Despite its size, the company and its owners are known for being very secretive and private people. They are so private in fact, they are rarely seen in public. Ferrero’s father Pietro started out during World War II setting up a lab to supply his wife’s pastry shop and he created the spread Nutella due to rationed cocoa the region’s plentiful supply of hazelnuts. With a few minor adjustments, Pietro would eventually go on to perfect the product we now know as Nutella. The early iterations had a texture and substance more like a loaf of bread, instead of what you would expect for something that today is often spread on that bread. Eventually, Pietro was able to manipulate the formula sufficiently to give his product a creamier texture. Today the company generates over $11 billion per year in revenue. When David Rockefeller died at the age of 101 on March 20, 2017, Maria Franca Fissolo became the oldest billionaire in the world at 99.
