Furniture giant Ikea has said that it plans to phase out products owned by Mondelez, the company behind Cadbury’s, amid a boycott across much of Scandinavia of the confectionary-maker’s products.
Ikea said that the decision was taken as it tries to replace some of what it sells with its own-brand products.
This will mean that the business will stop selling Marabou and Daim products, chocolates that are popular in Ikea’s native Sweden.
It comes as dozens of Scandinavian companies have cut ties with Mondelez, which makes some of the region’s most popular snacks, over the tax it paid to the Russian government last year.
But Ikea insisted that the move was not in relation to the boycott.
“Ikea has for some years been focusing on Ikea-branded confectionery products and further developed its own chocolate and candy products,” a spokesperson for Ikea said.
“The current Ikea range includes some different chocolate products from suppliers owned by Mondelez.
“Ikea will phase out the Mondelez products from the Ikea range.”
Scandinavian companies have taken action after Ukraine’s National Agency on Corruption Prevention (NACP) in May labelled Mondelez an “international sponsor of war”.
The NACP said that in 2022, Mondelez’s Russian subsidiary paid around $61 million to the Russian Government in taxes. It made $339 million of profit in the country.
Mondelez has three factories in Russia, where it produces Oreo cookies, TUC crackers, Alpen Gold and Milka, among other popular items.
In a letter published by Sweden’s Aftonbladet newspaper, Agiya Zagrebelska, head of NACP’s sanctions department, said earlier this month: “Our agency is consistent in how we decide who to blacklist.
“Companies are blacklisted if they have not announced their withdrawal from the Russian market or if they fail to take meaningful measures to reduce their operations in Russia.”
She added: “All taxes paid by your subsidiary Mondelez Rus are contributing to Putin’s war chest, funding additional waves of bombs against us.
“We suffer from unstable supply of electricity, water, internet, and worst of all, the loss and injury of family and friends in the war.”
The boycott in Scandinavia has been joined by local authorities in some of Sweden’s biggest cities, the country’s train operator SJ, airlines SAS and Norwegian Air, and the Norwegian Football Association, among many others.
Two weeks ago, Mondelez said that it would make its Russian business stand-alone with a self-sufficient supply chain.
But Ms Zagrebelska said that the promise was not enough to remove Mondelez from her list.
Ukraine’s international sponsor of war list also includes French cosmetics company Yves Rocher, consumer giant Procter & Gamble, FTSE 100 packaging company Mondi, and Chinese car company Geely.
The withdrawal of Mondelez products from Ikea shelves in Scandinavia was reported last week.
A spokesperson for Mondelez said: “It’s our understanding that Ikea has publicly confirmed that this decision follows a long-term strategy related to the development of its own confectionery products under the Ikea brand.”
