Nutella
Strategic Concepts & Mechanics
Primary Evidence
"He is Michele Ferrero, the Italian genius of 'making,' the inventor of hugely successful products such as Nutella, Kinder, Ferrero Rocher, Mon Chéri, Estathé, Fiesta, and Tic Tac: products that have become familiar brands recognized in every corner of the planet, thanks to which the Group bearing his name grew from a thousand employees in the fifties to four thousand in the sixties, to then rise to ten thousand in 1990, up to the current 41,441 worldwide."
"The richest man in Italy - together with the Ferreros of Nutella - has accumulated a personal fortune of over 30 billion dollars starting from the lowest possible point on the social ladder."
"The product I love the most? Certainly Nutella, but Mon Chéri is the product from the beginnings, the one that excites me to remember. It was the beginning of the fifties and we went to Germany because I thought that the chocolate market should look North, where they consume it all year round."
"The glorious Giandujot, although excellent and best-selling, sometimes oozes from the packaging, and for this flaw, some merchants complain. Michele discovers in a specialized magazine the existence of a substance, soy lecithin, which has the ability to retain fats. In Europe, lecithin is still almost unknown, few import it. But he manages to find some. The experiment is a success. The addition of lecithin stabilizes the mixture and allows the launch in 1951 of Supercrema, as is named what we might call the mother of Nutella. It is sold in containers ranging from airtight tins to tubs and glasses, but also in toy wooden houses."
"First: innovation. That’s what it means to do something different from everyone else. Everyone made solid chocolate and I made it creamy and Nutella was born; everyone made boxes of chocolates and we started selling them one by one, but wrapped like a gift;"
"Dear Madam, I am grateful for your kind invitation to give an interview for the prestigious daily newspaper with which you are associated. However, as you yourself write, I have made it a rule not to give them. Interviews are like cherries: if you start with one, it's then hard to resist the others. And I feel that I must instead continue to concentrate on the work that I am most passionate about: the search for ever new products, which meet the favor of consumers, like the Nutella you kindly mentioned. Warm wishes to you and your boyfriend."