The cookie will undoubtedly be difficult to swallow for the teams at the food industry juggernaut Mondelez. This Thursday, May 23, Brussels sanctioned the company with a fine of 337.5 million euros for anti-competitive practices.
At the end of an investigation opened in January 2021, the European Commission accuses Modelez of having “impeded cross-border trade in chocolate, biscuits and coffee products between Member States, in breach of EU competition rules”. The European executive believes that the group restricted trade in its chocolates, biscuits and coffee between member countries through illegal agreements and abused its dominant position in certain markets.
A strategy which is not without consequences for consumers. Mondelez has “illegally restricted cross-border trade across the EU in order to maintain higher prices for its products to the detriment of consumers”declared Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager.
As a reminder, the Mondelez group was formed from the spin-off of Kraft Foods activities in 2012, and its head office is located in Chicago (Illinois). The company owns many well-known brands such as Côte d’Or, Milka, Oreo, Ritz, Toblerone and TUC.
April, the French agri-food giant invests heavily to boost its profitability
In the top 10 fines imposed by the EU
This giant fine, the ninth heaviest imposed by the EU for anti-competitive practices, comes at a time when food price inflation is a major concern for European households. Companies are regularly singled out for having excessively increased their margins in recent years while consumer prices have experienced a surge since 2022 in the wake of the war in Ukraine.
“Food prices differ from one Member State to another. Cross-border trade within the internal market can lower prices and increase the availability of products for consumers. This is particularly important in times of high inflation”underlined Margrethe Vestager.
Bisphenol A: 15 agri-food players face a sanction of 19.5 million euros for cartel
In a similar case of anti-competitive practices, the Belgian-Brazilian brewer AB InBev, world number one in the sector, was fined 200 million euros by the European Commission in May 2019.
(With AFP)
 sanctioned with a hefty fine by Brussels){kind=link}