Mondelēz: Scaling Circularity and Resilience in Snacking

As part of its latest Snacking Made Right report, Mondelēz International has showcased how it is enhancing business resilience, embedding sustainability and driving value.

Mondelēz empowers people to snack right in over 150 countries around the world. With 2025 net revenues of around US$38.5bn, Mondelēz is leading the future of snacking with iconic global and local brands such as Oreo, Ritz, LU, CLIF Bar and Tate's Bake Shop biscuits and baked snacks, as well as Cadbury Dairy Milk, Milka and Toblerone chocolate.

The company has released its 2025 sustainability progress report, Snacking Made Right, highlighting important achievements across its sustainable ingredient sourcing, climate action and packaging innovation programmes.

Securing the future of cocoa sourcing

Over the last 12 months, the company has reached a number of key milestones when it comes to its sustainable cocoa sourcing programme, Cocoa Life. Its programme now covers approximately 100% of the cocoa volume sourced for the company's chocolate business, as well as working alongside more than 257,000 registered Cocoa Life farmers to build more profitable businesses and resilient communities.

This initiative is continuing to focus on protecting and restoring forests while sourcing more sustainable cocoa. Mondelēz is also a founding member of the TogetherCocoa Foundation, collaborating with governments and other companies to help accelerate systemic change.

With the intention to continue modernising the cocoa sector and strengthening resilience, the company is pursuing an enhanced enterprise-wide sourcing strategy for cocoa. This includes securing high-quality cocoa through geographic flexibility, large-scale farming and partnerships with food-tech start-ups to develop ingredients such as lab-grown cocoa.

It is also harnessing predictive technology, making investments in enhanced crop forecasting processes designed to improve supply accuracy. It is also modernising its engagement as it updates its smallholder programmes to align with evolving regulatory landscapes and consumer expectations.

"Focus, innovation and impact at scale have always been at the heart of our sustainability work," says Christine Montenegro McGrath, SVP Chief Impact & Sustainability Officer, Mondelēz International.

“Ever humble, but determined, we remain focused on contributing to the future of more sustainable snacking and delivering sustainable business growth.”

Decarbonising the supply chain

Mondelēz continues to reduce its environmental footprint through local sustainability initiatives and global partnerships. With ~100% cocoa volume for chocolate now sourced through Cocoa Life, this contributes to the company’s progress against a 2030 target to reduce end-to-end CO₂e emissions by 35% (base 2018).

The company also exceeded a target of a 10% reduction in absolute water usage in priority sites by 2025, realising an ~18% reduction vs. the 2018 baseline.

More sustainable packaging is also being used by the company, which has introduced recycled content packaging for Cadbury in Australia as part of its commitment to a more circular economy for plastic. This contributes to progress achieved against its 2030 recycled plastic content target.

Scaling circularity in packaging

This procurement strategy has enabled an annual reduction of around 1,000 tonnes of virgin plastic across the European market, primarily by shifting towards the sourcing of more recycled plastic materials. The multinational has completed a transition from sourcing rigid plastic trays to procuring alternatives that contain approximately 80% recycled plastic across several of its European flagship brands.

This achievement, alongside meeting its sustainable packaging goals, reflects the company’s commitment to scaling recyclable materials and piloting innovative circularity solutions within its supply chain. It aims to deploy these packaging improvements at scale across major European markets, specifically the UK, France, Spain, Germany, Austria and Switzerland.

Mondelēz has also joined The 100+ Accelerator – an initiative providing access to eco-entrepreneurs to further scale systemic environmental solutions.

“Our path forward is grounded in long-term, sustainable business growth – shaping, creating, and accelerating the future of snacking for generations of consumers to come,” adds Dirk Van de Put, Chair & Chief Executive Officer, Mondelēz International.

“We remain focused on innovating with excellence, implementing long-term structural actions intended to enhance business resilience, embedding sustainability into our everyday work and delivering long-term value for our many stakeholders.”