As US chocolate sales rise, Mondelez is focusing on specialty brands.
New York City — The chairman and chief executive officer of Chicago-based Mondelez Worldwide, Inc., Dirk Van de Put, claimed that the company’s attempts to expand its chocolate business in the US were hampered by the absence of a US anchor brand.
At the Sanford C. Bernstein Strategic Decisions Conference on June 1, Mr. Van de Put informed the audience, “We tried Milka before we tried Oreo.”
With the US launch of Milka Oreo chocolate candy bars in November 2016, Mondelez expanded the reach of the Oreo cookie brand into the chocolate aisle. The bars come in a number of flavours and include Milka’s European chocolate candies together with pieces of Oreo cookies and vanilla cream.
According to Mr. Van de Put, “chocolate on Oreo is a bit strange.” “We had to create something that isn’t really chocolate for the consumer—kind of like an Oreo-covered chocolate. It was therefore a limited volume. Furthermore, it was somewhat challenging to comprehend “Where do we move from there? As a result, you had a little amount of shelf space, a proposal that was slightly less specific than what was already on the market, and no clear path to growth. That is the true cause why we stopped eating chocolate.
However, given that Mondelez recently said that it anticipates generating 90% of its income from its two primary product categories—chocolate and biscuits—the former continues to be a key component of the business plan, and Mr. Van de Put believes Mondelez will succeed in it.
“I believe we will pursue niche markets, such as the vegan chocolate Hu, which is expanding quickly and doing incredibly well,” he stated. It’s quite tiny. Although it’s a tiny market, in ten years this could become the leading vegan chocolate brand in the US. Thus, that is more or less how we will approach it. Can we make a major inroad into premium? Can we discuss organic and vegan food in a noteworthy manner? Is it possible for us to begin doing a little bit more occasionally with our European brands, also positioning them more as a niche? That is more or less the approach we will take with chocolate in the United States.