Mondelez International has redirected its SnackFutures division to concentrate specifically on venture capital investments.
In 2018, the snacks giant established SnackFutures with a focus on three core areas: pioneering new brands and ventures in strategic sectors, revitalizing smaller Mondelez brands with significant growth potential, and collaborating with startup innovators to foster new business ventures.
Through SnackFutures, Mondelez made a series of investments in smaller brands. In 2019, one notable investment was made in the US snacks business Hu Master Holdings, which the owner of Lu biscuits fully acquired two years later.
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The unit subsequently shifted its focus towards VC-style investments and product launches. This included the introduction of CaPao snacks and Ruckus & Co., a line of lunchbox smoothies for kids.
In 2021, Mondelez launched an accelerator called CoLab to collaborate with emerging businesses in the sector the Cadbury maker referred to as “well-being snacks”. CoLab operated within the SnackFutures framework.
The US giant opted to assign SnackFutures the specific task of investing in “scale-up” companies and phased out CoLab. Additionally, the unit was rebranded as SnackFutures Ventures.
“SnackFutures was created five years ago to drive strategic growth for the company and that is still the case,” Richie Gray, the head of SnackFutures, said.
Gray said the focus of the unit was changed to support Mondelez’s overall efforts to “strengthen our core – chocolate, biscuits and baked snacks – as well as expand into new categories, for example, wellbeing [and] personalised nutrition”.
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He added: “With this in mind, we shifted to being corporate-venture capital hub focused mostly on investing in scale-up, fast-growing companies in our core while still staying close to emerging brands, businesses and technologies.”
Gray said Mondelez would not disclose if it had made changes to the level of investment it is willing to put toward the SnackFutures Ventures unit.