Ferrero Rocher


Ferrero Rocher is a chocolate and hazelnut confectionery produced by the Italian chocolatier Ferrero.

History

The Ferrero Rocher was introduced in 1982 in Europe. Shortly after release, production was halted due to a problem with label printing. Michele Ferrero, the credited inventor, named the chocolate after a grotto in the Roman Catholic shrine of Lourdes, Rocher de Massabielle. Rocher comes from French and means rock or boulder.

Ingredients

The chocolate consists of a whole roasted hazelnut encased in a thin wafer shell filled with hazelnut chocolate and covered in milk chocolate and chopped hazelnuts. Its ingredients are milk chocolate, sugar, cocoa butter, cocoa mass, skim milk powder, butteroil, lecithin as emulsifier, vanillin, hazelnuts, palm oil, wheat flour, whey, lowfat cocoa powder, sodium bicarbonate, and salt.

Production

The production process is secretive, with no smartphones or notebooks allowed inside, and, as of 2015, few journalists have ever been invited to visit. As of 2015, the production in the Alba factory totals 24 million Rochers a day.
The sweet is produced by machinery. The process begins with flat sheets of wafer with hemispheres moving down an assembly line. The hemispheres of the wafers are then filled with a chocolate hazelnut cream and part of a hazelnut. Next, two of these wafer sheets, one with a hazelnut and one with hazelnut chocolate cream, are clamped together. The excess wafer is cut away producing wafer balls. These balls are then coated with a layer of chocolate, a layer of chopped hazelnuts, and a final layer of chocolate before the chocolate is packaged.

Distribution

Roughly 3.6 billion Ferrero Rochers are sold each year in over 40 countries. These include 28 countries in Europe, 9 countries in the Americas, 9 countries in Asia, 2 countries in the Oceania region, and 2 countries in Africa.

Cultural impact

Christmas

Ferrero Rochers are associated with Christmas and New Year. As of 2015, 61% of Ferrero Rochers were sold during the last three months of the year.

United Kingdom advertisement campaign

In the United Kingdom in the 1990s, an advertisement series was based upon a party in a European ambassador's official residence and it has been repeatedly parodied in popular culture since. In 2000, the ambassador’s party commercial was ranked 21st in Channel 4’s poll of the "100 Greatest Adverts".

Hong Kong and China

Ferrero Rocher chocolates, along with baby formula, are one of the top items smuggled across the border from Hong Kong into mainland China.