Incognito in the Supermarket Aisle

"Between Grande Stevens, who would not coincidentally become the lawyer for the main Italian industrial groups, and Michele Ferrero, there was a complete understanding. "He told me one of his secrets for the fine-tuning of products," remembers the lawyer. "He had found a supermarket in Luxembourg that agreed to put his new products on the shelf without the Ferrero brand. Some agents would wait outside and intercept the ladies who had bought those chocolates, offering them compensation to be interviewed. They would go to the offices and Michele, who was listening attentively from behind a wall, would suggest the right questions to the interviewers." And so, incognito, he understood why his new products were liked or not by the customers. Ferrero himself loves to enter supermarkets and try all the products that intrigue him or whose competition he fears. He wants to see them in person, touch them, taste them. In these raids, according to company legends, he is accompanied by an attendant who collects the wrappers of the sweets sampled on the spot and takes them to the checkout to pay."

""Mr. Michele outside the supermarket, after making his choice, would ask people: 'Why did you buy it? For whom are you buying it?’. He translated the consumer's needs into an inimitable and unique product, accessible to everyone.""

"Today, Kinder is a company within a company. We owe Salice additional details on the origin of the Kinder Division: "It was a new category of chocolate, able to reassure mothers for its high percentage of milk and for its portioning, but also capable of satisfying the sweet tooth and the desire for tasty treats of the youngsters. The idea of Kinder Chocolate arose during a visit by Michele Ferrero, incognito as he liked to do, to the sales points in Frankfurt. In front of the chocolate bar section, he asked some colleagues – and therefore first himself – how to enter the chocolate bar market. The answer he gave was a chocolate bar specialized for children, not whole, but divided into many bars, each individually wrapped. Because it is portion-controlled, Kinder Chocolate can be regulated by the mother according to the various needs of the moment. Even if the mother gives the child only one bar, she does not give him a piece of chocolate, but a finished portion, and the child is happy. The presence of the cardboard box gives a particular elegance to the product."

"Regarding trips, a significant story about how Michele Ferrero intended them comes from Francesco Garetto, curator of the Balvano project and Ferrero in Africa: “One day we spent a holiday in Senegal. We were there with Mr. Michele, no official reception... Basically, our vacation was to visit all the shops and small stores, taste the local specialties, understand what people ate. Tourism? Zero, we only took a bath, then visited the markets and got to know the local festivals. These were the goals, the festivals, he tried to understand how these people lived: the families, the school, the festivals.""