Ferrero, I would argue, might just be the most overlooked consumer food company in the United States. Most of us recognize that name from the iconic Ferrero Rocher chocolate candies—you know, the round ones wrapped in gold foil that always seem to pop up around Christmas time each year. When I was younger, those commercials made me think that it was one of the classiest foods that you could possibly consume, with that pyramid of them being passed around at a fancy party.
Those are, in fact, an original creation of the Ferrero Company. Introduced in the 1980s, they came decades after the company was already well-established. Ferrero started out in the 1940s as a modest bakery in a small town called Alba, in the Piedmont region of Italy, and has since grown into the third-largest confectionery company in the world.
Right now, I just want you to stop and think for a second about any brand that you might associate with Ferrero—maybe something you heard about in the news or saw in a grocery store. Well, looking at that list you constructed, you might be surprised to hear that Ferrero Group has annual sales of over $20 billion, stemming from dozens of recognizable brands that you may not realize are made by Ferrero, given the fact that the vast majority of them do not use that word in their name.
So, for this article, my goal is to help you understand the extent of this company by outlining some of the more popular brands that are associated with it.
From the beginning, Ferrero has been owned and operated by members of the Ferrero family, with probably the most significant member being Michele Ferrero. He has commonly been referred to as the real-life Willy Wonka, and I cannot imagine any other living person has ever been more like that character. He was always extremely secretive when it came to the ingredients, the recipes, and the processes used to make the products. He would almost always wear sunglasses in public and almost never agreed to interviews.
His father was the one who started that bakery and jump-started the company, but it was still mostly a local operation contained entirely within Italy when Michele took it over at 24 years old after his father’s passing in 1949.
Following World War II, the price of chocolate in Italy was through the roof, to a point where most people could not afford it and would only eat it for special occasions. So, Ferrero started selling this chocolatey hazelnut paste that was much more affordable because the expensive chocolate was mixed with cheaper hazelnuts. It was really thick and dense and sold as a loaf that people would have to cut with a knife, but because it was one of the most affordable ways for the people of Italy to eat chocolate, they sold 660 pounds of it within that first year.
I think it’s interesting that stores in the area would encourage kids to come in with a plain piece of bread so they could add the spread to it for them.
In the years following his father’s death, Michele altered the recipe multiple times—first by making it creamier and therefore more spreadable, then by adding palm oil, until ultimately transforming it into the product of Nutella that we all know today.
Soon after its formal introduction in Italy in 1964, it was sold internationally, starting with Germany and then France, before finally reaching the United States in the 1980s. As of 2007, there’s a World Nutella Day promoted by the company, helping its popularity in the U.S., and there have been countless other products that have utilized the brand, such as Nutella & Go, introduced in 2012.
Today, Ferrero produces over 700 million pounds of Nutella each year. However, it only accounts for an estimated 20% of the company’s total sales. I think this whole story is impressive because it is not incredibly common for a massive brand like this to still be owned by the company that created it over 60 years later.
Another massive brand created by Ferrero is Kinder, the chocolate introduced in 1968 specifically intended for children, with the word “Kinder” meaning children in German. Six years later, they were inspired by Italian Easter traditions when they introduced Kinder Surprise, a chocolate egg with a surprise toy inside.
However, this product is legally not available in the United States, stemming back to an act that was passed in the 1930s that essentially bans non-food products from being placed within food products. But in 2018, they did introduce Kinder Joy in the United States, a somewhat similar product, except the candy and the toy are separated into two different halves.
Today, Kinder claims to be the second-largest chocolate brand in the world, sold in almost every country.
Yet another brand created by Ferrero that you might not expect is Tic Tac. In 1969, it was actually the first product they ever sold in the United States, starting off with the classic mint flavor before introducing orange five years later, followed by all sorts of others.
I think we can all agree that it is by far the noisiest mint rattling around in that container. It is even named after that noise that it makes. Personally, it always reminds me of that Seinfeld episode where everyone at Elaine’s office is annoyed by the sound of that guy walking around with them. And I think that helps prove that the one-and-a-half calorie mint has made its way into American culture, being featured prominently in various TV shows and movies.
