I’m two weeks late to it but February 5th was officially World Nutella Day.
I know: We need to detoxify the media – and our fellow Americans – from their addictive notion that Italian culture simply means “something edible.”
But, just as African Americans are rightly celebrated for their innate talents in music and dance, why not celebrate the Italians’ genius for food?
Like pizza and tiramisu, Nutella is now becoming a staple in the “American” diet. But how much do we know about this creamy spread?
I found this on-line article by Alexis Ty that tells you everything you wanted to know about Nutella but were afraid to ask. Enjoy!
12 Crazy Facts You May Not Know About The Spread By Alexis Ty
World Nutella Day is a holiday started in 2007 by blogger and Nutella super-fan Sara Rosso for fellow fans around the world to come together and celebrate the delicious spread.
Celebrated every Feb. 5, World Nutella Day lets fans from around the world share photos, recipes and messages declaring their love for Nutella.
To mark World Nutella Day, here are 12 facts about Nutella that you may not know about the hazelnut and cocoa cream.
1. Introduced only in 1964, the chocolate filling became popular worldwide shortly after Michele Ferrero tweaked the recipe of his father and Italian pastry maker Pietro Ferrero’s Supercrema Gianduja and renamed it “Nutella” with the intention of marketing it across Europe.
2. Pietro Ferrero originally made his chocolate-hazelnut paste, called the Giandujot, in the shape of a loaf that was meant to be sliced and spread on bread, according to the Nutella website.
3. Nutella-maker Ferrero uses about a quarter of the world’s hazelnut supply every year – equating to about 100,000 tons, NPR reported. It is also said that the Alba, Italy-based company’s hazelnut supply could fill the Roman Colosseum. Now that is a lot of hazelnuts.
4. In every 14-ounce jar of Nutella, there is an average of 52 hazelnuts. Advertisements of the spread also noted that hazelnuts make up about 13% of the product.
5. Nutella is now being sold in 160 countries 50 years since its launch in Italy.
6. In a 2012 class-action lawsuit, Ferrero was slammed after advertising Nutella as part of a healthy breakfast. One of the chocolate paste’s main ingredients is sugar.
7. Aside from chocolate brands Ferrero and Kinder, the Ferrero family also owns Tic Tac. The refreshing mints were released in 1969, only a few years after Nutella’s launch.
8. In 2008, Michele Ferrero became Italy’s richest man, with an estimated $11 billion in wealth.
9. Giovanni Ferrero is Ferrero’s chief executive and is the son of Michele Ferrero. His brother, Pietro, shared the title of CEO until his sudden death in 2011.
10. The chocolate spread is in such high demand that the amount of it produced every year weighs as much as, if not more than, the Empire State Building in New York. That would be about 365,000 tons.
11. If you could line up the Great Wall of China eight times, it would equate to the number of Nutella jars sold in a year.
12. Every 2.5 seconds, one Nutella jar gets sold. This means that in 10 minutes, about 240 bottles of Nutella have already been bought.
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