ESM: European Supermarket Magazine is proud to launch 'The A-Z of Retail', a new subscriber-only series that offers a deep analysis of the retailers, suppliers and individuals making the news each week. Today: N is for Nutella
Today, 5 February, is World Nutella Day, which parent company Ferrero describes as a day for individuals to 'celebrate their passion for Nutella on social media through photos, recipes and messages'.
But as recent events in France have illustrated, even consumers' love for this hazelnut chocolate spread can sometimes go too far.
The French retailer Intermarché didn’t know what it had bargained for when it slashed the price of Nutella’s 950g jars from €4.50 down to €1.41, a 70% discount. Footage of what followed shocked many viewers online around the world, as consumers engaged in scenes reminiscent of Black Friday in the US.
During what was dubbed the 'Nutella Riots', shaky mobile phone footage showed customers pouring into stores and scrambling for much of the sweet spread as they could carry.
Fights broke out over the coveted jars, with punches thrown and hair pulled, according to witnesses at the scene.
Serieux ??!! Tout ça pour du Nutella ?! ? #Emeute #Nutella pic.twitter.com/UoNTmK78eE
— •KENNY LE BON• (@kennyLebon) January 25, 2018
“They are like animals,” a customer said. “One woman had her hair pulled. An elderly lady took a box on her head. Another had a bloody hand.”
Nutella’s Italian parent company Ferrero rushed to distance itself from the event by blaming Intermarché for a move that the retailer had taken “unilaterally”.
Even president Emmanuel Macron has got involved in the debate, with his government presenting measures last week to curb such supermarket price wars.
France, which is known for its strict consumer code has also opened a government investigation into whether the Nutella promotion broke the country's trading laws.
Voulez-Vous Fast Food?
The Nutella kerfuffle left many French soul searching, because it revealed the inconvenient truth that the country of haute cuisine was just as susceptible to peak consumerism as any other Western nation.
“These [scenes] are unusual in France, except when there’s a particularly exceptional sale, and more [along the lines of] what we see in developing countries or where there’s a regular shortage of essential products,” French anthropologist and specialist in customer behaviour, Sophie Chevalier told Le Parisien.
“Would there be the same reaction to jars of pickles? Certainly not. It’s a question of the kind of product that explains this. Nutella is pure pleasure for children and to offer it at a bargain price obviously attracts lots of customers.”
Consumer Connection
Not many brands have been able to craft such strong connections with consumers such as Nutella has. The spread has been a favourite among consumers with over 300 million kgs consumed around the world each year.
It was created by the Italian Ferrero family in the 1940s as an affordable sweet spread at a time when chocolate was rationed in the aftermath of the Second World War.
When it was introduced to France in the 1960s it became an instant staple, with half of French families having it on their breakfast tables.
More recently, it has become a subject of internet obsession - World Nutella Day was actually created by an American blogger Sara Rosso, in 2007.
Last year, customers showed how much the spread means to them when they took umbrage with Nutella’s recent fine tuning of its recipe by adding more sugar and powdered milk
The move sparked large-scale disapproval among fans - particularly on social media - who effectively asked, why fix something that’s not broken?
Ferrero said that the ‘minor change’ was due to the replacement of serum milk with more powdered milk, without any modifications to quality, nutritional value, or taste.
Then, as now, Nutella was in the spotlight - although perhaps not for reasons it intended. Today, World Nutella Day, Ferrero has the opportunity to turn the page and put a more positive spin on this much-loved brand.
© 2018 European Supermarket Magazine – your source for the latest retail news. Article by Kevin Duggan. Click subscribe to sign up to ESM: The European Supermarket Magazine.
