In 2007, American blogger Sara Rosso, a passionate fan of the world-famous chocolate hazelnuts spread, declared February 5th a holiday to honor Nutella and created the Nutelladay.com website, a place for people to celebrate, swap recipes, and share tales of devotion. Initially, Ferrero, maker of Nutella, did not welcome the initiative, but when it realized how successful it was, things changed.
After the 6th edition of the World Nutella Day, in 2013, the Facebook page of the venture had 40,000 likes. At that point, Ferrero demanded Rosso to shut down Nutelladay.com and cease all activities relating to the product, even if the blogger had been careful to point out that she had no affiliation with the manufacturer writing: “Ferrero S.p.A. is not officially involved with World Nutella Day, nor are the organizers compensated by Ferrero in any way for organizing it; World Nutella Day is truly a labor of love for the tasty treat.”
Things began to change when the story was covered by major news outlet including Time, Bloomberg Business, Huffington Post, Observer, and many others. Ferrero grasped the magnitude of the opportunity offered by Rosso, retracted its demand, asking her to continue running the site. In time the company took control of nutelladay.com and, as it is written on it “in 2015, Sara transferred World Nutella Day to Ferrero (the makers of Nutella) to help it live on and grow for years to come.”
The holiday has definitely entered the company culture and, this year on World Nutella Day, Nutella Cafe store locations in New York City and Chicago will be giving away free jars of the sweet spread to 500 lucky customers in each location. Of these, the first 100 on-site customers at each location on will receive a free Nutella jar inscribed with their name.
Simona Gazzaniga