Nutella makes $70m Aussie investment

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Hazelnut giant, Ferrero has planted its one millionth hazelnut tree on a New South Wales farm, in the hopes of an Australian production centre.

There’s a lot resting on the Riverina property; Ferrero Australia hopes the trees will bear 5,000 tonnes of hazelnuts by 2020 to remove the need to ship nuts to Australia, the ABC reports.

It’s also using the property as a test farm to trial two varieties of hazelnuts to find out which performs best in the Riverina environment.

The family-owned company is the world’s biggest producer and user of hazelnuts, buying almost a third of all global production and the farm represents a $70 million investment.

Nutella has an annual sales turnover of than $3.18 billion.

New competition

For many families, the sweet chocolate spread is a pantry staple. But Barilla, a company better known for its pasta, is muscling into the breakfast spread space with its Crema Pan di Stelle.

Nutella currently holds 54 per cent of the global chocolate spread market and has faced little real competition.

However, industry sources have told Reuters Barilla will challenge Nutella after Ferrero began signalling plans to encroach on Barilla’s biscuit territory.

According to sources, Ferrero wants to launch a Nutella-filled biscuit.

“Crema Pan di Stelle will increase competition for Nutella in Italy thanks to the considerable brand awareness it has among domestic customers, but Barilla will find it difficult to take the challenge abroad,” Marco Eccheli, director at the Italian unit of consulting firm AlixPartners told Reuters.

The spread is also said to be free of palm oil – Nutella’s social and environmental Achilles’ heel and will contain cookie crumbles to make it crunchy.

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