Mondelez International, Inc. (MDLZ) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

If we could just find our seats, we'll kick off our next presentation. We're thrilled to welcome Mondelez International back to the CAGNY stage. Please join me in thanking the company for again [indiscernible] following this presentation. Let's be careful out there. [indiscernible] special dynamic environment [indiscernible] so we're excited to have a company to go into more detailed. Its initiatives to improve top line growth in North America [indiscernible] CFO. Thanks for being here. Over to you, Dirk.

[indiscernible]. These categories remain resilient and durable even during challenging times [indiscernible]. The average consumer snacking more than 3.5x a day. About half of consumers believe that snacking helps their well-being and about 60% constantly wants to try new flavors and taste combinations. We are confident that we are well positioned to take advantage of these growing trends. Our global position across our core categories provides a great starting point, and we're well positioned to capture significant headroom. In our categories, we currently hold a clear #1 global position in Biscuits with 17% share in a market that's valued at $128 billion. We have a very close #2 global position in Chocolate with 12.4% share in a market valued at $147 billion. We have the #3 global position in Cakes and Pastries, with 3.9 share in a market value at $100 billion. And the #3 global position in Snack Bars with 8.6% share in a market of nearly $20 billion. These core snacking categories are continuing to grow at 1.4x faster than other food categories. Despite several headwinds, including a soft U.S. consumer and global chocolate price increases, core snacks per capita consumption stayed flat. There is still huge potential per capita consumption growth over time leading to a forecasted 5% value CAGR for our categories. Along with our category focus, our geographic footprint represents an important growth driver and competitive advantage. About 40% of our 2025 revenues came from high-growth emerging markets, growing at a CAGR of 13.4% over the last 5 years. At the same time, our developed markets, primarily in Europe and North America delivered a strong 5% revenue growth CAGR over the last 5 years. Our stable of iconic brands possess strong equity among our consumers. In almost every market around the world, they stand out with above-market equity and their strength is increasing. Oreo stands out particularly with a dominant equity score. So in almost every market around the world, our brands stand out with above market. All right. In almost every market around the world, our brands still stand out with above-market equity and their strength is increasing. Oreo particularly stands out with a dominant equity score more than 2x higher than the average. The same is true for Cadbury, which is also one of the most valuable global food and beverage brands. Over the past several years, we have significantly invested in scaling our capabilities to accelerate growth. We have achieved critical mass in emerging markets, not only in terms of geography, but also in terms of locally and culturally nuanced relationships and know-how. Similarly, our localized supply chain enables real consumer connection and speed to market while benefiting from local costs. Our local critical mass and expertise enables strong marketing and sales execution, both in-store and through digital commerce. We also invested in building specialized research and development capabilities focused on next-generation biscuits and chocolate product development. Taken together, these capabilities form the backbone of our growth system. Behind this strong foundation is perhaps our most compelling strategic advantage, our great people. Our local teams are empowered and incentivized to stay close to our consumers and customers to rapidly adapt to changing local trends. At the same time, our local teams receive robust support from our relatively lean global center. We truly believe that our unique culture represents a critical strategic advantage. The combination of these enduring competitive advantages positions us well for consistent delivery of our long-term algorithm. Our leadership in the attractive and resilient core categories of chocolate, biscuits and baked snacks combined with our truly global footprint offers substantial growth runway. Our iconic brands drive tremendous consumer loyalty and win-win partnerships with retailers. Our advanced marketing and sales capabilities, alongside growing investments in new channels, make our snacks increasingly visible and accessible, meeting our consumers where they are. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, our winning culture enables us to attract, retain and motivate the very best talent. This virtuous circle gives us strong confidence that we will continue to deliver our long-term growth algorithm, 3% to 5% organic net revenue growth reinvesting half of our gross profit growth, high single-digit adjusted EPS growth and more than $3 billion in free cash flow. So now let's dive deeper in the North American market, where we have strong plans to strengthen our business and growth trajectory. Our North American business delivered solid growth of about 4% CAGR over the past 5 years, with 2025 net revenue of about $11 billion. U.S. biscuits account for about 63% of revenue with about a 42% share anchored by the iconic Oreo brand, delivering $2 billion in net revenue. Additionally, we have 14 brands with more than $200 million in revenue. And despite an anxious and frugal consumer, our penetration grew by more than 1 million households in 2025. Our strong direct store delivery network drives consistent visibility and availability while ensuring strong partnerships with retailers. Despite broad economic uncertainty, American consumers still love snacking, and they're still looking for ways to fit their favorite snacks into their daily budgets. Biscuit category penetration remained strong at 94% of households and Mondelez penetration stands at 82%. While penetration is constant because of higher prices, and flat spendable income, purchase frequency is