Ferrero launches the challenge with a 120 million Nutella biscuit

With an investment of over 120 million and 150 new hires in Balvano, in Basilicata, after 10 years of testing, Ferrero launches Nutella Biscuits, the new product with which the food group of Alba aims at the primacy of the biscuit market, challenging the Mill Barilla white. We expect Nutella Biscuits to become the best-selling biscuit in Italy, the first reference in a market worth about 1.2 billion, with a share between 5 and 8% at sell-out and a turnover between 70 and 90 millions within the first 12 months, with over 25 million bags sold that will come into 7 million families, says Alessandro d'Este, president and CEO of Ferrero Italy.

a huge amount compared to the 15 million euros that usually a new product, considered a success, generates when entering the market, the manager acknowledges. So much security comes from the fact that we have been working on this cookie for 10 years. Marketing experts teach that the time to market fundamental, but Ferrero does not think so: we must test and retest the product. We never start from the cost, all the attention given to consumers.

Experience in France

In France the bet is already won. Nutella Biscuits launched on the market in April, today the first biscuit from Oltralpe, with sales three times higher than the former number one, says d'Este. Behind the success there is innovation and technology, which is increasingly necessary even in a food product. In Balvano we have created a highly technological and avant-garde line, with a futuristic artificial intelligence system, which includes for example 18 vision systems installed, for a capillary control of product quality. But we also have the largest "picker island" in the world, with over 40 mechanical arms, 7 robots and about 200 engines. It weighs as much as a Boeing 747 and took 8 months to assemble them. It is the most innovative and complex line that Ferrero has created, explains d'Este. And it will become the biscuit factory for all of Europe. But the result of a patent is also the system for assembling the biscuit with a process of synchronization to the millimeter: a short pastry wafer, with wheat flour and cane sugar, which contains nutella inside, closed by another biscuit. A greedy product, which does not go against the trend compared to the healthy push. The market is polarizing towards greedy offers and wellness offers. We look at these two growing segments, aiming to remain in balance between taste and well-being.

The change in strategy

After expanding abroad, accelerated through 4 major operations in the last 3 years (Delacre biscuits in Belgium, Nestl sweets and Kellogg's biscuits and snacks in the US and, last July, Royal Dansk and Kjeldsens biscuits in Denmark), acquisitions that served to acquire know-how, the launch of Nutella Biscuits marks another turning point in the strategic evolution of the Alba group, with the large-scale landing in the biscuit world, where Ferrero entered 3 years ago. Our leather change? Companies must grow, so on the one hand we go abroad to conquer new markets, on the other we expand the business to new categories, to the world of ice cream (in partnership), to biscuits and related segments. The goal becomes even bigger, says D'Este. Anticipating that Ferrero will grow further, compared to 10.7 billion in turnover in 2018, of which 1.45 billion in Italy.

And will continue to focus on innovation. We have 4 research and development centers in Italy, Luxembourg, New York and Singapore. In the last 8 years we have invested one billion in plants only in Italy, where we have 4 production poles (Alba, Pozzuolo Martesana, Sant’Angelo dei Lombardi and Balvano), and 600 people dealing with product development.