Ferrero’s €60m investment boosts efficiency and Nutella innovation

The Ferrero Group has unveiled a targeted €60 million industrial expansion program in France designed to significantly upgrade its processing efficiencies, automated packaging capabilities, and capacity for brand innovations.

Announced at the French government’s Choose France summit, the capital injection splits funding between Ferrero’s flagship facility in Normandy and an affiliate-operated site in the Hauts-de-France region.

The move brings Ferrero’s total infrastructure spend in France to approximately €210 million over the last five years. For the food and drink engineering trade, the investment highlights how mature high-volume factories are increasingly being re-engineered to deliver tighter format flexibility, stricter raw material efficiency, and specialised packaging options on the same line.

Scaling environmental performance and foodservice formats

A total of €30 million has been earmarked for the Villers-Écalles plant in Normandy. As the world’s largest Nutella production hub — responsible for roughly 26% of the global supply of the cocoa-hazelnut spread—the facility is a critical node in European grocery supply chains.

The expenditure at Villers-Écalles is split evenly across two distinct processing and packaging targets:

• €15 Million for industrial and environmental upgrades: this allocation targets incremental engineering gains on the main processing floor. Capital will be directed toward modernising cleaning-in-place (CIP) routines, upgrading filling accuracy to minimize product giveaway, and strengthening overall line reliability to prevent micro-stoppages. Additionally, the infrastructure will be optimised to lower energy and water consumption during processing shifts.
• €15 million for a new 3kg packaging line: recognising growing demand from B2B and foodservice operators, Ferrero is investing heavily in format diversification. The funds will establish a dedicated high-speed packaging line specialised for a bulk 3kg Nutella container. This gives the brand an agile, direct-to-professional distribution route that circumvents the limitations of lines tuned exclusively for retail-sized glass jars.

Nieppe: developing a biscuit-filling hub

The remaining €30 million is allocated to the Nieppe plant in Hauts-de-France, owned by Ferrero affiliate Biscuits Delacre. This facility is being transformed into a centralised, unique-in-Europe production hub dedicated to manufacturing Nutella Cookies.

From a processing perspective, bakery-confectionery hybrids present complex mechanical challenges. The new, custom-built production line will need to seamlessly integrate high-speed biscuit baking with delicate, temperature-controlled chocolate filling injection. Ensuring uniform product consistency, maintaining strict structural moisture barriers, and implementing high-speed primary packaging handling are core to the site’s technological overhaul. By leveraging the specialist biscuit manufacturing foundation of Delacre, Ferrero can scale this high-growth product family while minimising the risk of single-site production bottlenecks.

Operational resilience

The investment comes at a time when global confectionery and bakery manufacturers are grappling with volatile ingredient markets, fluctuating energy prices, and labour pressures.

Optimising plant capability allows large-scale brands to convert consumer demand into margin far more rapidly. By modernising its logistics network—including the recent completion of supporting warehouses in Cléon and Barentin — and advancing factory floor automation, Ferrero is protecting its volume throughput against macroeconomic shocks.

Mauro De Felip, general manager of Ferrero France, emphasised the long-term regional and operational strategy behind the project: “France has held a central place in Ferrero’s industrial and logistics strategy in Europe for many years. The investments announced today reflect our commitment to pursuing sustainable and tangible development in the country, by strengthening our industrial capacities, supporting the innovation of our brands – such as the launch of Nutella Cookies on the French market – and making a lasting contribution to the economic growth of the regions where we operate.”