PARIS — Consumer sentiment remains depressed and is likely to remain so for the balance of the year, weighing on demand for products,  including snacks, said Dirk Van de Put, chairman and chief executive officer of Mondelez International Inc.

The economic environment, product pricing and his most recent thinking about GLP-1s were among topics he addressed June 4 at the Deutsche Bank dbAccess Global Consumer Conference in Paris.

While it was stable in May, consumer confidence remains quite low after drops in March and April, Van de Put said. Worries about their financial prospects have heightened consumers’ sensitivity about spending.

“They reflect that in very careful shopping with a budget,” he said. “And within that budget, they need to fulfill their basic necessities. And since we’re coming out of a high inflationary period or are still quite in an inflationary period, that budget makes them cut out certain categories. And recently, we’ve seen that a number of snacking categories are doing less good.”

No significant improvement is anticipated in the balance of 2025, but Van de Put said the company’s largest category in the United States — biscuits — is “doing okay.”

“Within that category, we have been gaining market share,” he said. “So, for instance, the category would be down 2% in volume, and we would be 0.5% down to flat in volume.”

In earnings calls, Van de Put has discussed steps the company is taking in response to heightened cookie price sensitivity, and he elaborated on these steps in the Deutsche Bank discussion.

He said consumers had begun buying larger, more expensive family packs during COVID.

He explained, “As the pressure mounted on the consumer, they suddenly started to realize, ‘Well, I used to buy my Oreos at $2.99. Now suddenly I'm buying a family pack at 4.99.’ And they start to have a problem with that. And, so, 70% of the shelf was bigger packs. So, we had to make a move toward smaller packs… that are being sold at $2.99 and $3.99. And that, clearly, is working.

“We’ve learned that we need to stay under $4 with our price range at this stage. That’s sort of the magical barrier. It is understanding where the price barrier lies and which packs you need to offer at which price permanently, not just through promotion.”

While the near-term and medium-term outlooks for cocoa prices are uncertain, Luca Zaramella, executive vice president and chief financial officer, said prices will not remain inflated indefinitely.

“I personally believe, without taking a view on 2026 necessarily, that in the long run, cocoa will have to come down meaningfully from the levels it is today,” he said. “And, so, our role is really to retain consumers to retain market share. And in relative terms, I think we are doing better than competitors as we are gaining market share and eventually take advantage of cocoa costs subsiding.”

Mondelez has been quiet on the mergers and acquisitions (M&A) front in recent months. Responding to a question of whether the company has interest in acquiring businesses, Van de Put said the company not only has interest, it has a shopping list.

“The short answer is, yes, we have appetite,” he said. “The way we work M&A is we look around the world; we look at the different markets. We look at the segments where we want to be big. You know that our preferred M&A strategy is bolt-ons in the four categories where we currently are in.

“And, so, we have a list of about 40 companies around the world that we think would be great additions. Now those 40 companies are not necessarily for sale. So, we stay quite disciplined on what the universe is.”

Van de Put has been outspoken for many months about his confidence that GLP-1s do not pose a threat to snacking companies like Mondelez. In the Deutsche Bank discussion he was emphatic.

“I think GLP-1s — and I’m happy to go into detail, but with the data that we have and the way we look at it, today, there is no effect,” he said. “And it’s really difficult to get into a case 10 years down the road where the GLP-1 would have a significant effect on what’s going on with food.

“With all the data we have today, it’s just not going to be significant. It’s going to have an effect, but it’s going to be small, maybe 0.5% of calorie intake reduction, maybe 1%.”

With regard to regulations, Van de Put said Mondelez has dealt in Europe with issues like colorant bans and “can easily adapt to that.”