Nutella world’s largest factory reopens after five-day shutdown

FRANCE: The world’s largest Nutella factory restarted production on Monday after it stopped work for five days as a precautionary measure over a "quality defect", owner Ferrero’s French branch said.

The factory in Normandy, France stopped making the chocolate-and-hazelnut spread due to a “suspected quality defect strictly limited to the production stage,” Ferrero France’s communications service said.

It added that the problem was “very early in the process, at the stage of grinding and roasting hazelnuts.”

The Villers-Ecalles site in Normandy produces around 600,000 jars a day, or about a quarter of all the Nutella made worldwide.

Nutella’s Italian owner Ferrero, whose products also include Ferrero Rocher chocolates, first announced production had been suspended on Wednesday.

“All concerns have been fully lifted,” Ferrero France said on Friday.

“We can say that no products currently on the market are impacted by the situation and that the supply to our customers continues without interruption.”

The Ferrero group, with 30,000 employees and 22 production sites around the globe, also makes Kinder surprise eggs and chocolate bars as well as Tic Tac mints.