Mondelez International's portfolio includes several billion-dollar components, among them cookie, cracker, and candy brands TUC, Nabisco (manufacturers of Belvita, Chips Ahoy!, Oreo, Ritz, Triscuit, Wheat Thins, etc.

The firm was initially set up to execute on a rollup strategy in the fragmented United States ice cream industry.

[12][13] On September 7, 2009, Kraft made a hostile £10.2 billion takeover bid for the British confectionery group Cadbury, makers of Dairy Milk and Bournville chocolate.

[16] It had significant political and public opposition in the United Kingdom and abroad, leading to a call for the government to implement economic protectionism in large-company takeovers.

[21] Kraft increased prices to offset rising commodity costs for corn, sugar, and cocoa in North America and Europe.

Taking into account integration costs, the acquisition reduced Kraft's earnings per share by about 33% immediately after the Cadbury purchase.

[37] On February 25, 2020, Mondelez announced that it was acquiring a majority stake in Toronto-based Give & Go, a maker of two-bite brownies.

[45] On December 19, 2022, Mondelez announced that it was selling its gum business, including the Trident, Dentyne, Chiclets and Bubblicious brands, to Perfetti Van Melle, the makers of Mentos.

[50] In the first quarter of 2020, due to COVID-19 lockdowns and people stocking up with sweets, the company's sales grew by 15% in North America, increasing its overall revenue by almost 3%.

[59] Less than four percent of Ivory Coast remains densely forested, and the chocolate companies' laissez-faire approach to sourcing has driven extensive deforestation in Ghana as well.

[60] In Ivory Coast, deforestation has pushed chimpanzees into just a few small pockets, and reduced the country's elephant population from several hundred thousand to about 200–400.

[61][62][63] Mondelez claimed to have mapped almost all of its cocoa suppliers in Côte d'Ivoire, Ghana and Indonesia by 2018 in an effort to combat deforestation.

The suit accused Mondelez (along with Nestlé, Cargill, Mars, Olam International, The Hershey Company, and Barry Callebaut) of knowingly engaging in forced labor, and the plaintiffs sought damages for unjust enrichment, negligent supervision, and intentional infliction of emotional distress.

[70] An investigation in 2022 by Britain's Channel 4 Dispatches found children as young as 10 working on farms in Ghana supplying the Cadbury's brand of Mondelēz International.

In November 2023, International Rights Advocates (on behalf of nine children) again filed a class-complaint against Cargill, Mars, and Mondelez, alleging that:[72][73] rather than honor the pledge that they made [to phase out by 2005 their use of the Worst Forms of Child Labor as defined by ILO Convention No.

], defendants and all of the other major chocolate companies, have done little to address the ongoing and pervasive use of child workers performing the worst forms of child labor on their sourcing plantations and have focused on misleading the public by falsely claiming their "rehabilitation" programs offer meaningful assistance to children found working on their plantations.After the Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, many international companies felt compelled to reduce or end business in the Russian Federation.

[75] As of March 12, 2022, Mondelez International was listed in an online spreadsheet by Yale professor Jeffrey Sonnenfeld as being among a minority of companies continuing to do business in Russia, where it generates 3.5% of annual revenue (approximately $1 billion).

[77] This has led to boycotts from consumers and companies in the Nordic countries[78][79] as well as from the football associations of Denmark,[80] Norway[81] and Sweden.

[85] The chief executive of Mondelez, Dirk Van de Put, claimed that investors “do not morally care” if the company continues to do business in Russia.