Mondelez International, Inc. (MDLZ)

How it makes money

Revenue comes from selling finished snacks to retailers, who resell to consumers; Mondelez earns a margin on each unit shipped rather than any recurring or subscription fee. Its main cost is the raw ingredients that go into the products, above all cocoa, whose price swings can move profitability faster than the company can pass costs through to shelf prices. Retail customer consolidation adds further pressure on the pricing side.

Revenue by segment

Oreo, Cadbury and Milka are genuinely global, century-old brands with real shelf presence and consumer loyalty that a new entrant could not buy quickly. But brand strength has not been enough to protect margins from raw-material inflation: operating income fell 44% in 2025 as cocoa costs rose faster than the company could raise prices, and large retailers keep gaining leverage to push back on those price increases.

Snacking and chocolate are low-ticket, habitual purchases that consumers tend to keep buying even when budgets tighten, which makes volumes relatively stable across the economic cycle. What moves results instead is commodity cost inflation, particularly cocoa, and currency swings in the many emerging markets where Mondelez operates — neither of which is tied to the business cycle in a predictable way.

Key risks

• Volatile commodity costs — Cocoa and other raw material costs rose sharply enough in 2025 to cut operating income by 44%, and the company cannot always pass these increases through to retail prices fast enough to protect margins.
• Consolidation of retail customers — As grocery and discount retailers merge and form buying alliances, they gain the leverage to demand lower prices, delist products, or develop their own competing private-label brands.
• Emerging-market and geopolitical exposure — A large share of revenue comes from emerging markets exposed to currency depreciation, inflation, and disruptions such as the war in Ukraine, all of which can distort reported results independent of underlying demand.
• Regulation of food and packaging — Health-focused regulation, nutrition labelling rules and packaging restrictions vary by country and can force reformulation or repackaging costs across a very large product portfolio.

The company states that no single customer accounted for more than 10% of net revenues in 2025. The real risk is structural: large retail customers are consolidating and gaining scale to negotiate lower prices and longer payment terms.