For ten years, the spiritual father of Nutella searched for the perfect hazelnut pasta, in the perfect pot

It is never too late to thank Napoleon for all the goodies that we would have missed without his blockage of the British sea trade. It made cocoa, main component of chocolate, so expensive that the Cioccolatieri From Turin, lending their mixtures with a pasta of hazelnuts. It owned Italy in abundance itself.

Gianduia-They were called, to a carnival figure from Hazelnotenwalhalla Piemonte. And because hazelnut oil is liquid at room temperature, they are slightly softer than chocolate bars. In retrospect, it is a miracle that it took a century and a half before someone thought it was even more creamy, as in spreadable Seamy, but since 1964 a world without Nutella has become unthinkable.

The man who came up with the name and Nutella Wereldfaam – because Supercrema Gianduia was not tasty – died. Francesco Rivella became 97 and died appropriately on Valentine’s Day, the day on which loved ones not only give each other flowers but also also chocolate.

Rivella was 25 and just graduated in bromatology, who studies chemist and physical properties of food, when he joined Ferrero in 1952. That was then a small chocolate factory in Alba, just south of Turin, led by Michele Ferrero who had taken over from his father shortly before. It clicked between the bromatologist and the businessman. Together Rivella and Ferrero started their search for the perfect hazelnut chocolate pasta and the perfect glass jar as packaging, which would last ten years.

Of every ten hazelnuts, four worldwide disappear into one of the ten Nutella factories

As head of food technology, Rivella would also be at the cradle of Mon Chéri, Ferrero Rocher, Tic TAC-Pepermintjes and the children’s Surprise sweets series. But Nutella was the starting signal with which Ferrero would reach the top five chocolate and candy companies in the world. And Nutella helped Michele to make the richest man in Italy with a capacity of more than 25 billion euros.

Inscerable hunger for Nutella

Of every ten hazelnuts, four worldwide disappear in one of the ten Nutella factories on four continents, which together produced 350 million kilos of pasta in 2013. In a pot of Nutella, the hazelnut with a share of 13 percent is in the minority.

Nutella is one Superprocessed Foodaimed at instant satisfaction of the happiness receptors. The pasta consists of more than half of sugar and palm oil, and also contains milk powder, cocoa, the flavor of vanillin and lecithin, a so -called emulsifier that can let fats and liquids mixed together. In the US – to which Ferrero did not venture the jump until 1983 – and Australia the latter ingredient came from soy. Bietsuiker is used in Europe, elderly cane sugar.

The brand also became controversial, due to the massive use of palm oil, for which the world is cut. And there are worry about the intensive use of poison On the Hazel-monocultures that have to satisfy the insatiable hunger for Nutella in Piedmonte and Lazio. And Nutella has become synonymous with uniform mass tourism in a globalized world. For a waffle with Nutella, ten years ago in Amsterdam formed the first of what you would now call a Tiktok row.

Rivella had been retired for years, although he remained a pattern of the guild of the chemists in Piedmont until his death. He devoted himself to the cultivation of fruits and cared for the maintenance of the Piemontese sport pallapugnoliterally ‘fist’, a handball game with antique carrots. Michele Ferrero, with whom Rivella was connected for life, died exactly ten years earlier, also on Valentine’s Day.

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