When we look back on the year in food, a certain Italian-made chocolate-hazelnut spread will feature prominently. Yes folks, 2015 has been wall-to-wall Nutella. Why now, when the product has been on the shelves for more than 50 years? Blame social media. A symbiotic relationship with Instagram and Facebook has seen high-calorie Nutella-based frankenfoods turned into seemingly irresistible click-bait.
Foodcraft Espresso in Sydney’s Erskineville discovered Nutella’s pulling power when they launched their Tella Ball Shake – a Nutella milkshake crowned by a Nutella-filled donut (pierce donut with straw and suck, hard) – in August, plowing through a staggering 30 kilograms of the spread on its first day. The owners are now planning a dedicated Nutella bar, due to open early next year.
Canberra café Patissez similarly opts for the more-is-more approach, with each one of its Nutella "freakshakes’’ using one-third of a one kilogram jar.
Il Forno Ciabatteria in Melbourne’s Reservoir was at one stage going through 600 kilograms each week making its "donutella’’, which it wholesales to cafes.
We like eating Nutella; that much is clear. But should we be eating Nutella? Earlier this year #NutellaGate was trending on social media at the behest of French Ecology Minister Segolene Royale, who claimed that the spread’s use of palm oil (it’s the second main ingredient in Nutella, after sugar) linked it to deforestation and global warming and urged a consumer boycott.
#NutellaGate had an interesting outcome, however, with environment groups jumping in to defend Nutella’s maker, Italian-based company Ferrero, as an industry leader in sourcing only sustainable palm oil that can be traced back to individual plantations.
Ferrero, which remains a privately owned family company, is rather reticent to blow its own trumpet. Requests for comment were politely rebuffed and SBS Food directed to their corporate fact sheets, which include the "Palm Oil charter’’, which the company published in 2013, stating their aim of moving to using only traceable, certified palm oil.
"Ferrero decided to directly source RSPO-certified segregated palm oil: it is segregation that ensures that sustainable palm oil is physically separated from non-sustainable palm oil and enables us to trace it from the certified sustainable plantations to the production line. As of January 2015, Ferrero products are produced with only palm fruit oil that is 100 per cent sustainable palm oil certified by RSPO.”
Formed in 2003, RSPO – the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil – is an international body with more than 1300 members that aims to address negative social and environmental issues associated with palm oil production. A new report published last week by the UK-based Environmental Investigation Agency, however, has raised doubts about the organisation’s operations, describing the RSPO’s auditing system as “critically flawed”.
Nutella’s most recent palm oil progress report, published in June, explains that the company aims to go beyond the standard set by RSPO certification to further address issues such as deforestation and exploitation of workers.
By 2020 Nutella should be entirely sustainable, with hazelnut, cocoa and refined cane sugar added to the list.
There have been other kudos for Nutella in the wake of #NutellaGate. Greenpeace’s palm oil co-ordinator Suzanne Kroger applauded Ferrero for being one of the first companies to support the Palm Oil Innovation Group, which is committed to protecting forests and palm oil workers alike. And the Australian branch of the company in October received a NSW Green Globes award for its pioneering sustainability, in both its ingredients and the Lithgow factory’s energy and waste-reducing efforts.
So maybe the choice of whether to Nutella or not to Nutella rests on other factors. When it comes to a winning choc-hazelnut combo, Melbourne’s Tivoli Road Bakery prefers to make its own with a small amount of olive oil rather than a large amount of palm oil: "It’s just a better flavour,’’ says baker Michael James.
And then there’s this: Nutella, which has historically sold itself as a wholesome mix of hazelnuts, skim milk and cocoa, dropped its health claims following a class action lawsuit brought in the US in 2012 that resulted in a USD $3 million settlement.
The action was brought by a California mother horrified to realise two tablespoons of her child’s breakfast spread contained 200 calories, 21 grams of sugar, and 11 grams of fat.
Foodcraft Espresso’s Aki Daikos remembers fondly the Nutella sandwiches his mother used to pack him for school - "I loved Nutella as a kid, it was the best thing ever’’ – but maybe like Sesame Street’s Cookie Monster would say, Nutella is a "sometime food’’.
Because you really do want more...
So Nutella, share your secrets....
