Why Mondelez Thinks Oreos Can Be the Coca-Cola of Cookiedom

Mondelez International wants Oreos to become the Coca-Cola of cookies—and based on comments at a New York conference this past week, it’s making progress. J.P. Morgan analyst Ken Goldman wrote that CEO Dirk Van de Put’s reminder of Mondelez’s “recent successes in gaining share around the world with core products such as Oreo,” reinforced his own bullishness on the stock.

Mondelez stock is in the black, if fractionally, over the past year, putting it ahead of peers tracked by the Consumer Staples Select Sector SPDR exchange-traded fund. At $66, it’s up more than 11% since Barron’s recommended it in late October. Although cheaper than packaged-goods companies and many consumer-staples peers, Mondelez trades at just under 21 times forward earnings, compared with less than 18 times for the S&P 500 Oreo revenue jumped to $4.2 billion last year, from $2.9 billion in 2018, while its share of the cookie category rose by 0.6 of a percentage point.