The chocolate-hazelnut spread made by the Italian company Ferrero is Nutella.
Nutella is a sweetened hazelnut-cocoa spread that Ferrero introduced in 1964. Its roots go back to postwar Italy, when cocoa was relatively expensive and hazelnuts from the Piedmont region offered a plentiful local ingredient. Ferrero’s earlier products included a solid hazelnut-and-chocolate confection and the spreadable Supercrema gianduja.
Michele Ferrero and his collaborators reworked that recipe in the early 1960s and renamed it Nutella. The first jar left the company’s factory in Alba on April 20, 1964. The spread later expanded internationally, reaching the United States in 1983.
Nutella is often casually called chocolate spread, but its labeling and composition are more precise: it is marketed as a hazelnut-cocoa spread. Sugar and palm oil make up more than half of the product, while hazelnuts, cocoa powder, skimmed milk, and flavoring provide its characteristic taste. It is commonly eaten on toast, bread, pancakes, and other snacks.