We Just Discovered The Dark Side Of Nutella, And We’re So Effing Sad

It’s the spread that goes great on everything. Breads, crackers, cakes, pies, and sure, even pizzas, can all be improved with a dollop of Nutella. However, that improvement comes at a price. Nutella has a dark side it doesn’t want you to know about, but one rival company is shoving Nutella’s shadiness into the public eye.

As first reported by Reuter’s on November 20th, Barilla, the famous Italian pasta company, plans to introduce its own chocolate spread to consumers next year. One may think it pointless to go up against the big dog of the chocolate spread industry — especially since Ferrero Rocher’s Nutella brings in $2.3 billion each year.

But Barilla’s spread, Crema Pan di Stelle, will not contain an ingredient that has caused some consumers to back off Nutella. Crema Pan di Stelle will not contain palm oil.

Palm oil is what makes Nutella so incredibly smooth and spreadable. Derived from the African oil palm tree, it can be found in a variety of different foods, cosmetics, and cleaning products. Because palm oil is used in so many different products, harvesting the oil has led to massive deforestation in rainforests all over the world, thus pushing several species to endangerment and increasing the rate of global warming.

The palm oil industry has also been connected to human rights violations, and when processed and oxidized, the oil itself can lead to major kidney and liver issues.

Consumers’ negative attitudes toward the use of palm oil led many to boycott Nutella altogether. However, despite the company’s use of palm oil, Ferrero is reportedly one of the most ethically- and environmentally-conscious companies within the palm oil industry. Ferrero can supposedly trace 100% of its palm oil to its original plantation and, in 2005, Ferrero joined the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO), a non-profit that works to ensure certified palm oil and ethically and sustainably sourced.

And according to Reuter’s, Ferrero launched an ad campaign in 2016 to explain to consumers that the palm oil used in Nutella is harvested ethically and remains safe to consume when refined at controlled temperatures.

Even so, organizations like Greenpeace haven’t let the public forget about the dangers of palm oil production, and bad taste of palm oil lingers in many consumers’ mouths.

Barilla has chosen to put Nutella to the test and offer consumers a palm oil-free alternative. Their Crema Pan di Stelle will contain sunflower oil, hazelnuts, sustainably harvested cocoa, and bits of Pan di Stelle cookies to make the spread crunchier.

Of course, we want to believe that Ferrero is doing the most to make their Nutella as sustainable as possible. But the negative aspects of the palm oil industry as a whole are really hard for us to swallow.