Who invented Nutella?
Nutella grew out of Giandujot, a hazelnut and cocoa paste Pietro Ferrero sold in Alba in 1946. His son Michele gave it the name Nutella, and the first jar was made on 20 April 1964.
Nutella1 tablespoon of Nutella, about 15 g81kcal
Hazelnuts instead of chocolate
The story starts in Alba, a town in Piedmont in northern Italy, just after the Second World War. Cocoa was scarce and expensive. Piedmont, though, had plenty of hazelnuts, and the region already had a sweet called gianduja that mixed nuts and chocolate. Pietro Ferrero, a pastry maker in Alba, used that idea. He mixed hazelnuts and sugar with a little cocoa and made a paste that was far cheaper than a bar of chocolate.
A block you cut with a knife
In 1946 Ferrero sold it as Giandujot, also called Pasta Gianduja. It came as a firm block wrapped in paper, named after Gianduja, a carnival character from Turin. Shops sold it by weight, and people cut slices to put on bread. According to The Local, it cost four to five times less than ordinary chocolate. That price was the whole point. It let working families give their children something that tasted like chocolate at a time when real chocolate was out of reach.
Supercrema, then Nutella
In 1951 the company turned the block into something softer that you could spread straight from the jar, and called it Supercrema. Pietro's son Michele Ferrero kept working on the recipe. He wanted one product with one name that could sell all over Europe, and Supercrema was a name that would not travel well. The Local says he renamed it Nutella in 1963. On 20 April 1964 the first jar of Nutella came off the line at the Ferrero factory in Alba, and that date is still the one Italy celebrates.
How it spread
Ferrero calls the 1964 jar the start of what became the best known spread of its kind. It moved out from Italy into the rest of Europe and then much further. The Local reports that around 500,000 tonnes are now made every year and sold in about 170 countries. It has turned up in films, songs and books, and its 60th birthday in 2024 was news in Italy. Not bad for a wartime way to stretch a little cocoa.
What it is today
The idea underneath is still the one Pietro Ferrero had in 1946: stretch a little cocoa with a lot of hazelnut and sugar, and make it easy to eat. What changed is the form. A block you sliced at the shop counter became a soft cream in a glass jar. A typical portion is one spoonful spread thin on a slice of bread or toast. Most people go a little further than that, and plenty eat it straight from the jar with a spoon.