Italy The inventor of Nutella is dead
The co-inventor of Nutella, Francesco Rivella, has died at the age of 97. The Italian was formerly employed as a food chemist at the Ferrero Group in the small northern Italian town of Alba in Piedmont. Together with the then company boss Michelle Ferrero, he developed the composition of the nut nougat spread. The first jar under this name rolled off the production line in 1964. It became a global success.
18.02.2025, 08:01
SDA
According to a report by the Italian news agency Ansa, Rivella died on Valentine's Day - ten years to the day after Ferrero's death, as the company announced. For decades, he was regarded as Ferrero's right-hand man.
He also worked on "Mon chéri" and "Kinder Schokolade"
As Technical Director, he was also involved in the development of other products such as "Mon chéri" and "Kinder Schokolade". Throughout his life, he never worked for another company. Rivella retired in 1993. He is survived by a daughter and three sons.
In northern Italy, people had already started using ground hazelnuts instead of cocoa powder in the production of confectionery in the 19th century. This resulted in brown nougat cream, for example in the form of Gianduiotti chocolates.
The raw mixture was then also available to buy in stores as a spread. Together with Ferrero, Rivella developed this approach further. The founder's son then came up with the idea of filling the whole thing into jars.
In the early years, this was still called "Supercrema". The breakthrough came with the enforced renaming in the 1960s, because since then nothing can be sold in Italy with the label Super. Nut- stands for nut, -ella is one of the classic Italian endings.
500,000 tons of Nutella produced every year
Today, Ferrero is a huge company with an annual turnover of more than 18 billion euros that sells its products in almost every country in the world. It produces 500,000 tons of Nutella every year. Germans are among its most loyal customers. However, the competition from Nudossi is still alive today from the GDR era.
Nutella has long since become a synonym for nut and nougat spreads of all kinds. In Italian delicatessens, but also in many German supermarkets, there are dozens of different varieties on offer: the more nuts (Nutella: 13%, others also 51%) and the less palm oil, the more expensive. The market is big enough. Nutritionists, on the other hand, point out that a 400 gram jar contains 72 sugar cubes.
The recipe is secret
After years of criticism, Ferrero claims to only use palm oil from certified sustainable production. However, environmentalists continue to make accusations - also because entire areas of land in Italy are being destroyed by hazelnut monocultures.
According to estimates, around a quarter of the world's hazelnut production is used for Nutella. The company has always kept quiet about the exact composition. There are now also many recipes on the internet for making your own.
