Mondelēz CEO: We're Questioning Our Future UK Investment

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(Episode 45) Mondelēz International, the company behind Cadbury, Oreo, Toblerone and Ritz, has warned that future European investment could bypass the UK if regulatory instability persists.Chief executive Dirk Van de Put says the UK is the company’s second-biggest market globally and contributes more than £2.3 billion to the economy each year, supporting 12,000 jobs and spending £1.3 billion with more than 1,000 UK suppliers. But he is sharply critical of food and drink being left out of the government’s industrial strategy, despite representing around a quarter of industrial turnover. He says the sector is being taken for granted and warns that repeated policy shifts have already cost Mondelēz £40 million in reformulation work that was then superseded by further changes. Asked whether future investment could go elsewhere in Europe because of government policy, he says: “Yes, of course.”Van de Put also defends Mondelēz’s decision to continue operating in Russia, despite acknowledging the company pays taxes there that contribute to the war in Ukraine. He argues that withdrawal would have put 3,000 employees out of work, left 10,000 farmers without a buyer, and likely handed confiscated plants to Kremlin-linked interests that could generate even more money for the Russian state. He says: “I’m not pleased about that,” but maintains that staying was “not the most popular decision” but “the right decision”. The conflict in Ukraine is not theoretical for Mondelēz. Van de Put reveals that the company’s office building in Ukraine was hit on the morning of the interview, and its factories have been struck and rebuilt twice at a cost of tens of millions. He also said staff were evacuated to neighbouring countries during the worst of the fighting. More broadly, he describes the past two years as the toughest of his 30-year career. Wars, inflation, oil prices, packaging costs, fertiliser markets and weak household budgets have created cascading pressure across the business. He says global consumer confidence is among the wor