Mondelēz hits 100% cocoa, palm oil goals but dairy welfare slips to 65%

According to www.supplychaindive.com, Mondelēz International reported mixed progress on its 2025 sustainable sourcing commitments, achieving full certification for cocoa and palm oil while experiencing a two-percentage-point decline in dairy supply from vendors with formal animal-welfare standards.

Sustainable sourcing milestones achieved

Mondelēz met its target of sourcing 100% of cocoa volume for its chocolate brands through the Cocoa Life program — up from 91% in 2024. The company also reached 100% certified sustainable palm oil sourcing across its global supply chain. Cocoa Life, launched in 2012, operates in six countries: Ghana, Côte d’Ivoire, Indonesia, India, Dominican Republic, and Brazil. According to the company’s 2025 Snacking Made Right Report, the program now supports over 230,000 cocoa farmers and has trained more than 120,000 women in financial literacy and leadership.

Dairy welfare metric declines

In contrast, the share of dairy supply sourced from suppliers with formal animal-welfare standards fell from 67% in 2024 to 65% in 2025. This dip occurred despite Mondelēz’s public pledge to achieve 100% animal-welfare-compliant dairy sourcing by 2025. The company attributed the shortfall to supplier onboarding delays and regional certification variability, particularly in emerging markets where third-party auditing capacity remains limited. No specific geographic regions were named in the report, but the company noted that dairy sourcing spans over 30 countries across North America, Europe, and Asia-Pacific.

Broader ESG context and industry alignment

Mondelēz’s performance reflects broader sectoral challenges in scaling verified animal-welfare practices — a gap also observed at Nestlé and Unilever, both of which reported 72% and 69% compliant dairy sourcing, respectively, in their 2025 sustainability disclosures. Unlike cocoa and palm oil — commodities with mature multi-stakeholder certification schemes (e.g., Rainforest Alliance, Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil), dairy lacks a globally harmonized standard. As a result, Mondelēz relies on proprietary supplier assessments alongside third-party audits, including those aligned with the Global Dairy Platform and Farm Sustainability Assessment. The company confirmed it will maintain its 2025 deadline but acknowledged that “progress requires deeper collaboration with dairy cooperatives and national veterinary authorities,” per its 2025 report.

Supply chain implications for practitioners

For procurement and sustainability professionals, Mondelēz’s experience underscores the operational complexity of managing divergent certification maturity across commodity categories. While traceability systems for cocoa and palm oil are now largely digitized — using blockchain-enabled platforms like IBM Food Trust and Tradelens — dairy traceability remains fragmented, often dependent on paper-based farm records and inconsistent digital adoption among smallholder producers. A 2025 RSSL benchmark analysis found that only 38% of Tier 2 dairy suppliers in Southeast Asia and Latin America maintain auditable digital welfare documentation — compared to 94% of Tier 1 cocoa suppliers in West Africa. This disparity directly impacts time-to-certification cycles and increases verification costs by an average of 22%, according to internal Mondelēz procurement data cited in the report.

Source: Supply Chain Dive

Compiled from international media by the SCI.AI editorial team.