Dirk Van de Put
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer at Mondelez International
Thanks, Shep, and thanks to everyone for joining the call today. I will start on slide four. Our strong third quarter results and our prospects for the future confirm that we are positioned for high-quality, sustainable growth. We remain confident in the durability of our categories, the strength of our iconic brands and the consistency of our execution. We delivered strong profitable volume growth with a healthy share performance, all our geographic regions grew double digits in both revenue and profitability.
To manage cost inflation and enable robust reinvestments, we continue to leverage our RGM capabilities. RGM is an area where we believe there is significant room to do more over the next several years. We continue to reshape our portfolio to focus on our core categories of chocolate, biscuits and baked snacks with the successful divestiture of our developed market gum business, generating additional reinvestment opportunities.
Our strong year-to-date performance, the continued strength of our categories and our ongoing focus on strong commercial plans and execution provide the confidence to again raise both our organic net revenue outlook to 14% to 15% and adjusted EPS growth outlook to approximately 16%.
Turning to Slide five. You can see that in the third quarter, we delivered both top and bottom line strength, enabling us to continue substantial reinvestment in our brands. We delivered organic net revenue growth of 15.7% for the quarter. Year-to-date revenue is up 17% nearly $4 billion ahead of last year. We also delivered adjusted gross profit dollar growth of 22.3% for the quarter. Again, we are ahead of last year's pace with 20% growth year-to-date, up $1.7 billion.
The strong performance enables us to reinvest in our brands and capabilities to drive attractive growth in future periods. Our A&C investment is up 28.5% for the quarter and 21.5% for the year, which demonstrates our commitment to continue to build the strength of our brands. These results translated into strong adjusted OI growth, up 24.5% for the quarter and close to $900 million for the year.
As you can see on Slide six, our third quarter growth was driven by strong volume/mix, up nearly four points. We are especially pleased that our European pricing actions, which were implemented earlier this year, are successfully behind us. We view this quarter strong volume/mix performance as evidenced that we are taking the right actions to continue delivering sustainable growth and share gains.
Consumers continue to choose our trusted and beloved brands, despite significant pricing due to ongoing inflation. More broadly, we view our strong performance in the third quarter as evidence that our long-term strategy continues to pay off. Since the launch of our growth plan in 2018, we have consistently delivered gross profit dollar growth, which allowed for a virtuous cycle of yearly increasing high-return investments. We remain confident that this strategy will continue to consistently deliver attractive growth.
Turning to slide seven. We continue to see evidence that consumer demand for our snacking categories remains resilient and that consumers continue to prefer our widely-loved brands over private label alternatives. In North America, the biscuit category is experiencing some softness in scanner data, most notably among lower-income families. However, I would note that these families are increasing their purchases in the non-measured club store channel.
Our total U.S. biscuits volume was up more than 3% in Q3, showcasing the continued strength of our brands and investments in both measured and non-measured channels. We are seeing particularly strong growth in unmeasured channels like club stores, e-commerce and food service. Meanwhile, in Europe, consumer confidence is improving, with a significant step-up versus 2022 and remains broadly stable throughout Q3. We're seeing positive volume growth in biscuits and chocolates, which has accelerated over the last three months and is outpacing broader food, driven by solid elasticities and lapping of 2022 disruptions.
In Q3, our European chocolate and biscuit business delivered solid volume growth of 2.6%, which again shows resilience of our categories and the strength of our brands. In emerging markets, consumer confidence remains strong. We continue to see resilient underlying demand and lower price sensitivity than in developed markets. During Q3, we delivered strong growth in terms of both volume and value at 4% and 24%, respectively. And we are confident that we have strong opportunities to continue to drive expanded distribution and creating new snacking occasions.
On slide eight, you can see a few examples of our growth acceleration strategy in action. We continue to invest in our brands and connect closely with consumers to stay in line with changing consumer tastes and snacking occasions. We are also driving growth in a broader range of channels while accelerating our focus on premium segments and harnessing the power of recent acquisitions to advance geographic expansion.
