Mondelez reported second-quarter results after Tuesday’s close and finally did the thing packaged-food investors have waited two years for: it raised the top-line outlook. Net revenues came in at $9.36 billion, up 4.1% year over year and a hair under the $9.38 billion consensus. Adjusted earnings were $0.73 a share against $0.69 expected. Organic net revenue grew 2.2%, and management credited volume growth and share gains rather than pure price.
The company now expects at least 2% organic net revenue growth for 2026, up from prior guidance, and kept its adjusted EPS outlook at flat to up 5% in constant currency. The board raised the quarterly dividend 4%. Mondelez has returned $1.5 billion to shareholders in the first half. Shares closed the regular session up about 3% and edged higher again after hours.
Now the line nobody put in a headline: constant-currency adjusted EPS fell 2.7%.
Cocoa is still sitting on the P&L
Record cocoa costs have been compressing this business for the better part of two years, and the recovery is arriving in the order these things always arrive. Volume came back first. Share came back with it. Revenue guidance went up. Earnings per share, in the currency-neutral terms that actually measure the operating business, are still going the wrong way.
Management describes the cocoa market as more balanced than last year — a real improvement, and not the same thing as cheap. A company that repriced its entire shelf to survive a historic cocoa spike does not get its margin back the quarter the input stops rising. It gets it back when the hedges and the contracts roll, and that is a 2027 event, not a Q3 one.
North America showed up this time
Emerging markets carried the quarter again, but the more interesting detail is strength in North America and early share improvement in Europe. That is a different story from the one PepsiCo told this cycle, where the overseas business did the work and the North American consumer stayed on strike. Snacking is proving stickier than beverages at the same price point — and the private-equity money agrees, which is why Utz just left the public market entirely.
Our take: This is what the back half of an input-cost shock looks like, and the market reads it wrong in both directions. On the way in, it punishes the revenue line even though revenue was never the problem — cost was. On the way out, it celebrates the guidance raise even though the guidance raise is the easy half. Revenue recovers first because pricing and volume are things management controls. Margin recovers last because it is hostage to contracts signed eighteen months ago. If you hold consumer staples through a commodity cycle, the number that tells you the turn is real is not the sales outlook — it is the first quarter constant-currency EPS stops shrinking. Mondelez is not there yet. It is two prints closer than it was.
What to watch
- Constant-currency EPS in Q3. Down 2.7% this quarter. Flat is the signal; positive is the confirmation.
- Whether volume growth survives the next price move. Share taken on elasticity is borrowed, not earned.
- Cocoa itself. “More balanced” is management’s word. The futures curve is the scoreboard.
- The dividend raise as a tell. A 4% bump while EPS shrinks is a board signaling confidence in cash generation. Watch whether free cash flow backs it.