Nutella maker in hazelnut stand-off with Turkish dealers

all they have to do is add more sugar to make up for the missing hazelnut

They already do. Compare the Nutella made in Poland to the one in Germany.

Regional taste preferences IMO.

How much weight does your "IMO" carry?

https://www.nhh.no/en/research-centres/food/food-news/2017/s...

I’m not sure if you're being ironic or not, since ‘regional taste preferences’ is a somewhat famous excuse brands frequently use to justify selling inferior-quality products (think less meat, less nuts, less fruit, more unhealthy filler) under the same name in different parts of Europe. I recall it being a major topic in our elections several years back, but I don't think anyone has really done anything about it.

Usually Poland ends up worse off, but I would like to let you know that the Magnum ice-cream quality is much superior in Poland compared to the UK.

'inferior-quality products' is something companies resort to to keep their profits higher, saying the purchasing power, and local nutrition standards differ between different markets.I bought instant coffee from a shop and later regret it that because the taste was very bad, and noticed that the label displayed an Eastern European language.The same happened before with children foods and many other products.Now there is a very interesting thing happening in Turkey with their dire financial situation, you could be any digital product cheaper than anywhere else, from ms office to Netflix subscription to even iPhone. That is surely readjustments for purchasing power.

It's something that does certainly happen, but regional preferences are just as real. For instance, the amount of juice in Fanta across Europe doesn't seem to correlate with wealth at all. Even the sugar contents vary wildly, even across eastern Europe.

For Nutella specifically, there are also differences in composition between the more wealthy European nations: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CXp2MTWNoZ4 According to that report, the texture is different to accommodate for the differences in common bread types, which makes a lot of sense IMO.

With how little actual hazelnut goes into a jar of Nutella compared to palm oil and sugar that make up most of the spread, I doubt Ferrero is saving a lot of money selling inferior product to poorer countries. With expensive goods such as meat and "pretty" vegetables, there's more money to be made.

Funny how those taste preferences are common for all of the countries behind the iron curtain. And somehow those preferences can be roughly summarized with less cocoa and less hazelnuts. Which are by coincidence the expensive ingredients.

That article also states:

> Coca-Cola, whose drink in Slovenian stores was found by researchers there to contain more sugar and more syrup than that sold in Austria, responded by saying it adapted its recipe to local tastes.

In other words, Slovenia gets a better deal on Coca Cola but a worse deal on strawberry yogurt. Without more direct counter examples, that only seems to validate the claims made by manufacturers.

While there is plenty of proof that some companies are selling inferior products of their name-brand product in poorer countries, that doesn't mean a difference in taste automatically means it's part of some big conspiracy. Local preferences do actually differ and companies that don't account for that only stand to lose customers.

The taste of their food and the beauty of their women made the British the greatest sailors the world has ever known. Though to be fair the part about the beauty is no longer true.

The difference between American and European Nutella seems to have been documented in a lot of detail, but I can't find any sources on the differences within Europe. I have found videos about the differences between German and French Nutella, and French and Italian Nutella, but nothing more than that.

I think a combination of bad cocoa harvest and previously a bad hazelnut harvest have altered recipes globally to be more sugar and fat and even less cocoa and hazelnut, but it's hard to find any recent comparisons.

Maybe you have a link? I don't speak any languages from behind the Iron Curtain where the impact is probably the most obvious, so I would appreciate a good link.

Im from behind the iron curtain, but lived outside for most of my life now.

My impression is opposite - Lithuanians find western sweets too sweet and drinks there contain less sugar.

Inferior quality makes total sense as buying power is far lower over there. And it doesn’t really matter for brand loyalty since most shoppers can’t compare with foreign imports.

For sweetness I find easterners prefer less sweetness.

Coming from soviet union trash a lot of foreign products were god sent. Of course for many point of reference was farmers markets so decline must’ve been apparent too.

In my circles such mutterings would be seem as populism and woowoo crap.

Violence.

I think you might have missed a joke.

How do more sugar and syrup constitute a better deal? Shouldn’t the better formula result in a good-tasting drink using less sugar and syrup, i.e. what Austria seems to have?

The drink is delivered as syrup and water. I can always add more water to a bottle of coke, but I can't add more syrup. Unless I boil off part of the coke, I suppose, but then I'll just have less of it.

Are we talking about the kind of syrup that’s essentially just a solution of sugar, or the kind of syrup with other flavourful ingredients? I was mostly concerned with the sugar, since it’s detrimental to our health (and following your argument, you can always add more sugar if you will it); it’s really the flavour that’s the bread and butter of the drink.