Now, already we can see that Michele Ferrero was able to lead this company into an international sensation through a variety of original creations: a hazelnut cocoa spread, a mint, and two separate brands of chocolates for kids and adults.
In 2015, Michele Ferrero passed away at 89 years old. Oddly enough, it was on Valentine’s Day. According to Forbes, his net worth at the time was $26.5 billion, making him the richest person in Italy and the 22nd richest person in the world.
He had already given up control of the company to his two sons in the 1990s, one of whom passed away in a bicycle accident in 2011. But Michele always had a major influence over decision-making.
At this point in the article, it is probably clear that he much preferred creating and developing his own brands as opposed to purchasing already-established ones, proven by the fact that throughout his lifetime, Ferrero never made any major brand acquisitions.
The closest he came was expressing interest in purchasing the British candy company Cadbury in 2009, but he ultimately decided against even placing a bid because it would have required putting his company into too much debt. And we can understand where he’s coming from, because Cadbury was acquired by Kraft a few months later for almost $20 billion.
Only a few months after he died, Ferrero made their first major brand acquisition when they bought a different British chocolate maker called Thornton’s for $177 million. Even though that price was less than 1% of what it would have cost to buy Cadbury, it represented a change in strategy.
This was the first of eight major acquisitions Ferrero has made in the decade following Michele’s passing that have more than doubled the company’s revenue over that time.
In 2017, they spent $115 million to buy the American chocolate maker Fannie May. That also included 79 Fannie May retail stores throughout the Chicagoland area. At the time of that deal, the head of Ferrero said, “The United States represents an important market with high growth potential for Ferrero, and we are excited to support the development of a great American brand.”
Truthfully, that exact statement could apply perfectly to the rest of the acquisitions on my list. Their pattern has been to seek out well-known, well-established American brands that are not necessarily growing, but can provide stable, consistent sales.
Later in that same year—though it is a bit confusing to say—Ferrero acquired Ferrara, another American candy company that specializes in non-chocolate confections, with brands like Brach’s, Trolli Gummy Worms, and my personal favorite, Lemonheads.
The following year, they made a considerably larger acquisition when they spent $2.8 billion to buy the U.S. candy business from Nestlé. This included some of the most popular chocolate brands like Butterfinger and Crunch, along with non-chocolate candies like Nerds and Laffy Taffy. Ironically, this deal also included the brand Wonka, which is fitting given that Michele Ferrero was often compared to Willy Wonka.
This acquisition made Ferrero the third-largest chocolate company in the United States and in the world. Shortly after, it was big news when they altered the Butterfinger recipe, showing they were trying to reignite some of these older brands that people may have forgotten about.
Next on the list, in 2019, they bought Keebler for $1.3 billion. Eighteen years earlier, Kellogg had bought it for three times as much. So once again, this was a well-known brand that was not exactly growing. Aside from all of the Keebler cookies and pie crusts you would expect, the deal also included the cookie brand Famous Amos, and all of those newly added brands combined for $900 million in sales the previous year.
Continuing on, in 2022, Ferrero acquired Wells Enterprises, moving even further outside of what you might expect. Wells was the country’s largest family-owned and managed ice cream maker from Iowa, producing over 200 million gallons of ice cream each year. Some of the brands included in this deal were Blue Bunny, Bomb Pop, and Halo Top.
The following year, they acquired Jelly Belly, which produces about 15 billion jelly beans each year. Between the Kinder brand, Brach’s, and now Jelly Belly, Ferrero is really making their presence known during Easter.
After all of this, believe it or not, Ferrero’s biggest acquisition happened in 2025, when they bought WK Kellogg for $3.1 billion.
For some background, Kellogg is the company most of us know for classic breakfast cereals like Froot Loops, Rice Krispies, and Frosted Flakes. Over time, they expanded into a much more diverse food company that included snack brands like Cheez-It and Pringles.
In 2023, Kellogg split into a snack company and a cereal company. In 2024, competing candy company Mars acquired the snack company, and then the following year, Ferrero acquired the cereal company—meaning Ferrero now possesses all of those iconic cereal brands.
Looking back at this list, we can see how Ferrero has been aggressively expanding into the U.S. market while also moving into new categories that are getting further and further away from chocolates and confections, which had defined them for so long.
