Ferrero (company)

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Ferrero SpA

logo
legal form Società per azioni
founding 1946
Seat Alba , ItalyItalyItaly 
management
  • Lapo Civiletti, CEO
Number of employees 36,372 (2019)
sales EUR 11.4 billion (2019)
Branch Luxury foods
Website www.ferrero.com

The Ferrero SpA is an Italian confectionery company . The group of companies, which consists of 94 companies, operates 31 production sites worldwide and employs around 36,000 people. Ferrero sells its products in over 170 countries.

In the 2019 financial year, the company generated sales of 11.4 billion euros. The company holding company Ferrero International SA is registered as a stock corporation in Luxembourg , but has its operational headquarters in the Piedmontese city ​​of Alba in Italy.

The headquarters of the German branch is in Frankfurt am Main , the production facility in Stadtallendorf, 105 kilometers away . The following remarks refer mainly to Ferrero in Germany.

history

Ferrero International

The first Ferrero pastry shop in Alba

The company was founded in Alba (Italy) in 1946 by the pastry chef Pietro Ferrero senior, who was born in 1898 . Pietro Ferrero is the inventor of Nutella , a nut and nougat cream that the company had been selling in Italy under the name Pasta gianduja since the 1940s . In 1951 Ferrero launched the “Supercrema” recipe, refined by their son Michele Ferrero , on the Italian market.

After Pietro Ferrero's death, his widow, Piera Cillario Ferrero, took over the business for a short time, followed by their son Michele Ferrero. Under his leadership the company achieved world fame. In 1962, Michele married Maria Franca Fissolo. Their son Giovanni Ferrero has been running the company since 1997, until 2011 together with his brother Pietro Ferrero junior , who died in April 2011 in a bicycle accident in South Africa. The Ferrero Group is now family-run in the third generation and is entirely family-owned.

In 1984 Ferrero entered the Chinese market with Ferrero Asia Limited . Today Ferrero is also active in Eastern Europe, the United States, South America and the Far East. The company aroused great media interest when in 2000 it wanted to prevent others from using the domain name “kinder.at” with a view to its own brand Kinder-Schokolade . In court it was unsuccessful in all instances.

In the summer of 2014, Ferrero took over the largest Turkish hazelnut processor Oltan at an undisclosed price in order to secure the long-term supply of the ingredient contained in many of its products. The EU Commission approved the takeover in September 2014. In 2016, Ferrero took over the Belgian biscuit manufacturer Delacre from the Yıldız subsidiary United Biscuits .

In January 2018, Ferrero acquired Nestlé's U.S. confectionery business for $ 2.8 billion. These include the national brands Butterfinger , Crunch, BabyRuth, 100Grand, Raisinets, Chunky, OhHenry! and SnoCaps as well as regional brands such as MSweeTarts, LaffyTaffy, Nerds, FunDip, PixyStix, Gobstopper, BottleCaps, Spree and Runts.

Ferrero Germany

Plant in Stadtallendorf

Ferrero Germany was founded in September 1956 in Stadtallendorf . First the Ferrero oHG operated under the name Assia GmbH (Assia is Italian for Hessen ). Initially, the German Ferrero had five employees: an engineer from Turin , a German secretary and three workers from the parent plant in Alba. Initially, only the Cremalba product was produced and sold in 200 g cups. Six months later, Ferrero Germany had over 60 employees, by the end of 1957 already 150. In the same year, the factory in Stadtallendorf achieved the production targets set. The administrative headquarters were later moved to Frankfurt am Main after the originally selected city of Marburg , which was closer to the production site, did not want to provide sufficient commercial space in order not to jeopardize its character as a university city with another larger company, the Behringwerke .

The Mon Chéri cherry praline helped Ferrero achieve its final breakthrough on the (West) German confectionery market. As early as 1957, Ferrero was producing around 9,000 kg of Mon Chéri a day. A year later production was increased to 20,000 kg per day. The term “ Piedmont cherry” is a pure invention of the advertising department. "Piedmont" is based on the region of origin of the Ferrero family. A cherry variety with this name does not exist. A large part of the cherries used comes from the Ortenau region (as of 2008).

Today Ferrero employs 3,600 people in Germany, the vast majority (around 3,400) work at the Stadtallendorf site. In addition, there are several thousand seasonal workers, for example for Easter or Christmas production.

Party donation affair of the Hessian CDU

In the course of the affair of incorrect accountability reports by the Hessian CDU , it became known that the CDU regional association had regularly received donations from Ferrero since the 1980s, but had not booked them. According to the Bundestag , the donations add up to a total of 255,646 euros . They did not appear in the CDU statement of accounts. The then President of the Bundestag Wolfgang Thierse ( SPD ) therefore imposed a fine of 511,000 euros on the Hessian CDU.

As the auditing office of the Marburg-Biedenkopf district found in 2000, the company had paid too low trade tax prepayments for its plant in Stadtallendorf, Hesse, for years . While the auditors considered advance payments of DM 40.2 million each to be appropriate for 1993 and 1994 , the financial administration of the CDU-governed municipality only set DM 6.8 million. For the years 1994 to 1996 Ferrero therefore had to pay additional business tax of 52 million DM. The interest profits, which Ferrero earned through the low advance payments, are estimated at 13 million DM.

