Michele Ferrero, maker of Nutella, dies at 89

Michele Ferrero was the patriarch of the eponymous family empire best known for its Nutella and Ferrero Rocher chocolates.

File picture of Michele Ferrero, the owner of the Italian confectioner that makes Nutella and other chocolate sweets, died on February 14. Alessandro di Marco/ EPA

ROME // Michele Ferrero, the world’s richest chocolate maker whose Nutella spread helped raise generations of Europeans and defined Italian sweets, died on Valentine’s Day. He was 89.

Ferrero, who had been ill for several months, died on Saturday in Monte Carlo where he lived, surrounded by his family.

Ferrero was the patriarch of the eponymous family empire best known for its Nutella and Ferrero Rocher chocolates.

The company’s products also included Tic Tacs and the Kinder line of products – including the eggs beloved by children for the treat inside.

Ferrero’s father, Pietro, started making Nutella when cocoa was still rationed during the Second World War.

Forbes magazine ranked Ferrero and his family 30th on the list of the world’s richest billionaires in 2014 – worth $23.4 billion (Dh86bn).

The company was one of Italy’s most successful, a prime example of the “Made in Italy” brand of food and luxury goods that have defined the private sector in postwar Italy.

Italian president Sergio Mattarella praised Ferrero as one of the leaders of Italian industry who was “always ahead of his time thanks to innovative products and his tenacious work and reserved character”.

Pietro Ferrero opened his first chocolate laboratory in Alba, in Italy’s northwest Piemonte region, in 1942. The business passed to Michele upon Pietro’s death in 1949.

Michele Ferrero developed Kinder chocolates in 1968, Tic Tacs a year later and Ferrero Rocher in 1982.

Eventually, Ferrero introduced the Ferrero Rocher chocolates in Europe and by 1985 began selling them in the United States.

By 1997, Michele Ferrero handed over the running of the company to his two sons, Pietro and Giovanni. Pietro Ferrero died in 2011 of a cardiac arrest, leaving Giovanni the sole CEO.

Ferrero is survived by his wife, Maria Franca, and his son, Giovanni.

* Associated Press