American snacking giant Mondelez International is facing a widening corporate boycott in the Nordic region over its presence in Russia.
Airlines SAS and Norwegian Air, railway group SJ, hotel chain Strawberry, retailer Elkjop, shipping group Fjord Line and the Norwegian Football Association were among those announcing in recent days that they would stop selling Mondelez products, Reuters reports.
Although many Western companies sold their Russian assets after Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine last year, others such as Mondelez have stayed despite pushback from employees in other countries.
Nordic companies said their decision to stop selling Mondelez products was based on an announcement this year by Ukraine’s National Agency for the Prevention of Corruption to blacklist the snack maker and other groups as “international sponsors of war”.
Earlier, the Swedish Football Association suspended its advertising campaign with the Marabou chocolate brand, which Mondelez owns. The Danish Football Association is pausing all active campaigns with Marabou and the women’s national team on digital platforms and social media.
According to the latest reports, the Swedish military and the Swedish shipping line company Stena Line also refused to procure Mondelez’s products while the company continues its commercial activities in the Russian market.
Mondelez said it maintained “limited” activity in Russia while halting investment and advertising, and had condemned the war. However, the company led by Dirk Van de Put has seen a hike of 303% in Russia-made profits in 2022 relative to the previous year. How is this possible given the company’s promise to “scale back” its business in the aggressor state?
As Russia keeps committing war crimes and terrorist acts in Ukraine almost daily, there is no more time for empty promises. The time to act is long overdue. The B4Ukraine Coalition calls on Mondelez to do the only right thing: To put people over profits and to pull out of the toxic Russian market.