SAS follows the blacklist of Ukraine – removes all products from Freia – E24

SAS has stopped selling all products of the food giant Mondelez, as the company allegedly contributes to Russia’s treasury.

At the end of May Ukraine’s Anti-Corruption Service has drawn up a blacklist of companies it believes contribute income to the Russian treasury.

They also accused the companies of contributing to Russia’s war coffers.

Among them was food giant Mondelez, who also owns Freya, Toblerone, and Dime.

As a result, SAS has elected, as of Thursday, to stop selling products from Mondelez on its flights, and then to include Freia.

SAS press director Tony Sund confirmed this to VG.

– Sund says: We took products from Mondelez, which is on the list of international sponsors of war in Ukraine.

– This is about the withdrawal of products from the Mondelez company, and about them as owners. We will be bringing alternative products, so there will be chocolate and snacks on board.

Will the products be removed until Ukraine removes the companies from the blacklist?

– We are loyal to that list, Sunde replies.

Mondelez stressed in May that products sold in the Nordic countries are not produced in Russia.

– We do not sell any Nordic products that are made in Russia, according to a press release from the company’s Swedish division.

VG attempted to reach out to Mondelez on Thursday, so far without getting a response.

Mondelez states in its most recent annual report that operations in Russia account for 4 percent of the company’s total sales.

Since last year the company’s turnover was close to NOK 350 billion, this corresponds to about NOK 14 billion.

– Mondelez has three factories there and by producing them in Russia contributes to paying taxes to the Russian treasury, Jacob Hidinscu said in May. He is an analyst at the Center for Eastern European Studies at the Foreign Policy Institute in Sweden.

– Since Russia is a war economy, some of the money goes one way or another to finance the country’s war in Ukraine, he says.

Mondelez has about 3,000 employees in Russia and, according to the Kiev School of Economics, is the market leader in the sale of biscuits and chocolate in Russia.