Mondelēz International is known for owning popular brands such as Cadbury Dairy Milk and Oreo.
Recently, the confectionery giant has announced plans to expand their Hobart factory and close down Dunedin factory to shift its production to Australia.
Inside FMCG had a chat with Kjetil Undhjem, category director for Chocolate ANZ, Mondelēz International, about what’s next for the company and how its latest deal will affect the confectionery giant.
Inside FMCG: Mondelēz International has agreed to sell its Australian grocery business to Bega Cheese. Tell us what pushed this move for the global confectionery?
Kjetil Undhjem: While it is bitter-sweet saying goodbye to this wonderful part of our business and iconic brands such as Vegemite (that we’ve nurtured for the past 90 years), as we said at the time of the announcement, this move enables us to further focus our portfolio and drive profitable growth by investing in our core snacks categories and Power Brands, including Cadbury Dairy Milk chocolate and Oreo biscuits.
How do you think this deal will boost the company’s earnings?
Mondelēz International is focused on becoming the best snacking company in the world. By sharpening our focus on our core snacks categories and global power brands we can invest even more in our much loved local snacking brands – including Cadbury Dairy Milk, Oreo and The Natural Confectionery Company. As Australia’s favourite chocolate company and the clear market leader, we are excited about the very bright future for our remaining snacks business and the 2,000 Australians who work for us here.
Will there be other new implementations in terms of branding and/or expansions for the company?
Although not strictly an ‘expansion’ for the company, we have recently launched our official Cadbury Joy Deliveries eBay store. Fans can purchase customised hampers, which include a selection of everyone’s favourite Cadbury chocolates and are presented in a beautiful gift box and delivered free to anywhere in Australia.
This is our first direct-to-consumer e-commerce initiative locally, and the first Mondelēz International/eBay integration globally so we expect that there will be many learnings for us, and we will apply these learnings in bigger ways in other markets.
Any other developments your consumers should look forward to?
We are always looking for the next delightful moment of joy to bring our consumers and we are lucky enough to have the breadth of brands and products which gives us the ability to keep doing this. We also appreciate that a key driver of growth for us is innovation and understanding the customer and consumer through insights. Stay tuned for our next exciting innovation in chocolate, due for release later this year.