declining slightly. Our brands remain healthy with Oreo significantly increasing its #1 position in consumer awareness and our second brand, Chips Ahoy!, increasing its penetration by approximately 1 percentage point versus prior year. While we have a very strong North American business, it is well known that U.S. consumer behaviors are changing during this period of economic uncertainty. The 6 key trends we need to address are the following: flat grocery basket sizes unease with current prices, channel shifts in search of greater value, higher income consumers seeking new premium options as well health-conscious functional snacks and increase in on-the-go consumption. With biscuit basket sizes virtually flat over the last 2 years, it is critical that our brands stand out more than others. The first step is increasing our investments to boost share of voice and increase awareness. In store, we are aiming for a more standout presence and bigger, more exciting activations. And we are continuing to reconfigure our price pack architecture to ensure a broad range of offers to meet critical price points. Second, many consumers are uneasy with the current average price levels of snacks. U.S. wage increases are being outpaced by total snack inflation. To meet consumers' desire for more affordability, we will significantly expand offerings at the right price points. For example, our portable fresh snack packs priced under $3 will be expanded to more of our brands. We're leveraging our direct store delivery system through its continuous in-store presence to drive greater visibility of affordable offerings via increased displays and we are activating a comprehensive supply chain improvement program to optimize costs. Consumers continue to shift to new channels, looking for better value so we're investing aggressively to expand total distribution points in club, value and convenience stores as well as, of course, e-commerce. Our refreshed price pack architecture will address unmet needs through single-serve variety and club packs. At the same time, we are increasing our capacity for these value packs in our supply chain. We also have strong plans to meet the evolving needs of higher income cohorts. These consumers increasingly are choosing premium indulgence options. For example, premium indulgence cookies are growing 2.4% in an overall flat total cookie category. To benefit from this trend, we are increasing our investments and ambitions for our premium brands and ranges. For example, our Tate's Bake Shop portfolio offers a strong heritage of high-quality fresh cookie tastes and textures on the East Coast. In 2026, we're investing significantly in expanding Tate's national awareness and visibility. Similarly, we are continuing to scale premium versions of our core Oreo platform. Oreo Thins is helping to drive growth among adults seeking indulgent evening snacks. We're also launching new premium offerings such as Sargento Cheese Bakes by Nabisco. More consumers increasingly are turning to better-for-use snacking profiles, seeking cleaner labels, fewer ingredients and higher protein content. Growth in these segments continues to outpace the broader biscuits and bars categories. We are prioritizing strategic actions to improve growth in these segments including launching Oreo Zero Sugar and increasing awareness of Oreo gluten-free. We're also scaling GOOD THiNS crackers and driving our healthy belVita morning brand. Additionally, we are significantly expanding our protein bar offerings, mainly under the Perfect Bar, BUILDERS and Zbar brands. Our protein-rich range is already showing healthy double-digit growth. Finally, On-The-Go consumption is on the rise with 1 out of 4 of every snacks eaten away from home. Consumers are looking for convenience, meal replacement and quick energy or indulgence. Our Oreo Minis or Ritz Bits portfolio is perfectly suited for these occasions, offering fuel, comfort and social connection. Another way we are stepping into these new snacking occasions is with a broad range of new multipacks, portable packages and immediate consumption formats. We're also investing significantly in portable morning snacks like belVita Bites and 7Days Croissants. To support these 6 growth platforms, we've launched a robust multiyear supply chain capability improvement program designed to upgrade our U.S. biscuits operations, increased capacity on key biscuits, cakes and pastries, modernize our route to market and packaging capabilities and increase our network flexibility. All of this is meant to optimize working capital, increase margins and improve customer service. We expect to realize the benefits of these supply chain enhancements in the beginning of 2027. In summary, we are strongly committed to improving the performance of our North American business, and we're investing in a robust strategic plan to deliver it. Our plan focuses on accelerating consumer-centric product offerings increasing investments in working media and in-store presence and activating a robust supply chain optimization program. We are already starting to see the first effects with strong growth over the last 3 months in both our largest mass retail partner and in the value chain. All in all, we are confident in the execution capabilities of our team and the long-term prospects of our categories here in North America. Now let's take a closer look and our plan to drive long-term growth in Europe. Our European business has delivered robust growth of about 8% over the past 5 years with 2025 net revenue of about $15 billion. Mondelez is the #1 snacking player in Europe with about 20% share. We hold the leading position in our core categories in 19 markets, and we have 13 brands with more than $200 billion in net revenue. Chocolate accounts for about half of our European business anchored by the Cadbury and Milka brands each delivering $3 billion in net revenue. Chocolate remains a great category. It is continuing to grow with volume resiliency, posting a CAGR of 7% over the past 5 years. Within this category, our iconic brands are strong leaders, often representing the taste of the nation. Consumers across Europe are intensely loyal to the chocolate brands they grow upwards, not