Trademark litigation over children

Kinder chocolate

In the future, Ferrero will also have to accept products from other manufacturers with children in their name . On September 20, 2007, the German Federal Court of Justice in Karlsruhe dismissed Ferrero's lawsuit, which was supposed to prohibit its competitor Haribo from using the product name Kinder Kram . The court ruled that the term children alone is not subject to trademark protection, as it only names the target group of these products.

criticism

The Albert Schweitzer Foundation for our contemporary world has revealed on its website "Kaefigfrei" that Ferrero eggs from non-species-appropriate caging used. After more than 6,000 signatures had been collected online and intensive discussions had been held with the manufacturer, Ferrero announced in 2010 that it would dispense with eggs from any form of cage from the end of 2012, i.e. both eggs from the beginning of 2012 in the European Union forbidden conventional cage keeping as well as eggs from the still allowed there in so-called designed cages.

The consumer organization Foodwatch criticizes that the manufacturer of the milk slices creates the impression in advertising campaigns that the product is health-promoting due to the milk content and an alternative to the lunch break . However, at 60%, the product contains relatively more fat and sugar than a cream cake. In the internet vote for the organization's golden cream puff for the advertising lie of 2011, consumers placed Ferrero's milk wafers in first place. Around 43% of the participants considered the advertising of the milk product as a light snack to be the most brazen case of fraudulent labeling . Foodwatch Ferrero accused a similar deception in 2010 for Yogurette , which consists of 36 percent fat and, contrary to what is suggested in the advertising, is a high-energy sweet.

In the 1990s Ferrero was criticized when consumer centers in Milchschnitte, Kinder Pingui, Kinder Bueno and Kinder Maxi King found alcohol. This is problematic, since children get used to the taste of alcohol by consuming these sweets and this could possibly lower the inhibition threshold for trying out "real" alcohol. Ferrero responded to the criticism and says it has not used alcohol as an additive in its products since mid-2000.

Like other cocoa companies, Ferrero is also suspected of tolerating exploitation and child labor in its cocoa and hazelnut production chain. Ferrero states that in 2009/2010 10% of the cocoa used will come from traceable, sustainable cultivation. In the 2011 broadcast of Ferrero Check by the broadcaster WDR , Ferrero was certified as having “insufficient” fairness. Ferrero did not have a single product on the market that could be labeled as fair , unlike its competitor Mars Incorporated .

Products

Mon Chéri
Milk Slices
Nutella
Kinder Bueno
Surprise egg

Ferrero is the umbrella brand for a range of individual brands and brand families.

Children (word mark) logo.svg

Production facilities

Web links

Commons : Ferrero  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d ferrero.com - Key Figures
  2. ↑ ferrero.de
  3. ↑ Ferrero - Corporate News , July 16, 2014
  4. ↑ Ingredient assurance: Ferrero buys Turkish hazelnut prime . Handelsblatt , July 17, 2014
  5. ↑ Ferrero is allowed to take over the Turkish hazelnut specialist Oltan , NZZ.ch
  6. ^ Nestlé agrees to sell US confectionery business to Ferrero
  7. ↑ Ferrero is defeated in the dispute over the brand "children" Trademark law: judgment at the BGH. In: Hamburger Abendblatt . September 20, 2007, accessed June 15, 2011 .
  8. ↑ Ferrero does not use cage eggs. (No longer available online.) In: kaefigfrei.de. Albert Schweitzer Foundation for Our Environment , September 9, 2010, archived from the original on August 7, 2011 ; Retrieved June 14, 2011 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.kaefigfrei.de
  9. ↑ Press release from Foodwatch. (PDF; 79 kB) Archived from the original on June 17, 2012 ; Retrieved April 29, 2011 .
  10. ↑ "Milch-Schnitte" is "Advertising Lie of the Year". In: tagesschau.de . Archived from the original on February 25, 2012 ; Retrieved June 17, 2011 .
  11. ↑ How Ferrero Reacts. From clumsy deception to shrewd manipulation. In: Foodwatch . September 8, 2012, accessed March 29, 2013 .
  12. ↑ http://www.foodwatch.org/de/presse/pressemitteilungen/verbindungenertaeuschung-yogurette-foodwatch-stell-ersten-kandidaten-fuer-goldenen-windpaket-2010-auf-abgespeistde-vor/
  13. ↑ Children's products now without alcohol! ( Memento of the original from June 27, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.konsumernews.de
  14. ↑ Consumer Protection Center: Alcohol in Confectionery ( Memento of the original from October 23, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.lebensmittelklarheit.de
  15. ↑ Report / documentation by Miki Mistrati on behalf of NDR , 43:23 minutes, German first broadcast on October 6, 2010 in Das Erste : Schmutzige Schokolade . ( Memento of the original from July 18, 2012 in the web archive archive.today ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. on ardmediathek.de (Position: 40: 02–41: 30) @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.ardmediathek.de
  16. ↑ a b Ferrero-Check ( Memento from January 13, 2012 in the Internet Archive )
  17. ↑ Ferrero Second Corporate Social Responsibility Report 2009/2010 ( Memento of September 24, 2011 in the Internet Archive ), p. 65.
  18. ↑ Brand overview of Ferrero OHG mbH ( Memento of the original from August 19, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / de.trademarks.directory
  19. ↑ Brand overview of Ferrero SpA ( Memento of the original from August 19, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / de.trademarks.directory
  20. ↑ Kinder chocolate receipts. In: www.kinderschokobons.de. Retrieved November 7, 2016 .