Ferrero Rocher facts for kids
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| Owner | Ferrero SpA |
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| Introduced | 1979 |
Ferrero Rocher is a famous chocolate and hazelnut candy. It is made by an Italian company called Ferrero. A person named Michele Ferrero created this delicious treat.
Each Ferrero Rocher candy comes wrapped in shiny foil. It also sits in a small paper cup. These candies are made by machines. The way they are made is a bit of a secret!
You can find Ferrero Rocher all over the world. Many people connect these chocolates with the Christmas holidays. In some countries, like the United Kingdom, people remember a popular TV ad from the 1990s.
Contents
The Story of Ferrero Rocher
Ferrero Rocher first came out in Italy in 1979. It then appeared in other parts of Europe in 1982. The creator, Michele Ferrero, named the chocolate after a special place. This place was a grotto (a small cave) at a religious site in France called Lourdes.
The word Rocher comes from the French word for rock or boulder. This name fits the chocolate's rocky, bumpy look.
What's Inside Ferrero Rocher?
Ferrero Rocher has many tasty layers. At its center is a whole, roasted hazelnut. This hazelnut is inside a thin, crispy wafer shell.
The wafer shell is filled with a creamy hazelnut chocolate. Then, the whole thing is covered in milk chocolate. Finally, it's sprinkled with chopped hazelnuts.
The ingredients include milk chocolate, sugar, cocoa butter, and cocoa mass. It also has skim milk powder, butteroil, and lecithin. Other ingredients are vanillin, hazelnuts, palm oil, and wheat flour. You'll also find whey, low-fat cocoa powder, sodium bicarbonate, and salt.
How Ferrero Rocher is Made
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The way Ferrero Rocher is made is a big secret. People are not allowed to bring phones or notebooks into the factories. Very few reporters have ever been invited to see the process.
In 2015, the factory in Alba, Italy, made an amazing 24 million Ferrero Rochers every single day!
The making process uses many machines. It starts with flat sheets of wafer that have little dome shapes. These domes move along a production line.
The wafer domes are filled with a creamy chocolate hazelnut mix. They also get a piece of a hazelnut. Then, two of these wafer sheets are pressed together. This creates a round wafer ball.
Any extra wafer is cut away. These wafer balls then get covered in chocolate. Next, they get a layer of chopped hazelnuts. Finally, they get one more layer of milk chocolate. After all these steps, each chocolate ball is wrapped in its famous gold foil.
Where You Can Find Ferrero Rocher
About 3.6 billion Ferrero Rocher candies are sold each year. You can find them in over 42 countries around the world.
This includes 28 countries in Europe, like the UK. It's also sold in eight countries in Asia and five in Africa, including South Africa. You can also buy them in nine countries in the Americas and two in Oceania.
Ferrero Rocher in Culture
Christmas and Holiday Season
Ferrero Rocher chocolates are very popular during the holiday season. This includes Christmas and New Year's. In 2015, more than half of all Ferrero Rochers were sold in the last three months of the year.
Famous UK Advertisement
In the 1990s, a famous TV advertisement in the United Kingdom showed a fancy party. It was set in a European ambassador's home. The chocolates were stacked in a tall pyramid. The ad made Ferrero Rocher seem like a very fancy and special treat.
This advertisement has been copied and made fun of many times in movies and TV shows. In 2000, this ad was even ranked as one of the "100 Greatest TV Ads" by a TV channel.
Popular with Immigrant Communities
Ferrero Rocher is very popular among immigrant communities in the United States. This is because it looks fancy and expensive, but it's not too costly. It makes a great gift.
Before Ferrero Rocher was widely available in mainland China, people in Hong Kong often gave it as a gift. They would give it to family and friends on the mainland during Chinese New Year. They even called the chocolates "gold sand" because of their shiny wrapper.
Fake Chocolates
Sometimes, other companies try to make chocolates that look like Ferrero Rocher. These are called "knockoffs" or "counterfeits." They are usually much cheaper.
For example, in 2017, police found a factory making fake Rocher chocolates. They arrested people and took away 300,000 fake candies. Ferrero, the company that makes real Rocher, has spent a lot of money and time fighting against these fake products. They want to make sure people get the real thing.
See also
