Last week we witnessed one of the weightiest political tiffs in Europe. Euroland gasped as France’s ecology minister, Ségolène Royal, urged the public to stop eating Nutella – made out of hazelnuts – because it is contributing to deforestation.
“We have to replant a lot of trees because there is massive deforestation that also leads to global warming. We should stop eating Nutella, for example, because it’s made with palm oil,” Royal said in an interview on French television last Monday. She suggested to Ferrero, the Italian producers, that they start making the chocolate hazelnut spread with “other ingredients”.
Luca Galletti, the Italian environment minister, rushed to Nutella’s defence, promptly tweeting: “Ségolène Royal is worrying. Leave Italian products alone. For dinner tonight… it’s bread with Nutella.” Other Italian politicians took to Twitter, demanding an apology from Royal, saying that France had committed a “serious and ugly” slight against “Italian excellence”.
Maybe while on his scooter for his cinq à sept, French President François Hollande got a call of complaint from Prime Minister Matteo Renzi: “Eh, Francesco if youe touche awer Nutella, we attakk that stoopid baguette, va bene?”, because a couple of hours later, Royal ate her words and offered “a thousand apologies” to Nutella on Twitter.
Given that an estimated 235,000 tonnes of the paste are consumed every year, around 100 million pots in France alone, I think she was not a minute too late.
This whole story set me thinking. Firstly, what would the world be like without Nutella? Because it could all very well come to an end soon. Turkey produces around 70 per cent of the world’s hazelnut supply, and Ferrero uses almost a quarter of that. The world’s appetite for nuts has grown by more than 50 per cent over the past 10 years, according to the International Nut and Dried Fruit Council (I wonder what they talk about at meetings).
It looks to me like there just isn’t enough nuts around. And what will people do without Nutella? Will everyone be moodier? Snappier? Grumpier? What festival would the Qormin ta’ San Ġorġ hold to mock the Qormin ta’ San Bastjan without Nutella?
The chocolate spread is not just an Italian cultural icon. For many around the world, including here, it has been the ultimate comfort food for the past half-century.
…oh! What would I give at this moment to have the extensive vocabulary repertoire of Ian Borg
In the 1984 classic Italian film Bianca, Nanni Moretti, the actor-director, keeps waking up at night to eat Nutella from a giant human-size jar. This cult scene sort of sums up the human relationship to chocolate to a tee.
For that one moment when a dollop of chocolate melts in our mouth, the world seems to stop and… oh! What would I give at this moment to have the extensive vocabulary repertoire of Ian Borg.
But back to the Nutella war last week: I think it’s amazing how Nutella transcends history.
The French may have mixed feelings about bringing Turkey into the European Union, but they are happy to bring their hazelnuts. The Italians and the Turks fought a war (that created Libya), but they can work together peacefully on Nutella matters. Russians and Poles historically have not cooperated on very much, other than fighting each other, but they cooperate nicely in the production of Nutella.
As the economist correspondent of National Review, Kevin Williamson, put it: “Nutella is the product of a vast, global network, a spontaneous order through which international, cross-cultural, and cross-lingual cooperation emerges”.
He lists the web of cooperation: the corporate headquarters of the Ferrero Group, which manufactures Nutella, is in Alba, Italy; the sugar comes from producers in Brazil and France; the hazelnuts come from Turkish producers, the cocoa from Nigerians, the palm oil from Malaysians; the factories are in Brantford, Stadtallendorf, Belsk, Vladimir, Lithgow, Poços de Caldas and Los Cardales.
“Then there’s the makers of the machinery they use, the producers of the steel used to make that machinery, the roughnecks bringing up oil that will make the diesel that powers the trucks and ships that move those 250,000 tons of Nutella around the world, the bankers who financed these endeavours,” Williamson says.
The chocolate paste is an economic gold mine. And as I write this, a thought occurs to me: we’ve been looking for oil all this time. Could it be that all along we have been sitting on an oil well in the shape of our very own Twistees? Could it be that we can take over the world food economy with the packet I am munching right now as I type?
Wouldn’t it be grand for Brand Malta if the Italian Minister of Environment told the world to stop buying Twistees because cows were having to eat too much grass to keep up with the milk-cheese production?
Then our Environment Ministry would release a stqarrija and inform us that Minister Leo Brincat is indeed having Twistees for supper.
But um, no, he can’t say that can he? Because then he’d get told off by Health Parliamentary Secretary Chris Fearne, who’d come rushing to his side, measuring his pinch of salt intake.
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Twitter: @KrisChetcuti