Juicy Post: All Hail Francesco Rivella

Missed Opportunities

I have a bone to pick with The New York Times. Well, actually, the bone-picking list is pretty long, but this one stands out in my Collection of NYT’s Missed Journalistic Opportunities. As a subscriber to the Venerable Old Lady of Newsprint for what feels like an eternity, I eventually switched to the less venerable digital version—mostly to lighten the burden of my Sunday recycling bin. Another person sharing the same living space has deeply resented this decision. He insists that the way he reads the paper has been irrevocably altered—and not for the better. I suspect he occasionally buys The Financial Times at a magazine kiosk here just to experience the comfort of newsprint between his thumb and forefinger.

One of his treasured Sunday rituals was a dramatic reading of select obituaries. The Times obituary team has a knack for unearthing fascinating lives—often of those who played quiet but outsized roles on the world stage or shaped some corner of American culture.

To that point, I remember that my sister-in-law once invited us to dinner at her home (she had the most amazing connections) with the chief obituary writer for The Washington Post. He admitted to a pang of jealousy over the Times obituary team, lamenting that his own editors preferred to focus on the duly noted famous and the regionally less famous. He was often reminded that The Washington Post was, at its core, a local newspaper and thus owed its readers a record of the DMV’s dearly departed. Obviously, times have changed.

A Breakfast Saint 

Which brings me to this particular missed opportunity by the Venerable Lady of Newsprint: on February 14, 2025, at the age of 97, Francesco Rivella died. This man, both chocolatier and chemist, gifted the world with Nutella. Just to understand the magnitude of this—somewhere on Earth, a jar of Nutella is sold every 2.5 seconds (or 24 jars per minute). This Italian spread accounts for a full quarter of the world’s hazelnut supply. Having personally observed Italians slathering this unctuous mixture on just about any edible surface, I assumed they were the top consumers. Wrong. The French hold that distinction. On a global scale  (not just in France) over 365,000 tons  are sold annually.

The U.S. was late to the Nutella party. Although it appeared on some grocery shelves in the mid-1980s, it didn’t gain real popularity until the early 2000s. And, as I am always suspicious of the artificial and chemical additives snuck into U.S. versions of European foods, I was surprised to find that the ingredient list is nearly identical on both sides of the Atlantic: sugar, palm oil, hazelnuts, skim milk, cocoa, lecithin, and vanillin (yes, that last one is an artificial flavor). However, the U.S. version—manufactured in Canada—tastes noticeably sweeter and less cocoa-forward. Unlike the Italian version, it doesn’t list ingredient percentages. But it does feature the rather silly announcement that a 13oz jar contains the equivalent of 50 hazelnuts.

Ironically, the celebration of World Nutella Day (February 5) was started not by an Italian, but by an American blogger, Sara Rosso, in 2007. It became a social media sensation—and then Nutella manufacturer Ferrero noticed. Their response? A cease-and-desist order. Rosso ultimately transferred the rights to the company, but one might argue they could have handled that with a bit more dolcezza.

While the name Ferrero should be familiar as the manufacturer of Nutella, as well as an endless array of Kinder products,  plus Ferrero Rocher, Pocket Coffee, and even Tic-Tacs, the credit for Nutella’s perfect formulation belongs to our Dottore Francesco Rivella. As both a chocolatier and chemist, Rivella refined the problematic Supercrema gianduja—a product developed by Michele Ferrero’s father—into the beloved spread we know today. He traveled the world with Michele Ferrero to study consumer tastes, and how to improve the flavor and texture of  products they encountered on their trips. He  developed Ferrero Rocher and Kinder, and even devised the name “Nutella”—a clever fusion of the English nut and the Italian -ella, as in mozzarella.

And why is the n in Nutella black while the rest of the letters are red? Rivella discovered that there was already a product named Nutella in Italy. To avoid trademark infringement, he kept the n black and colored the remaining letters red. Such a clever, simple and effective solution. No one ever issued a cease-and-desist order. 

I salute you, Dottore Rivella. You ran a chocolate factory that would have been the dream of any would-be Willy Wonka, created a spread that made children eat their bread crusts, and retired to grow fruit trees and play pallapugno. Your life should have been celebrated by the Venerable Lady of Newsprint.