Let me know in the comments what you think about Ferrero. Do you agree with their shift in strategy and their push to grow a bigger presence in the U.S., or do you think they’re moving a little too fast and too far outside their comfort zone? I have to think that Michele Ferrero would probably be handling things a little differently if he were still around.
Right now, I just want you to stop and think for a second about any brand that you might associate with Ferrero—maybe something you heard about in the news or saw in a grocery store. Well, looking at that list you constructed, you might be surprised to hear that Ferrero Group has annual sales of over $20 billion, stemming from dozens of recognizable brands that you may not realize are made by Ferrero, given the fact that the vast majority of them do not use that word in their name.
So, for this article, my goal is to help you understand the extent of this company by outlining some of the more popular brands that are associated with it.
From the beginning, Ferrero has been owned and operated by members of the Ferrero family, with probably the most significant member being Michele Ferrero. He has commonly been referred to as the real-life Willy Wonka, and I cannot imagine any other living person has ever been more like that character. He was always extremely secretive when it came to the ingredients, the recipes, and the processes used to make the products. He would almost always wear sunglasses in public and almost never agreed to interviews.
His father was the one who started that bakery and jump-started the company, but it was still mostly a local operation contained entirely within Italy when Michele took it over at 24 years old after his father’s passing in 1949.
Following World War II, the price of chocolate in Italy was through the roof, to a point where most people could not afford it and would only eat it for special occasions. So, Ferrero started selling this chocolatey hazelnut paste that was much more affordable because the expensive chocolate was mixed with cheaper hazelnuts. It was really thick and dense and sold as a loaf that people would have to cut with a knife, but because it was one of the most affordable ways for the people of Italy to eat chocolate, they sold 660 pounds of it within that first year.
I think it’s interesting that stores in the area would encourage kids to come in with a plain piece of bread so they could add the spread to it for them.
In the years following his father’s death, Michele altered the recipe multiple times—first by making it creamier and therefore more spreadable, then by adding palm oil, until ultimately transforming it into the product of Nutella that we all know today.
Soon after its formal introduction in Italy in 1964, it was sold internationally, starting with Germany and then France, before finally reaching the United States in the 1980s. As of 2007, there’s a World Nutella Day promoted by the company, helping its popularity in the U.S., and there have been countless other products that have utilized the brand, such as Nutella & Go, introduced in 2012.
Today, Ferrero produces over 700 million pounds of Nutella each year. However, it only accounts for an estimated 20% of the company’s total sales. I think this whole story is impressive because it is not incredibly common for a massive brand like this to still be owned by the company that created it over 60 years later.
Another massive brand created by Ferrero is Kinder, the chocolate introduced in 1968 specifically intended for children, with the word “Kinder” meaning children in German. Six years later, they were inspired by Italian Easter traditions when they introduced Kinder Surprise, a chocolate egg with a surprise toy inside.
However, this product is legally not available in the United States, stemming back to an act that was passed in the 1930s that essentially bans non-food products from being placed within food products. But in 2018, they did introduce Kinder Joy in the United States, a somewhat similar product, except the candy and the toy are separated into two different halves.
Today, Kinder claims to be the second-largest chocolate brand in the world, sold in almost every country.
Yet another brand created by Ferrero that you might not expect is Tic Tac. In 1969, it was actually the first product they ever sold in the United States, starting off with the classic mint flavor before introducing orange five years later, followed by all sorts of others.
I think we can all agree that it is by far the noisiest mint rattling around in that container. It is even named after that noise that it makes. Personally, it always reminds me of that Seinfeld episode where everyone at Elaine’s office is annoyed by the sound of that guy walking around with them. And I think that helps prove that the one-and-a-half calorie mint has made its way into American culture, being featured prominently in various TV shows and movies.
Now, already we can see that Michele Ferrero was able to lead this company into an international sensation through a variety of original creations: a hazelnut cocoa spread, a mint, and two separate brands of chocolates for kids and adults.
In 2015, Michele Ferrero passed away at 89 years old. Oddly enough, it was on Valentine’s Day. According to Forbes, his net worth at the time was $26.5 billion, making him the richest person in Italy and the 22nd richest person in the world.
