Ferrero SpA is the world’s second largest manufacturer of chocolate and confectionery products with sales revenue in 2017 of USD$12 billion. Founded in 1946 by Italian pastry chef Pietro Ferrero, he began his company with just one product, a hazelnut and cocoa spread — later to be sold under the brand name Nutella — which was originally formulated as a cost-saving measure in post World War II Italy (hazelnuts being cheaper to procure than cocoa a the time). The spread proved extremely popular, and so with help from his brother Giovanni and later, his son, Michele they began to market the product to the rest of the world. In 2015, on the death of Michele, who had by that stage become Italy’s richest man, it was reported that the company produced 365,000 tonnes of the recipe every year. As a result, Ferrero is the world’s largest consumer of hazelnuts, buying up 25 percent of global production in 2014, and purchasing Turkey’s Oltan Group, the largest hazelnut supplier in the world the same year. Other acquisitions have included British retailer Thornton’s in 2015, U.S. chocolate-maker Fannie May in 2017 and more recently, the American confectionary arm of Nestle for USD$2.8 billion in March 2018. In mid-July 2019, Ferrero completed its next major acquisition; Kelloggs’ cookies, fruit and fruit-flavored snack businesses, as well as its ice cream cone and pie-crust brands. The company currently employs over 33,000 people in operations spread across the globe, and is continuing to expand, likely to complete its’ purchase of the Campbell Soup’s Company’s share of Danish bakery, Kelsen for USD$300 million by early 2020.
- Family name: Ferrero family
- Sector: Consumer Products & Retail
- Founded: 1946
- Founder: chef Pietro Ferrero
- Country: Luxembourg
- Company headquarters: Alba, Italy
- Managers:
- Revenue: 10.9
- Employees: 33,219
- Website: ferrero.com
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