Origin of Nutella

Did you know that Feb 5 is World Nutella day?  Ever wonder where the word Nutella originates from?

The word Nutella came about from the merging of the English word ‘nut’ from the typically Italian ingredient hazelnut in the gianduja, with the Italian positive-sounding and Latin suffix for sweet ‘ella’.  The word’s first origins can be traced back to the 1940s to an Italian bakery owner – Pietro Ferrero, a pastry maker from Piedmont in Italy who saw an opportunity.  At the time, chocolate became expensive and scarce due to rationing in Europe following World War II.   Nutella was a smart solution to a tricky problem.  The shortage of cocoa supplies led Pietro to create a sweet paste made of hazelnuts, sugar and just a little of the rare cocoa.

While the Nutella era officially began when the first jar was released on April 20, 1964 out of the Ferrero factory in Alba, Italy, its true origins predate the 1940s with roots well even before that.  In the early 1800s, in the northern Italian city of Piedmont, when chocolate was difficult to come by, a paste of chocolate and hazelnuts was a solution to the abundance of hazelnuts and the scarcity of cocoa.  At the end of World War II, when cocoa once again became difficult to come by, Pietro Ferrero made loaves of this sweet paste and called it ‘Giandujot’ after a famous local carnival character at the time.  The Ferrero Company was founded soon after that on May 14, 1946.  In 1951, this paste was made into spreadable form and was called Supercrema.  It wasn’t until 1964 through trial and error and creative ingenuity that this spreadable form was first introduced into the UK market as Nutella.  In 1965, the first iconic jar was created followed by 1966 when Nutella expanded further into Europe and launched on the French market with great success.  In 1978, the brand expanded into Australia and opened its first production plant outside Europe in Lithgow near Sydney.

The Ferrero story is an inspirational three generational story that is built on cultural heritage and a tenacious Italian family from the Piedmont region.  It all started out with Piera and Pietro Ferrero  – the trailblazers behind the Ferrero company who transformed a pastry shop into a factory and the first Italian manufacturer after World War II to open production sites and offices abroad in the Confectionary sector.  Through the help of Pietro’s brother, Giovanni, an extensive sales network evolved which made it into the International Group that it is today. Pietro’s son Michele championed the Nutella brand and today as CEO, Giovanni (the grandson) Ferrero is leading the Ferro company and Nutella brand with the same fundamental values and core principles that his family’s business was built on – a passion for excellence and the dedication of its employees.

Here are some fun facts:

• Every year Italians consume 60 million jars of Nutella
• Nutella sales exceed that of Marmite in the UK
• On May 29, 2005, 27,854 people gathered in Germany to participate in the Largest Continental Breakfast Ever with Nutella and entered the Guiness Book of Records.
• At the start of 2015, one jar of Nutella was sold every 2.5 seconds worldwide.
• You could circle the globe 1.8 times with the amount of Nutella produced in 2013.
• Until his death in February 2015, Michele Ferrero – Pietro Ferrero’s son – was thought to have been Italy’s richest man, estimated by Forbes to have had a net worth of $26.8 billion.