Nuts! Hazelnut Shortage Could Affect Nutella Prices
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iStock/Thinkstock(NEW YORK) — As if the world didn’t have enough problems, now it has to deal with a hazelnut shortage.
For fans of Nutella, the popular hazelnut chocolate spread, the news could be dire.
Since Nutella maker Ferro Group uses about 25 percent of the world’s supply of hazelnuts, a deficit of these nuts, largely due to a killer frost in Turkey earlier this year, could send the price of Nutella skyrocketing.
It comes at an inopportune time for the company, which has seen sales of the spread jump in the U.S. as well as globally. Last year, 2.46 billion dollars’ worth of Nutella was sold.
The hazelnut shortage has driven up prices by as much as 60 percent, and naturally, when that happens, manufacturers often pass along the increases to consumers.
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