just Cadbury and Milka but also Côte d'Or in France, in Belgium, Marabou in Sweden, Freia in Norway and so on. These beloved brands represent core cultural touch points. As a result, consumers rarely consider switching brands. Against this strong heritage of brand loyalty and historically low elasticity, the past few years of record cocoa input cost inflation have posed significant challenges. Let's take a closer look at our key challenges impacting our recent performance and our plans to address them. First, cocoa-led pricing and pack resizing impacted short-term volumes more significantly than expected, although elasticity remains at an acceptable 0.7. Second, pricing tactics among companies less dependent on cocoa unfavorably impacted us in 2025. Third, we saw elevated volume declines in select market segments and geographies. And finally, we found that some price pack innovations did not fully address consumer expectations. To overcome these challenges, we have identified 5 key strategic actions. Hitting the right price points and increasing connection to our brands, broadening our offerings across chocolate segments, scaling up our premium chocolate, increasing presence in under-indexed channels and strengthening resilience across our cocoa supply chain. Our performance in chocolate has been strong historically with robust volume growth prior to the recent super cycle of pricing driven by cocoa cost volatility. The value of our business has grown significantly. Today, with last year's cocoa disruption behind us, and the strong actions we're putting in place, we remain confident that the future prospect of the European chocolate market is great. We are continuing to refine our pack formats to deliver the right value to consumers, ensuring that we meet critical price points. To support this enhanced portfolio, we're stepping up investments in working media to grow brand awareness and purchase interest. And at the same time, we are expanding in-store activations and rolling out disruptive innovations with new experiences. For example, we are rapidly expanding new offerings developed through our partnership with Lotus Bakeries, the Biscoff brand, with the delicious range of co-branded chocolate bars and prolenes combining the unique caramelized crispy Biscoff taste with our iconic brands. Second, we are investing in new formats and offerings with reduced cocoa content to mitigate the impact of elevated commodity costs. We're expanding our bars portfolio while growing our range of tablets filled with nougat, caramel, nuts and fruits and other delicious flavors. We're continuing to grow Choco Bakery with both new innovation and expanded distribution. And in cakes and pastries, our Milka croissants is performing very well, offering consumers a new occasion to enjoy Milka chocolate. We will be handing out the Milka croissant later on. This innovation alone has helped deliver about 1 point of share gain in Europe cakes and pastries. Third, we are expanding our offerings in the premium chocolate segment where consumers consistently seek innovative indulgence and are willing to pay more for it. The premium segment RSV per kilo is double the RSV per kilo in the mainstream segment. Our Toblerone brand is a strong vehicle for premium growth. We accelerate penetration through creative personalization, celebrations and gifting. Toblerone anchors our strong presence in the world travel retail channel, where we recently ranked #1 in the Advantage survey across all travel retail categories. At the same time, our expanded indulgence range, Milka MMMAX and Cadbury and more is driving growth among consumers seeking a next-level chocolate experience. Fourth, we are leveraging our full price pack architecture playbook to grow our presence in under-indexed channels. We are particularly expanding category occasions across channels with more convenient on-the-go products at affordable price points. We're also starting to grow our away-from-home channel at an accelerated speed. The fifth and final pillar of our chocolate growth strategy is improving the resilience and stability of the cocoa supply chain. To more effectively manage risk, we are aiming to improve crop forecasting while maintaining our robust hedging frameworks. Additionally, we are expanding sourcing to additional regions, including Latin America, while helping to scale up best practices in cocoa farming in West Africa. We're also partnering with suppliers to help transition to large-scale farming, while enhancing processing practices and technologies to get more cocoa out of a single beam. And finally, we are investing in alternative technologies, including cell cultured and fermented cocoa as well as plant-based alternatives. While still early, we view these investments in next-generation cocoa as a strategic insurance policy against traditional sourcing risk. In recent weeks, cocoa prices have decreased quite rapidly, driven by the prospect of oversupply in the current year. In the short term, this rapid rate of decline is causing a discrepancy between industry coverage and market prices. As a result, we may need to respond to possible competitive action or client disruption, which might require some price reinvestment ahead of our actual pipeline costs. But over the long term, increasing stabilization of cocoa prices will enable a return to normal category health with consumption growth, increased investments and restored profit. In summary, we are confident in our plans to deliver sustained growth in European chocolate. In recent months, we have seen a stabilization of our chocolate performance, underpinned by increased investments and hitting the right price points in specific market segments. At the same time, we are expanding into new chocolate segments, adjacencies and under-indexed channels. And we are executing against a robust plan to ensure long-term supply chain stability and resiliency. We remain confident that we have the right brands and the right playbook to deliver sustained growth. With that, I'll turn the microphone over to Luca to walk you through our plans for growth in emerging markets and wrap up with an update on our cash generation and capital allocation priorities. Luca?

