Ontario hazelnuts front and centre on World Nutella Day

Feb 05, 2018

World Nutella Day falls on Feb. 5 annually

By Diego Flammini
News Reporter
Farms.com

Many people incorporated Nutella into their breakfasts today in recognition of World Nutella Day.

Since 2007, Nutella has been put into the spotlight and celebrated on Feb. 5 for its role as the world’s greatest sandwich spread (in this reporter’s humble opinion).

Without hazelnut growers, Ferrero, the producer of Nutella, wouldn’t have the ingredients necessary to create the popular spread.

And Ontario’s hazelnuts are an important part of this production.

The more growers plant hazelnut trees in Ontario, the more local Nutella becomes, said Andrew Nixon, project coordinator with the Ontario Hazelnut Association.

“You might be able to call Ontario the Nutella capital of Canada since all of it comes from here,” he told Farms.com today. “We’re looking forward to calling Nutella an Ontario-made product that starts with locally grown hazelnuts, are processed at a facility in Brantford Ont., and shipped globally.”

Hazelnut trees cover about 600 acres of Ontario farmland. And funding from the private and public sectors is helping the Ontario Hazelnut Association reach its goal of planting more than 24,000 acres of hazelnut trees by 2027.

The increased funding shows that hazelnuts are a viable crop in Ontario, Nixon said.

“We’ve been very lucky to have generous support from the provincial and federal governments, as well as from other sources,” he said.

How much Nutella is produced each year?

You could cover the Great Wall of China eight times with the number of jars of Nutella sold each year, according to the product’s website.

And the amount of Nutella produced annually weighs the same as the Empire State Building (365,000 tons).

Top hazelnut producing countries

The top five hazelnut producing countries in 2016, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, were: