Nutella, our favourite chocolate hazelnut spread which records over 12 billion USD in sales and was developed in 1946 by an Italian Pastry Chef’s unparalleled obsession with creating the perfect chocolate solution has roots tracing back to the days of Napoleon Bonaparte and World War 2!
In 1806, Napoleon was trying to strengthen his position in the war between British and France. To hurt the British economy, he created a Europe-wide blockage of cocoa, and this shortage of supply led to the prices of chocolate being hiked up massively. But the Italian chocolatiers were undeterred by this and created a mixture of hazelnuts and chocolates to dilute the usage of chocolates in their products.
This spread was known as ‘Gianduja’, and it enjoyed its glory until the war days were over and it was ultimately forgotten. But as it goes, history has a way of repeating itself, and over 100 years later, when another dictator caused yet another shortage, the Italians restored their glory and brought back the Gianduja. But this time around, one man would make sure that the world would remember and savour this product for decades.
In 1946, the pastry chef Pietro Ferrero created the ‘Pasta Gianduja’, his version of the traditional Gianduja. This product was actually a hard block of chocolate, and it was only in 1951, when his son Michele sold the creamy version of it called ‘Supercrema’, and finally in 1964 they renamed it ‘Nutella’. Ella stands for ‘sweet’ in Latin, and the hazelnut contributing to the ‘nut’, and a starting point of it all.
The new name ‘Nutella’ was a marketing tool to uplift the popularity of the product, and we all know how successful it was. By 2015, one jar of Nutella was sold on this planet in every 2.5 seconds! The marketing genius, Michele Ferrero was the richest man in Italy when he died in 2015.
Pietro Ferrero had an ambition to find the perfect chocolate formula, and some may it call an obsession. He would wake up his wife in the middle of the night to make her taste his mixtures of hazelnuts, sugar and cocoa, and this obsession with perfection led to the snack that is a midnight treat for many of us today. 🙂
Image credits: Lou Perrine
Past Present Continuous 