He had already given up control of the company to his two sons in the 1990s, one of whom passed away in a bicycle accident in 2011. But Michele always had a major influence over decision-making.
At this point in the article, it is probably clear that he much preferred creating and developing his own brands as opposed to purchasing already-established ones, proven by the fact that throughout his lifetime, Ferrero never made any major brand acquisitions.
The closest he came was expressing interest in purchasing the British candy company Cadbury in 2009, but he ultimately decided against even placing a bid because it would have required putting his company into too much debt. And we can understand where he’s coming from, because Cadbury was acquired by Kraft a few months later for almost $20 billion.
Only a few months after he died, Ferrero made their first major brand acquisition when they bought a different British chocolate maker called Thornton’s for $177 million. Even though that price was less than 1% of what it would have cost to buy Cadbury, it represented a change in strategy.
This was the first of eight major acquisitions Ferrero has made in the decade following Michele’s passing that have more than doubled the company’s revenue over that time.
In 2017, they spent $115 million to buy the American chocolate maker Fannie May. That also included 79 Fannie May retail stores throughout the Chicagoland area. At the time of that deal, the head of Ferrero said, “The United States represents an important market with high growth potential for Ferrero, and we are excited to support the development of a great American brand.”
Truthfully, that exact statement could apply perfectly to the rest of the acquisitions on my list. Their pattern has been to seek out well-known, well-established American brands that are not necessarily growing, but can provide stable, consistent sales.
Later in that same year—though it is a bit confusing to say—Ferrero acquired Ferrara, another American candy company that specializes in non-chocolate confections, with brands like Brach’s, Trolli Gummy Worms, and my personal favorite, Lemonheads.
The following year, they made a considerably larger acquisition when they spent $2.8 billion to buy the U.S. candy business from Nestlé. This included some of the most popular chocolate brands like Butterfinger and Crunch, along with non-chocolate candies like Nerds and Laffy Taffy. Ironically, this deal also included the brand Wonka, which is fitting given that Michele Ferrero was often compared to Willy Wonka.
This acquisition made Ferrero the third-largest chocolate company in the United States and in the world. Shortly after, it was big news when they altered the Butterfinger recipe, showing they were trying to reignite some of these older brands that people may have forgotten about.
Next on the list, in 2019, they bought Keebler for $1.3 billion. Eighteen years earlier, Kellogg had bought it for three times as much. So once again, this was a well-known brand that was not exactly growing. Aside from all of the Keebler cookies and pie crusts you would expect, the deal also included the cookie brand Famous Amos, and all of those newly added brands combined for $900 million in sales the previous year.
Continuing on, in 2022, Ferrero acquired Wells Enterprises, moving even further outside of what you might expect. Wells was the country’s largest family-owned and managed ice cream maker from Iowa, producing over 200 million gallons of ice cream each year. Some of the brands included in this deal were Blue Bunny, Bomb Pop, and Halo Top.
The following year, they acquired Jelly Belly, which produces about 15 billion jelly beans each year. Between the Kinder brand, Brach’s, and now Jelly Belly, Ferrero is really making their presence known during Easter.
After all of this, believe it or not, Ferrero’s biggest acquisition happened in 2025, when they bought WK Kellogg for $3.1 billion.
For some background, Kellogg is the company most of us know for classic breakfast cereals like Froot Loops, Rice Krispies, and Frosted Flakes. Over time, they expanded into a much more diverse food company that included snack brands like Cheez-It and Pringles.
In 2023, Kellogg split into a snack company and a cereal company. In 2024, competing candy company Mars acquired the snack company, and then the following year, Ferrero acquired the cereal company—meaning Ferrero now possesses all of those iconic cereal brands.
Looking back at this list, we can see how Ferrero has been aggressively expanding into the U.S. market while also moving into new categories that are getting further and further away from chocolates and confections, which had defined them for so long.
Let me know in the comments what you think about Ferrero. Do you agree with their shift in strategy and their push to grow a bigger presence in the U.S., or do you think they’re moving a little too fast and too far outside their comfort zone? I have to think that Michele Ferrero would probably be handling things a little differently if he were still around.