Hello, everyone, and thank you, Dirk. Today, I will discuss our opportunities and capabilities as well as initiatives to build upon what is already a strong emerging market business. And I'll close by covering cash generation and capital allocation. Today, our emerging market represents a strong $15 billion-plus business with fast growth, superior scale, strong capabilities and significant white space runway. Emerging market total snacking, including our core categories, is a $350 billion market and is expected to achieve or to reach $530 billion by 2030. Emerging market growth has significantly outpaced developed growth over the past 5 years. This trend is expected to continue. We compounded annual growth of 9% over the next 5 years, fueled by robust disposable income growth, both from a widening middle class and favorable demographics, including younger population and urbanization. Our winning recipe in emerging markets revolves around the strong unmatched competitive position, underpinned by a local first operating model. This position includes highly aspirational industry-leading brands supported by significant marketing investments made available both at affordable price points and in more premium forms, well-established route-to-market capabilities with critical mass and scale. Advantaged and localized supply chains that are built to optimize efficiencies in both cost and service delivery and strong local market expertise with an entrepreneurial spirit and approach to growth. We believe these competitive advantages will help us deliver strong results over the next 5 years. We expect sustained volume-led growth in the mid- to high single digits, increasing scale in China, India, Brazil and Mexico, which represent about $7 billion of revenue today and strong presence in the next wave of emerging growth markets, including Southeast Asia, sub-Saharan Africa, the Western Andean region and Central America. We remain focused on both establishing and expanding our scale presence in the core categories of biscuit, chocolate and cakes and pastries, leveraging clear playbooks, including bolt-on acquisitions. Our aspiration is to be the category leaders across emerging markets. Now let's take a closer look at our top 4 markets, which represent about half of our revenue in emerging markets with growth of low double digits over the past 5 years. Let's start with China. China is, for us, a $2 billion business with a history of attractive growth, strong market position and favorable growth ahead of market. We have a great local team that drives growth through superior brands like Oreo, distribution gains and investing in both marketing and supply chain capabilities. As an example, Oreo share is about 18% in China biscuit, the highest share in the world for Oreo, a clear aspiration for across all our markets. We have 3 clear initiatives in China to drive volume led driven growth over the next 5 years. This includes continuing to accelerate our availability in all physical channel, winning digital commerce by strengthening social commerce and quick commerce with right packs and last mile capabilities and scaling our cakes and pastries business through our recent Evirth acquisition and continued innovation with an ambition to $1 billion revenue by 2030. This ambition is underpinned by a massive package cakes and pastries category in China. That is about $15 billion and growing. The category remains highly fragmented, and there is significant opportunity for us in branding and innovation. Let's double-click on our offline distribution opportunities. There is a meaningful runway as we currently cover 3 million stores with an addressable universe of $6 million. We plan to add more than 60,000 stores per year as we broaden our coverage through wholesalers and eB2B. We are focused on increasing assortment with low unit price offerings and digitization while capturing the growing channel opportunities within the club and snack chains. Now over to India, which represents one of our most compelling opportunities. India is a $1.7 billion revenue market with an impressive track record of growth and cash generation. This performance is underpinned by a talented employee base of over 1,000 and 4 localized manufacturing facilities, catering to about 4.5 million stores. Like China, India has tremendous runway and favorable demographics, significant per capita headroom and long-term growth potential. Our plans to drive continued growth in India center around expanding reach of our route to market, scaling our biscuit business through premium leadership, including Oreo and Biscoff. And recruiting new consumers and occasions with continued innovation led by chocolate, but also in biscuits, and cakes and pastries. Focusing on our first initiative of route-to-market expansion, we have strong direct coverage in India at 2.5 million stores. However, there is a vast runway given more than 9 million stores in total. We expect to add 100,000 stores per year by tapping into advanced store analytics and machine learning in order to optimize orders on a store-by-store basis. We are also moving quickly to address the emerging quick commerce and away from home opportunities, and we continue our rapid expansion of Visicoolers that provide a unique and advantage in store presence to showcase our great leading products such as Cadbury Daily Milk and Silk. Moving from EMEA to Latin America, starting with Brazil, which represents