Baby Ruth, Butterfinger, Froot Loops, Frosted Flakes. They are all now owned by the same Italian company.
Best known for Nutella and Ferrero Rocher chocolates, Ferrero has spent much of the past decade buying established American food brands and investing in US manufacturing.
The privately held company now has more than 50 brands in its US portfolio, spanning chocolate, candy, mints, cookies, and breakfast cereal.
The expansion has transformed Ferrero's US business. The company says the US accounts for about 15% of its global revenue, up from about 4% a decade ago. Since 2017, its annual US revenue has grown from roughly $600 million to about $3 billion.
Ferrero is still smaller than some of America's biggest snack companies, like Mars and Mondelez, but its acquisition spree has put a growing collection of familiar brands under the ownership of a company once best known in the US for imported European sweets.
We visited Ferrero factories across the US to see how far its American ambitions go.
Ferrero's US buying spree kicked off in 2017, when it acquired Fannie May, the century-old chocolate company, for $115 million.
A year later, Ferrero paid $2.8 billion for Nestlé's US confectionery business, gaining brands including Butterfinger, Baby Ruth, and Crunch.
Then, in 2019, it acquired Kellogg's cookie and fruit-snack businesses, adding Keebler and Famous Amos.
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"Ferrero takes a very different approach, which is buy well-established, loved brands, and then turn them back around," Michael Lindsey, the president and chief business officer of Ferrero North America, told Business Insider.
That strategy gives Ferrero a way to expand without building brand recognition from scratch.
Its biggest US bet yet has taken it beyond the sweets aisle.
In February, Ferrero completed its $3.1 billion acquisition of WK Kellogg, the North American cereal company behind Froot Loops, Frosted Flakes, Corn Flakes, and Rice Krispies.
The deal also presents a challenge. WK Kellogg reported declining sales before the acquisition was announced.
Source: Read the original article on www.businessinsider.com