For example, Oreo continues to grow its strong position as the world's favorite cookie, and its share performance here in North America has grown nicely. Our recent partnership with Super Mario Brothers executed both online and in-store is just one example of the many creative campaigns that leverage personalization and local relevance to reinforce the brand's playfield persona. Along with continuous reinvestment in our brands, we are also investing in growth channels. For example, our belVita business is up nearly a full share point in the U.S. club channel, driven by growing shopper interest in convenience, tasty and better-for-you options for morning snacking on the go.
Sold in individual portion packs and delivering more than 14 grams of whole grains per serving, belVita offers a great solution for consumers who are too busy to eat a traditional breakfast. We're continuing to grow this business with a new customized and digitally targeted social and digital media campaign celebrating the ritual of belVita and coffee in the morning. Another important element of our growth strategy is investing in the fast-growing premium chocolate space. We have relaunched Toblerone with a robust campaign inspired by luxury fashion brand positioning in as a jewel. We're supporting this launch with a strengthened brand persona, Never Square and substantial investments in A&C.
Bringing this jewel concept to life, our new pralines called Toblerone Truffles recently debuted in the United Kingdom, Switzerland and Australia as well as airport duty-free stores in key markets. They will expand to additional markets next year. Finally, we continue driving geographic expansion of our recently acquired brands. For example, Ricolino headquartered in Mexico is now the number one Hispanic confectionery brand in the United States, growing well and in line with our expectations.
Turning to slide nine. Let's zoom in closer on the snack bar business to highlight the strong progress. We're excited about the opportunities in this space, and we believe there is significant runway ahead, led by the strong and growing brands of Clif Bar, Grenade and Perfect Snacks. We expect our snack bar business to exceed $1.2 billion net revenue this year.
Let's start with Clif, where we are excited about our current results and the long-term opportunity to broaden distribution, expand into new formats and increase our geographical reach. Year-to-date, Clif is up double digit in top line growth. And within that, the Clif Kid Zbar has been a particular standout. Zbar is a delicious organic non-GMO soft-baked, whole grain energy snack for kids with 0 trans fat or artificial flavors. Zbar is growing at twice the rate of the total bars category with consumption dollar growth up 19% versus last year.
Grenade also continues to exceed our expectations. Grenade is performing very well in the sports nutrition space with signature bars that are high in protein and low in sugar. Since our acquisition a bit more than two years ago, we have doubled the business, thanks to strong core growth in the U.K. and distribution expansion in Ireland, Nordics and the Benelux.
Perfect Snacks also is experiencing continued double-digit value growth, strengthening its position as the number one refrigerated protein bar in the United States. We have a great portfolio and strong conviction in the growth potential of our snack bar business, and we will continue investing to drive leadership in the segment.
Turning to slide 10. I'd like to take a moment to share progress on an important element of our sustainability strategy. Just two years after joining the science-based targets initiative, net zero carbon ambition, we have submitted a time-bound plan laying out how we aim to achieve our target of net zero greenhouse gas emissions across our full value chain by 2050. To reach this critical milestone, we have completed a detailed process of rebaselining providing documentation of our carbon accounting and aligning to new standards.
Putting this plan into action in the near term, we are making solid progress towards our 2025 goal of reducing end-to-end carbon emissions by 10%. We are working hard to transform our business operations and supply chains. Over the past two years, we have scaled regenerative agriculture practices across our signature sourcing programs for coco and wheat, achieved renewable energy at manufacturing sites across every region and reduced CO2 emissions through plant and logistical efficiencies.
We continue to believe that helping to drive positive change at scale, including through reducing our climate impact, is an integral part of value creation with positive returns for our stakeholders. We encourage you to read our Snacking Made Right report for additional details and context on our broader sustainability goals and progress.
With that, I'll turn it over to Luca to share additional insights on our financials.
