ITALY. Pietro Ferrero, the co-CEO of the Ferrero Group, has died in a cycling accident in South Africa, a company spokesman said.
The 47-year-old chocolate tycoon died after falling off his bicycle, probably due to an ailment, the company added. Mr Ferrero was in South Africa on a business trip.
The family-owned company was founded in 1946 by Mr Ferrero’s grandfather, also named Pietro, in Alba, Piedmont, Italy – where the firm is still based. Because of wartime shortages, chocolate was difficult to obtain. The elder Pietro Ferrero hit upon a recipe which combined cocoa with locally abundant hazelnuts. That concoction – Nutella spread – became an international success.
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Pietro Ferrero ran the firm with his brother Giovanni |
Mr Ferrero’s father Michele, said to be Italy’s richest man, went on to turn the company into a global giant of the confectionery industry.
Today, the company – jointly run by Mr Ferrero and his brother Giovanni – also produces other confections such as Ferrero Rocher, Kinder and Tic Tac breath mints.
Mr Ferrero was also chairman of Ferrero SpA, the Italian branch of the firm.
In 2009, the company expressed interest in a bid for the UK confectionery group, Cadbury. However, it abandoned the plan and Cadbury was instead taken over by US-based Kraft Foods.
“Italy has lost a businessman who represented the best qualities of our economic history,” Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini said in a statement.
The Ferrero company had an annual turnover of €6.6 billion (US$9.4 billion) in its 2009-2010 financial year, the AFP news agency reports.
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