A huge discount on the price of 950 gramme jars of Nutella caused near-riots in a number of Intermarche supermarkets on Thursday. The “70 percent off’ promotion brought the price down to €1.41 from €4.50, and huge queues formed in front of shops yesterday morning before they opened.
“People have rushed in, they shoved everything, they broke it. It was an orgy,” an employee of an Intermarché in Forbach (Moselle), told the AFP news agency. “We were on the verge of calling the police,” she added.
One shopper questioned how Nutella could slash the price by 70 percent and still justify the high price of the hazelnut spread loved by generations of children, for the rest of the year. The cut-price offer was valid throughout France, but in some shops their entire supplies were sold within 15 minutes.
Ferraro has been in the news in recent days for its takeover of Nestle’s US business in a deal costing €2.26 million ($2.8 billion).
The Italian Ferrero family has long-standing connections with Monaco. Michele Ferrero, the son of the founder, lived for many years in the Principality and is reputed to have commuted by helicopter almost daily to his business in Italy. He died at his home in Monte-Carlo in February 2015, at the age of 89.