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Oreo maker Mondelez hit with $366 million antitrust fine by EU
The European Union slapped a 337.5 million euro ($366 million) fine Thursday on Mondelez, the U.S. confectioner behind major brands including Oreo, for restricting sales of products within the 27-country bloc.
Mondelez, formerly called Kraft, is one of the world’s largest producers of chocolate, biscuits and coffee, with revenue of $36 billion last year.
The EU fined Mondelez “because they have been restricting the cross border trade of chocolate, biscuits and coffee products within the European Union,” the EU’s competition commissioner, Margrethe Vestager, said.
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“This harmed consumers, who ended up paying more for chocolate, biscuits and coffee,” she told reporters in Brussels.
“This case is about price of groceries. It’s a key concern to European citizens and even more obvious in times of very high inflation, where many are in a cost-of-living crisis,” she added.
The free movement of goods is one of the key pillars of the EU’s single market.
Mondelez brands also include Philadelphia cream cheese and Ritz crackers as well as chocolate brands Cadbury and Cote d’Or.
The commission, the EU’s powerful antitrust regulator, said Mondelez “abused its dominant position” in breach of the bloc’s rules.
It said the confectioner engaged in “anticompetitive agreements or concerted practices” between 2012 and 2019 including limiting wholesale customers’ ability to resell products and ordering them to apply higher prices for exports compared to domestic sales.
The EU’s probe dates back to January 2021 but the suspicions had led the bloc’s investigators to carry out raids in Mondelez offices across Europe in November 2019.
According to the commission, between 2015 and 2019, Mondelez also refused to supply a trader in Germany to avoid the resale of chocolate in Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria and Romania, “where prices were higher.”
It also stopped the supply of certain chocolate products in The Netherlands “to prevent them from being imported into Belgium, where Mondelez was selling these products at higher prices.”
Mondelez, however, insisted the fine related to “historical, isolated incidents, most of which ceased or were remedied well in advance of the commission’s investigation.”
“Many of these incidents were related to business dealings with brokers, which are typically conducted via sporadic and often one-off sales, and a limited number of small-scale distributors developing new business in EU markets in which Mondelez is not present or doesn’t market the respective product,” it added in a statement.
The giant had put aside 300 million euros for the fine last year.
“No further measures to finance the fine will be necessary,” it said.
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A food company known for popular grocery store condiments has recalled a package of tortilla strips that may be contaminated with wheat, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said Friday. The product is meant to be gluten-free.
Sugar Foods, a manufacturing and distribution corporation focused mainly on various toppings, artificial sweeteners and snacks, issued the recall for the “Santa Fe Style” version of tortilla strips sold by the brand Fresh Gourmet.
“People who have a wheat allergy or severe sensitivity to wheat run the risk of serious or life-threatening allergic reaction if they consume the product,” said Sugar Foods in an announcement posted by the FDA.
Packages of these tortilla strips with an expiration date as late as June 20, 2025, could contain undeclared wheat, meaning the allergen is not listed as an ingredient on the label. The Fresh Gourmet product is marketed as gluten-free.
Sugar Foods said a customer informed the company on Nov. 19 that packages of the tortilla strips actually contained crispy onions, another Fresh Gourmet product normally sold in a similar container. The brand’s crispy onion product does contain wheat, and that allergen is noted on the label.
U.S. Food and Drug Administration
No illnesses tied to the packaging mistake have been reported, according to the announcement from Sugar Foods. However, the company is still recalling the tortilla strips as a precaution. The contamination issue may have affected products distributed between Sept. 30 and Nov. 11 in 22 states: Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Maryland, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, North Carolina, New Jersey, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Texas, Utah, Virginia and Washington.
Sugar Foods has advised anyone with questions about the recall to contact the company’s consumer care department by email or phone.
CBS News reached out to Sugar Foods for more information but did not receive an immediate reply.
This is the latest in a series of food product recalls affected because of contamination issues, although the others involved harmful bacteria. Some recent, high-profile incidents include an E. coli outbreak from organic carrots that killed at least one person in California, and a listeria outbreak that left an infant dead in California and nine people hospitalized across four different states, according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention. The E. coli outbreak is linked to multiple different food brands while the listeria outbreak stemmed from a line of ready-to-eat meat and poultry products sold by Yu-Shang Foods.