Hazelnuts

Hazelnuts characterise the unique taste of many of Ferrero’s products.

Hazelnuts come from hazel trees, which grow mainly in Mediterranean-type climates. Our expertise and tradition with this fruit go back to our roots in Alba and the Langhe region in Piedmont, where Ferrero was founded in 1946.

Our hazelnuts come from different parts of the world. As part of our commitment to ensure a high-quality and fresh supply of hazelnuts throughout the year, we are involved in hazelnut cultivation in both the northern and southern hemispheres. The main origins are Türkiye, Italy, Chile and the USA.

Our Ferrero Hazelnut Charter sets out our three main areas of focus as we work to achieve a responsible and sustainable hazelnut supply chain:  

1. Human rights and social practices, with a particular focus on supporting farmers, ensuring child protection and respect for labour rights
2. Environmental protection and sustainability, promoting good agricultural practices and biodiversity
3. Supplier transparency, a commitment to working towards full traceability in our hazelnut supply chain

We report annually on our progress towards these commitments in our Hazelnut Progress Report.

Ferrero is strongly committed to ensuring a responsible hazelnut supply chain that creates value for all. Our ambition is to help the hazelnut industry evolve so farmers and their communities thrive, and workers’ and children’s rights are unequivocally respected.

In the hazelnut supply chain in Türkiye, there are complex and systemic challenges, especially on working conditions and the risk of child labour.

Our dedicated Ferrero Farming Values (FFV) team is on the ground in Türkiye, engaging with farming communities to raise awareness and improve social practices. Through our FFV programme, we provide children of migrant workers with access to education and create awareness with farmers and families about children’s rights and the importance of education. We also partner with trusted third parties, including the International Labour Organisation (ILO), to promote access to education and childcare across hazelnut harvesting areas.

In Chile, Argentina, Georgia, Australia and Serbia, we have set up hazelnut ‘agrifarms’. These agrifarms help us understand hazelnut farming in new geographies and enable us to develop and share good agricultural and social practices with hazelnut farmers, supporting sustainable development.
Our Agrifarms in Chile, Serbia and Australia have been certified under the Sustainably Grown standard and we are working to achieve this for more of our Agrifarms in future.

We also work with leading universities and international experts to improve hazelnut quality and productivity and to enhance sustainability, including techniques to optimise water usage. Looking ahead, a key focus of our efforts will be on demonstrating the benefits of sustainable practices in hazelnut farming.

We aim to achieve full traceability of our hazelnut supply chain. For this, we have partnered with Sourcemap, a leading provider of supply chain mapping and digital transparency solutions. Together, we developed a global traceability platform to trace hazelnuts from farm orchard to factory.

We have now achieved 90% traceability of our hazelnut supply chain sustained by our continued work with farmers, suppliers, institutions, universities, and research centres to promote and share sustainable farming practices.