Ferrero launches the challenge to Mulino Bianco (Barilla) entering the biscuit market with a straight leg. It took 10 years of testing, 150 hires and 120 million investments, but the result finally arrived. On November 4th, i Nutella Biscuits, wheat biscuits and cane sugar, filled with 6 grams of hazelnut cream, the most famous and loved in the world.
“We expect Nutella Biscuits to become the best-selling biscuit in Italy, the first reference in a market worth around 1,2 billion, with a sell-out share of between 5 and 8% and a turnover of between 70 and 90 million within the first 12 months, with over 25 million bags sold which will enter 7 million families", said Alessandro d'Este, president and CEO of Ferrero Italy.
We are talking about very high estimates, if we take into account that usually a new product that achieves success manages to obtain around 15 million euros in the year of its debut. But the precedents travel in favor of Ferrero. In France, where Nutella Biscuits have already been available since April, the product has already seen sales “three times higher than the former number one”, says d'Este, while the Nutella B-ready, the wafers filled with hazelnut cream that went on the market in 2015, have reached 35 million sales.
Therefore, if Barilla with its Pan di Stelle cream (which arrived on the shelves in January 2019), has chosen to compete with Ferrero in the spreadable cream market, where Nutella alone controls over 53% of the turnover, the company of Alba has decided to make pan for focaccia, landing in the biscuit market which in Italy represents 20% of the packaged sweets market and it is also the most profitable in the entire industry.
To do this, the Turin giant has prepared well. Not only by equipping the Balvario plant (Basilicata), where Nutella Biscuits are produced, with cutting-edge technologies characterized by an artificial intelligence system, but also by carrying out a massive international acquisition campaign since 2016: the Belgian Delacré , Nestlé sweets and Kellogg biscuits in the USA, the historic Danish biscuit company Royal Danks.
