[0] https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2025/06/09/how-a-hazelnut... (archive link: https://archive.is/1UTf3)
Holy cow, I live in central europe and the amount of these bugs this year has been insane, I find a dozen of these per day in my apartment.
I fear we should have started some eradication effort years ago and it's already too late, these bugs feed on a bunch of crops, and will damage yields massively.
Turkey is the largest producer (2/3 of the global supply), and is accessible without import fees due to customs union with the EU, so it can't be replaced easily.
With Ferrero purchasing a quarter of the world's hazelnuts, and Turkey producing 650k tonnes, which is about 2/3rds of the world, that means that even if Ferrero was already sourcing from different countries, that means dropping Turkey as a source would leave Ferrero with a total purchase of about 230 tonnes.
With Georgia producing about 37k tonnes, they'd need to buy everything and also the entire US and European supply. In practice, they'll probably already be purchasing from those countries so they'd need to seek out even more sources, maybe build their own overseas farms to compensate.
There is no real alternative to importing from Turkey.
On the other hand, the nut dealers can make theirs at home if they want to.
So, IDK ;)
P.S.: As farmers need money, Ferrero needs the nuts. It's complicated.
For Nutella specifically, there are also differences in composition between the more wealthy European nations: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CXp2MTWNoZ4 According to that report, the texture is different to accommodate for the differences in common bread types, which makes a lot of sense IMO.
With how little actual hazelnut goes into a jar of Nutella compared to palm oil and sugar that make up most of the spread, I doubt Ferrero is saving a lot of money selling inferior product to poorer countries. With expensive goods such as meat and "pretty" vegetables, there's more money to be made.
In my circles such mutterings would be seem as populism and woowoo crap.
https://www.nhh.no/en/research-centres/food/food-news/2017/s...
> Coca-Cola, whose drink in Slovenian stores was found by researchers there to contain more sugar and more syrup than that sold in Austria, responded by saying it adapted its recipe to local tastes.
In other words, Slovenia gets a better deal on Coca Cola but a worse deal on strawberry yogurt. Without more direct counter examples, that only seems to validate the claims made by manufacturers.
While there is plenty of proof that some companies are selling inferior products of their name-brand product in poorer countries, that doesn't mean a difference in taste automatically means it's part of some big conspiracy. Local preferences do actually differ and companies that don't account for that only stand to lose customers.
For sweetness I find easterners prefer less sweetness.
I think a combination of bad cocoa harvest and previously a bad hazelnut harvest have altered recipes globally to be more sugar and fat and even less cocoa and hazelnut, but it's hard to find any recent comparisons.
Maybe you have a link? I don't speak any languages from behind the Iron Curtain where the impact is probably the most obvious, so I would appreciate a good link.
My impression is opposite - Lithuanians find western sweets too sweet and drinks there contain less sugar.
I'm surprised they haven't cut back on the chocolate contents in their spread considering the extreme price jump chocolate went through after the last cocoa harvest went terrible.
See the image: https://germandelistore.com/media/image/00/b6/84/ferrero_nut...
That label matches the 1KG jar came as a present from our German friends.
It's marketed as "7 quality ingredients, that's all".
Less rigor might be expected from a less erudite magazine, but these folks should know better.
The name for the country Turkey is derived (via Old French Turquie) from the Medieval Latin Turchia, Turquia, from Medieval Greek Τουρκία, itself being Τούρκος (borrowed into Latin as Turcus, 'A Turk, Turkish'). It is first recorded in Middle English (as Turkye, Torke, later Turkie, Turky), attested in Chaucer, c. 1369. The Ottoman Empire was commonly referred to as Turkey or the Turkish Empire among its contemporaries. The word ultimately originates from the autonym Türk, first recorded in the Bugut inscription (as in its plural form türküt) and the Hüis Tolgoi Inscription (as türǖg) of the 6th century, and later, in the Orkhon inscriptions and the Tariat inscriptions (as both türük and türk) (𐱅𐰇𐰼𐰜) of the 8th century.
In 2022, the Turkish government requested the United Nations and other international organizations to use Türkiye officially in English, to which they agreed.[1][2] Turkey has remained the common and conventional name in the English language.
Let’s not even mention Netherlands…
> but these folks should know better
I’m 100% sure they know and I assume it was a conscious decision.
Most English people aren't even able to type ü on a keyboard.
