IN Brief:
- Ferrero is investing €60m in French industrial and logistics capacity linked to Nutella and Nutella Cookies.
- The programme includes upgrades at Villers-Écalles, a new 3kg Nutella packaging line, and additional cookie capacity in Nieppe.
- The investment strengthens France’s role in Ferrero’s European manufacturing footprint as branded bakery and confectionery formats expand.
Ferrero is investing €60m in France across industrial upgrades, professional-channel packaging, and Nutella Cookies manufacturing capacity, reinforcing the country’s position in the group’s European production and logistics network.
The programme includes €15m for industrial and environmental upgrades at the Villers-Écalles site in Normandy, one of Ferrero’s major Nutella production locations. A further €15m will support development of a new 3kg Nutella packaging line for professional channels, while €30m has been allocated to Nutella Cookies production at the Nieppe plant in Hauts-de-France, owned by Biscuits Delacre, a Ferrero affiliate.
Across the past five years, Ferrero’s investment in France has reached approximately €210m. The company employs around 1,400 people in the country and supports a wider industrial and logistics network linked to manufacturing, warehousing, packaging, supply, and distribution.
At Villers-Écalles, the capital spending points to the changing role of established high-volume sites. Mature food factories are being asked to deliver output, resource efficiency, format flexibility, and environmental performance through the same investment cycle. In a spread and confectionery operation, incremental gains in filling accuracy, packaging flow, cleaning routines, and line reliability can translate into substantial production benefits over repeated shifts.
The new 3kg Nutella packaging line also reflects the different demands of professional channels. Larger formats have to work in foodservice, bakery, catering, and preparation environments, where dispensing, handling, storage, hygiene, and packaging strength shape product performance. For Ferrero, the line gives Nutella a stronger industrial route into professional use, rather than relying solely on standard retail formats.
The Nieppe investment extends the logic into bakery-confectionery production. Nutella Cookies require biscuit manufacturing, filling technology, product consistency, packaging protection, and high-speed handling to work together. Expanding production through a Biscuits Delacre-linked site gives Ferrero a route to scale a newer brand format while drawing on a specialist manufacturing base.
European confectionery and bakery producers are continuing to rework production footprints around capacity, efficiency, and resilience. Cocoa, dairy, energy, labour, and packaging costs have all created pressure on manufacturers to make existing assets work harder while limiting exposure to single-line or single-site bottlenecks. Brand strength still matters, but plant capability increasingly decides how quickly demand can be converted into margin.
Large branded manufacturers are also investing around product families with international momentum. Lotus Bakeries’ expansion of Biscoff production at Lembeke showed a similar focus on adding industrial capacity behind a high-growth global brand. Ferrero’s French programme sits in the same pattern: more capacity, more format control, and a closer link between product strategy and factory investment.
Packaging machinery is becoming central to that strategy. As demonstrated by GEA’s PowerPak 5000 thermoforming platform, food manufacturers are placing heavier demands on systems that can manage format variation, hygiene, throughput, and lifecycle cost. Ferrero’s 3kg Nutella line is product-specific, but it reflects the same direction of travel: packaging infrastructure now carries a larger share of commercial execution.
France remains a strategic manufacturing base for Ferrero, not simply a sales territory. The new investment adds capacity and operational resilience across spread, professional packaging, and cookie production, giving the group more room to support established demand while expanding newer formats through its European industrial network.
