Fans of the chocolate spread Nutella or hazelnut-filled confectionary Ferrero Rocher could soon be facing rising bills for their nutty treats because of poor weather in Turkey.
Prices of hazelnuts have surged in recent weeks after cold late-winter weather and bitter frosts caused a poor harvest in the nut’s chief exporter Turkey.
The rise has been so sharp it risks driving up the prices of popular consumer products like chocolate spreads or nut-filled chocolate bars.
Half of Turkey’s exports go to Germany and Italy, the headquarters of the Italian giant Ferrero, which owns brands like Nutella and Kinder and is the world’s largest buyer of hazelnuts.
Ferrero said in a widely-reported statement that it was “tracking this issue closely and there’s no foreseeable impact on the availability of Nutella.”
It might seem strange that the price of Nutella could be the victim of a cold snap on Turkey’s Black Sea coast, which is the hub of the country’s hazelnut industry.
However, this is the bitter reality after four hazelnut-producing Turkish provinces on the Black Sea — Giresun, Trabzon, Rize and Ordu — in March were hit by storms and unusual freezing weather, which destroyed part of the harvest.
Production of hazelnuts in Turkey usually amounts to 590,000 tonnes a year — about three-quarters of global consumption.
This year production is set to fall to 370,00 tonnes, according to Turkish producers.
The fall in supply has already led to a spike in wholesale prices, which have climbed 80 percent.
“Last year, the price of a kilo of hazelnuts was about 6 Turkish lira [US$2.75]. Now it has reached 11 lira,” said Nejat Yurnur, the head of a hazelnut factory in Ordu.
The head of the exporters confederation for the Black Sea region, Ilyas Edip Sevinc, said hazelnut groves lying at an altitude of 300m had lost up to 80 percent of their crop due to the bad weather.
“We are expecting a fall in our sales, even if we don’t yet have exact figures,” he said.
Sevinc warned that the problems would have a knock-on effect on the global chocolate industry.
“All the hazelnuts sold in Turkey for abroad are used solely by the chocolate industry,” he said.
The head of the Ordu’s chamber of agriculture, Ugur Corut, said that Turkish markets would remain well-supplied, but international buyers would suffer a major hit.
The price of Nutella and other sweet hazelnut products rose when freezing weather affected hazelnut production in 2003 and 2004 in the Black Sea region, according to Turkish media.
“Turkey exports hazelnuts to 120 different countries because these Turkish nuts are delicious,” Corut was quoted as saying by the Dogan news agency.
“This season there is a shortage of hazelnuts in Ordu and Giresun. This situation will hit the world market. The nuts that we have from this season will satisfy the Turkish domestic market,” he added.
One of Turkey’s biggest confectionery producers said it would continue to buy hazelnuts, but it would have to be in smaller quantities than before.
“We will continue to buy hazelnuts but by reducing the quantity bought,” Mahir Bas of ETI said.
“The price of the chocolates could of course increase as the cost of goods sold has already gone up,” he added.
SEEKING CLARITY: Washington should not adopt measures that create uncertainties for ‘existing semiconductor investments,’ TSMC said referring to its US$165 billion in the US Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) told the US that any future tariffs on Taiwanese semiconductors could reduce demand for chips and derail its pledge to increase its investment in Arizona. “New import restrictions could jeopardize current US leadership in the competitive technology industry and create uncertainties for many committed semiconductor capital projects in the US, including TSMC Arizona’s significant investment plan in Phoenix,” the chipmaker wrote in a letter to the US Department of Commerce. TSMC issued the warning in response to a solicitation for comments by the department on a possible tariff on semiconductor imports by US President Donald Trump’s
‘FAILED EXPORT CONTROLS’: Jensen Huang said that Washington should maximize the speed of AI diffusion, because not doing so would give competitors an advantage Nvidia Corp cofounder and chief executive officer Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) yesterday criticized the US government’s restrictions on exports of artificial intelligence (AI) chips to China, saying that the policy was a failure and would only spur China to accelerate AI development. The export controls gave China the spirit, motivation and government support to accelerate AI development, Huang told reporters at the Computex trade show in Taipei. The competition in China is already intense, given its strong software capabilities, extensive technology ecosystems and work efficiency, he said. “All in all, the export controls were a failure. The facts would suggest it,” he said. “The US
The government has launched a three-pronged strategy to attract local and international talent, aiming to position Taiwan as a new global hub following Nvidia Corp’s announcement that it has chosen Taipei as the site of its Taiwan headquarters. Nvidia cofounder and CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) on Monday last week announced during his keynote speech at the Computex trade show in Taipei that the Nvidia Constellation, the company’s planned Taiwan headquarters, would be located in the Beitou-Shilin Technology Park (北投士林科技園區) in Taipei. Huang’s decision to establish a base in Taiwan is “primarily due to Taiwan’s talent pool and its strength in the semiconductor
French President Emmanuel Macron has expressed gratitude to Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) for its plan to invest approximately 250 million euros (US$278 million) in a joint venture in France focused on the semiconductor and space industries. On his official X account on Tuesday, Macron thanked Hon Hai, also known globally as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), for its investment projects announced at Choose France, a flagship economic summit held on Monday to attract foreign investment. In the post, Macron included a GIF displaying the national flag of the Republic of China (Taiwan), as he did for other foreign investors, including China-based
RSS