our largest and most diversified emerging markets with strong multi-category leadership. Brazil is for us a $1.8 billion business with a leading position in chocolate, biscuits, and gum and candy alongside vast opportunities in cakes and pastries. It has a large young population, consistent economic growth and significant room for per capita consumption increases in both chocolate and biscuits. The growth agenda in Brazil includes bolstering iconic brands like Lacta and Oreo, expanding distribution and penetration and building out a scaled cakes and pastry platform. Focusing on Lacta and Oreo growth for a moment. Today, we have a leading position in Brazil chocolate behind the strength of our Lacta brand, which is #1 in the market. However, substantial opportunities lie ahead. To broaden our presence by further elevating taste profiles, covering a wider range of price points and expanding on shelf presence through new occasions. Brazil is also an Oreo priority market as we build awareness and localize appeal through tailor marketing and taste profiles to drive numerical distribution and assortment. The last key priority market is Mexico. Mexico is a strong franchise with attractive long-term growth fundamentals and critical mass with the recent addition of the Ricolino business. Our plans to accelerate growth in Mexico are grounded in solidifying our biscuit presence through Oreo expansion, growing traditional trade presence on recently acquired BSD House and building out a scaled chocolate platform, while continuing to bolster our great gum and candy brand portfolio. Our plans to drive a leading biscuit position in Oreo are rooted in substantial brand investments to highlight the cultural relevance of the brand, key consumption occasions and superior taste credentials. Whether it is China, India, Brazil or Mexico, the outcomes of our strategic initiatives should be consistent, driving deeper and digitized distribution in traditional and modern trade. Increasing brand penetration to establish or further consolidated leadership positions, innovating around new consumer occasions and building out multi-category scale with leading positions in chocolate, biscuits, cakes and pastries, and gum and candy. Altogether, we believe that our emerging markets will be a sustainable volume-led growth engine for years to come. We have iconic global and local brands that are continuing to grow and innovate. Our route-to-market and supply chain scale is unrivaled. Our 4 priority markets of China, India, Brazil and Mexico are large with clear playbooks, long growth runways and plans to win. And these components will provide confidence that we can deliver mid- to high single-digit organic net revenue growth, led by volumes with attractive profitability. To close our presentation, I'll share a few thoughts with respect to cash generation, capital allocation and balance sheet. We remain committed to increasing free cash flow through strong profit dollar growth and cash conversion. Although record cocoa inflation put pressure on 2025 free cash flow, we still managed to deliver strong results. Moving forward, as we drive our growth agenda that you heard from both developed and emerging markets, coupled with more opportunities to streamline this inventory. We are targeting a $4 billion plus in free cash flow generation. Moving to capital return. We continue to prioritize return of capital to shareholders. This includes double-digit dividend growth in 9 of the last 10 years and approximately $15 billion in share repurchase which has resulted in nearly a 20% reduction in each account. Altogether, we have returned more than $30 billion over the past 8 years. Bolt-on acquisitions are the other pillar of our capital allocation strategies. We have made 10 such acquisitions since 2018, with the vast majority delivering strong growth and value. Specifically, key acquisitions in cakes and pastries like Chipita and Give & Go have grown since acquisition, high single digit and low double digits, respectively. Others like Tate's and Processed Snacks have grown mid-teens and our latest acquisition Evirth has grown in the low 20s. We evaluate our acquisitions on numerous metrics, including ROI, cash-on-cash return, but at a high level, we believe we have been successful at strengthening our core, expanding into attractive adjacencies, while realizing revenue and value accretion on or above plan in most cases. While we have delivered significant value through capital return on M&A, we continue to be very focused on maintaining a strong balance sheet and remain in a solid position. Turning to our '26 outlook. There is no change from what we discussed 2 weeks ago. We remain optimistic for 2027 with strong EPS growth driven by improving performance in developed markets, continued strong growth in emerging markets, productivities across supply chain and SG&A and continued stabilization of cocoa. To close, we believe the company remains well positioned to generate significant and lasting value. Our long-term fundamentals remain strong, categories, geography brands and capital allocations. We have clear action plans to drive improved volumes and return our developed markets to the normal cadence of profitable growth while continuing to maintain the momentum in our emerging markets business. Thank you all for your time.

We've got time for probably one and we're going to go to the break out. We're going to go to the breakout then.