 2021, eight former child slaves from Mali, aided by International Rights Advocates, filed a class action. They alleged that Mondelez aided and abetted their enslavement on cocoa plantations in Ivory Coast. The suit also named Nestlé, Cargill, Mars, Olam International, The Hershey Company and Barry Callebaut. The plaintiffs sought damages for unjust enrichment, negligent supervision and intentional infliction of emotional distress.

  The company's answer is its Cocoa Life programme for sustainable cocoa. It aims to tackle the root causes of child labour by working with families, encouraging school attendance and monitoring child labour on farms. Cocoa Life farms supplied 43% of the company's cocoa needs by 2018, and the company planned 100% coverage by 2025.

  In 2022, the British broadcaster Channel 4 sent its Dispatches programme to farms in Ghana that supplied Cadbury. It found children as young as 10 at work. Reporters visited an address listed on the Cocoa Life website and found child laborers harvesting cocoa without protective clothing.

  In November 2023, International Rights Advocates filed another class complaint, this time on behalf of nine children. It named Cargill, Mars and Mondelez. The complaint said the companies had pledged to phase out the worst forms of child labor, as defined by ILO Convention No. 182, by 2005. It argued they had done little since and had misled the public about their rehabilitation programs.

  A different kind of criticism came after the 24th of February 2022.

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• 8. Russia And The Regulators

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  After the Russian invasion of Ukraine on the 24th of February 2022, many international companies felt compelled to cut back in Russia. Mondelez publicly said it had reduced all non-core activities and stopped new investments there. As of the 12th of March 2022, the Yale professor Jeffrey Sonnenfeld listed it in an online spreadsheet among the minority still doing business in Russia. Russia generated 3.5% of its annual revenue, approximately 1 billion dollars.

  On the 25th of May 2023, Ukraine's National Agency on Corruption Prevention declared Mondelez an international sponsor of war. The agency said the Russian branch had increased its profit in 2022 by 303%. Consumers and companies in the Nordic countries began boycotts, as did the football associations of Denmark, Norway and Sweden. Some Mondelez employees in Eastern Europe protested.

  Charles III stripped Cadbury of its royal warrant, and Sweden stripped Marabou of its own. In February 2024, chief executive Dirk Van de Put said that investors "do not morally care" whether the company continues to do business in Russia.

  In April 2015, the United States Commodity Futures Trading Commission alleged that Mondelez and its former subsidiary Mondelez Global bought 90 million dollars of wheat futures with no intention of taking delivery. The commission said the purchase pushed up the price of wheat and earned the company 5.4 million dollars.

  In May 2024, the European Commission fined Mondelez 337.5 million euros for anti-competitive practices and for abusing a dominant market position under European Union antitrust law. The company had illegally blocked cross-border sales of chocolate, cookies and coffee products between EU countries. That stopped retailers from buying in countries where prices were lower.

  In July 2025, Milka chocolate was the target of Foodwatch's Goldener Windbeutel award, handed out to mock shrinkflation.

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