Mondelez International, Inc. (NASDAQ:MDLZ) has something most food companies would love to have: a collection of brands that people already know and buy regularly. Oreo, Ritz, Cadbury, Milka, Toblerone, LU, CLIF and Tate’s are sold across more than 150 countries.
That gives Mondelez a lot of shelf space, a huge distribution network, and plenty of brand recognition. However, having great brands doesn’t automatically mean the moat is getting wider. The real question is whether Mondelez is getting more out of those brands. Is all that scale translating into better growth, stronger margins, and higher returns?
Great Brands, But Growth Needs a Push
Mondelez brought in $38.5 billion in revenue in 2025, an increase of 5.8%. Organic revenue was up 4.3%, which is a decent result on the surface. Earnings were a different story.Net income dropped 46.8% to $2.45 billion, while diluted EPS fell 44.7% to $1.89. Some of the decline was caused by items that don’t really reflect the performance of the underlying business, so the GAAP numbers make the drop look worse than it was. There are some better signs in 2026.
Second-quarter revenue increased 4.1%, while organic revenue rose 2.2%. Volume and mix also improved by 0.7%. Management raised its full-year revenue outlook to at least 2% growth. Still, this isn’t a clean growth story yet. Adjusted EPS fell 2.7% in the second quarter on a constant-currency basis. Management expects adjusted EPS to be roughly flat to up 5% for the full year and is targeting about $3 billion in free cash flow. That’s probably the biggest question hanging over the moat right now.
Nobody is questioning whether Oreo or Cadbury are strong brands. The question is whether Mondelez can turn that brand strength into consistent earnings growth when cocoa costs are high, and consumers are pushing back on higher prices.
Mondelez Has a Moat. Is It Getting Bigger?
There are some very obvious advantages here. Start with the brands. Oreo isn’t just another cookie sitting on a supermarket shelf. The same goes for Cadbury in chocolate. These are products consumers already recognize and often buy without giving much thought to the decision. That matters because Mondelez also has a massive distribution operation behind those brands. Its products are sold through supermarkets, convenience stores, wholesalers, and other channels around the world. A smaller snack company can create a good product, but getting that product onto shelves at the same scale is a completely different challenge. Mondelez isn’t the only blue-chip stock offering investors a combination of established brands and dividend income. Here are 14 blue-chip dividend stocks that hedge funds are watching.
Then there’s the company’s geographic reach. Emerging markets have been performing particularly well in 2026, which has helped offset weaker performance in some other parts of the business. So Mondelez’s moat is still considered wide. However, investors are not convinced it’s getting wider yet.
The company continues to spend on its brands and distribution, but the recent numbers show that it’s becoming harder to turn that scale into faster growth. Until organic growth and profitability start improving more consistently, the moat could be taken as strong but relatively stable.
The Dividend Gives Investors Another Reason to Look
The dividend is one of the more interesting parts of the Mondelez International, Inc. story right now. The company recently raised its quarterly dividend by 4% to $0.52 per share. That puts the annual payout at $2.08, or roughly a 3.6% yield at a $58 share price. That’s well above Mondelez’s five-year average yield of 2.57%.
The payout ratio is around 73%, so there isn’t an enormous amount of room if earnings were to deteriorate sharply. But the company generates plenty of cash. Mondelez produced $4.5 billion in operating cash flow and $3.2 billion in free cash flow in 2025. For income investors, that makes the current yield more interesting. The market is essentially asking for a higher return to own the stock than it has in the past. If the business stabilizes, that could turn out to be a useful starting point for investors.
The Forward P/E Tells a Better Story
At roughly $58 a share, Mondelez trades at about 18.2 times forward earnings. The trailing P/E is closer to 22.4 times. The trailing P/E is being pulled higher by the recent weakness in earnings. If earnings recover as expected, that multiple will naturally come down. At 18.2 times forward earnings, Mondelez isn’t a bargain-basement stock. However, it’s also not priced like a company that’s expected to deliver huge growth.
The recent valuation history is useful here. The stock’s forward P/E readings were 22.32x in June 2025, 18.83x in September 2025, 17.15x at the end of 2025, and 18.90x in March 2026. At about 18.18x today, the stock is still sitting toward the cheaper end of that recent range.
Another way to look at it is through the earnings yield. An 18.2x forward P/E gives Mondelez a forward earnings yield of roughly 5.5%. That’s higher than the 3.6% dividend yield. The difference matters because Mondelez isn’t paying out all of its earnings. Some of that money stays in the business and can be used for things like reinvestment, paying down debt, or other capital-allocation decisions.
The PEG ratio adds another piece to the puzzle. Mondelez’s five-year expected PEG ratio is around 0.90, which suggests the valuation isn’t particularly stretched relative to expected earnings growth.
So, Is Mondelez Worth Buying?
At around $58, Mondelez is worth a look for investors who want a defensive consumer business with a decent dividend and some room for earnings to recover. The stock isn’t screamingly cheap, and the company’s moat is getting wider when growth is still uneven.
However, the valuation gives investors some breathing room. An 18x forward P/E is reasonable for a business with Mondelez’s brands and global reach, especially when you’re also getting a roughly 3.6% dividend yield and a 5.5% forward earnings yield.
Now the company needs to deliver. If Mondelez can get volumes moving again, deal with higher cocoa costs, and return to healthier earnings growth, today’s valuation could start looking quite attractive. Until then, the investment case is less about chasing growth and more about owning a collection of brands that have already stood the test of time while waiting for the numbers to catch up.
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This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.
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