The story of Nutella starts with Napoleon. Back in 1806, Napoleon wanted to break European businesses, leading to a massive blockade that sent chocolate prices soaring. Luckily, some smart choclatiers spread the supply of cocoa by adding chopped hazlenuts. A delicious spread called 'gianduja' was created.
Whilst popular during the war, it faded into obscurity once cocoa imports returned to full swing. But you know what they say. History repeats itself, and it wasn’t long before the shadow of another dictator threatened the Italian chocolate industry once more.
In World War II, chocolate prices were hiked again due to rationing. Italian pastry chef Pietro Ferrero once again turned to hazelnuts. He was lucky, because he lives in Alba, Piedmont--a town known for its production of hazelnuts.
He initially marketed a solid block of his new hazelnut-chocolate in 1946, then created a creamy version, called 'Supercrema', in 1951. Since it was spreadable, even a tiny bit of it went a long way, and the price made it accessible to the chocolate lovers who couldn’t afford the real thing during the rationing era of the war.
This was then renamed 'Nutella' by Pietro's son Michele in 1964 - with 'ella' meaning 'sweet' in Latin. Michele used the English word for nut as a marketing tool to boost Nutella's popularity throughout Europe. And his plan worked--by 2015, one jar of Nutella was sold every 2.5 seconds. By the time of his death, at the age of 89, Michele was Italy's richest man. While the Ferrero group, which is now run by Michele's son Giovanni, have sales of more than £5.9 billion every year.
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This post was a very unique post compared to other posts that I have read. I enjoyed learning about the contributions of nutella to chocolate lovers during WWII. I personally really enjoy nutella and never knew that it had formed because of the rationing from WWII. I wonder what would have happened if WWII rationing did not happen. Would there not be nutella today?
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