The Next Generation of Chicago Sweets

The Atlantic

13-05-2025

Detroit and automobiles. Switzerland and watches. London and finance.
The world is full of innovation hubs that set the tone for global industries. Candy is one of these industries, and it has its very own capital city in the U.S.: Chicago
For more than 100 years, America's Second City has been home to a long list of confectionary companies. William Wrigley started his eponymous chewing gum business here in 1891. Ferrara, the maker of Lemonheads and Nerds, got its start in Chicago. In fact, the city once had such a long and storied tradition of confectionary companies setting up shop along Lake Michigan that it became known as the Candy Capital of the World, until rising costs for sugar and labor forced several brands to depart. 'Chicago is known as a center for meatpacking, steel, and grain, but it's not as well remembered for being a major center for candy innovation,' says Leslie Goddard, author of Chicago's Sweet Candy History. 'And that's too bad because it's a really interesting story.'
Today, Chicago's sweet-treat innovation tradition is being carried into the future by one of the world's most iconic candy companies: Ferrero, the chocolate and confectionary conglomerate behind iconic treats including Nutella and its golden-wrapped Ferrero Rocher hazelnut chocolates. In 2023, Ferrero Group doubled down on its investment in Chicago as an innovation hub when it opened a 45,000-square-foot research and development facility in the heart of the Windy City, solely focused on creating the storied treats of tomorrow. 'Ferrero is unique in terms of our approach to long-term innovation,' says Michael Lindsey, president and chief business officer of Ferrero North America. 'We're always inventing new sweets and trying new things.'
Chicago has been at the forefront of food innovation and food science for over 100 years. Global giants like McDonalds and Kraft Heinz have their headquarters in the city. The region's food and beverage manufacturing industry is the nation's largest, generating over $9 billion annually and employing over 66,000 people.
Ferrero itself has been heavily invested in the city for years. The multinational company, which sells products in more than 170 countries, manufactures its Butterfinger and Baby Ruth candy bars in the Chicago suburb of Franklin Park. The beloved Keebler pie crusts and ice cream cones are made on 110th Street. And their Bloomington campus a couple hours downstate manufactures CRUNCH, 100 Grand, and Kinder Bueno.
Located in the historic Marshall Field and Company Building, Ferrero's Innovation Center brings together the company's Research & Development teams—around 50 people—under one roof, all producing both classic flavors and developing new ideas that combine state-of-the-art advancements in food science with confectionary whimsy.
'Having an innovation center in North America helps us focus on the North American palate,' says Effie Nestrud, Ferrero's research and development laboratory head in North America. 'We like things sweet, and we know that we do. We embrace it. Having the center here really helps us to make sure we're driving home those flavor profiles, and also the look, the feel, the finish. Every detail matters.'
Joao Paulo Andorinha, head of Ferrero North America R&D Labs, stresses that the first step in the process of making a new hit candy bar is considering the unique desires of the American tastebud. 'We have a briefing to discuss the basic concepts: color, texture, sensorial experience,' he says, after which the team creates a sample of a new product they think could be good. Internally, they then assess the prototype. 'Do we need more sweet, less sweet, more color, less color, more texture or less texture?' Andorinha says. Once everything lines up, Ferrero's R&D teams produce more samples and share the candy with a consumer test group—whose opinions can make or break it.
'There is one sentence that highlights our philosophy, which is, 'A disappointed consumer means a lost consumer,'' says Omar Zausa, president of Ferrero Canada. 'This is the source of our obsession with quality, because every product is an opportunity to please and to engage the consumer.'
From start to finish, a new candy can take over two years to develop before hitting the market, as the team works to balance some combination of chocolate, caramel, nougats, nuts, wafers, sugar, and more. Cases in point are the new Butterfinger Salted Caramel and Butterfinger Marshmallow, which Ferrero launched in April. The company began considering new flavors for Butterfinger when it acquired the brand six years ago, but it's taken this long to decide—and then develop—new concepts for the classic candy bar. These will be the first new products produced entirely by Chicago's Innovation Lab.
Innovating the Confections of Tomorrow
Before they were a global brand, Ferrero was two brothers, Pietro and Giovanni, baking pastries in Alba, Italy, in 1946, intent on making something of their family name.
Each brother brought unique skills to the table. Giovanni served as the bakery's marketing genius and developed a national sales network in Italy. Pietro was the product innovator, creating all manner of new sweets, including the original recipe for what would later become Nutella. By the 1960s, a series of expansions helmed by Pietro's son, Michele, made the family business into an international sweets powerhouse. Today, Michele's son, Giovanni Ferrero, the chairman of the company, continues to steer its 35 brands into groundbreaking directions.
The obsession with new ideas carries on through the Innovation Center, where thousands of tasty ingredients—hazelnut, cocoa butter, mint, honey and more—are enhanced, extracted, separated and sliced, pressed and puréed to make something entirely original and entirely delicious. Something as simple as cleansing cocoa beans in preparation for baking has become scientific at Ferrero, and the Innovation Lab takes that focus on precision and inventiveness to another level, developing sample after sample with the goal of becoming the next classic candy to come out of Chicago.
'There's just something so amazing about standing at a lab bench, weighing out your ingredients, baking them, and then seeing the product you made come to life,' says Nestrud. 'To know that it will be a big part of consumers' lives—if they've had a bad day, maybe it comforts them, and if they've had a good day, maybe it helps them celebrate—that's what has always drawn me to this work.'
In its effort to remain at the forefront of confectionary innovation, Ferrero has developed a number of inventions their competitors don't have, including high-tech machinery only found in Ferrero facilities. One of those creations is the molding plates that create the shape of its famous Ferrero Rocher hazelnut chocolates dusted with crispy wafers and hazelnut pieces. Another proprietary gizmo is an elaborate wrapping machine that packages Ferrero's products and then helps them stand out once they hit store shelves.
Zausa says the company's goal of 'constant improvement' keeps them leading the candy industry. 'A product is for eternity, and it is our job to reinvent the way we speak with the consumer,' he says.
Once a new chocolate treat or candy bar goes into full production, it moves to one of the company's production facilities throughout North America, like the Brantford plant, which employs up more than 1,300 workers.
'If the consumer starts to compare, we want them to say that we are different, that we are not just making something that everybody makes,' says Danilo Maiochi, the Production System Manager at the Brantford plant. 'We want to make something more special, even when you're just opening a bag of cookies.'
The Future Looks Sweet
Going forward, food innovation is everywhere in the city.
Today, over 60 percent of food startups in Chicago backed by venture capital are working with alternative proteins or new foods created with biotechnology, while its candy industry continues a similar surge in new ideas. Rooted in the history of the region, Ferrero is innovating in unique ways, setting the tone for a fresh chapter in food experimentation and discovery—pushing the boundaries to make sure the city remains a candy capital for the next 100 years.
'We don't start with incremental changes, and we don't do copycats, it's brand new,' says Lindsey. 'A thing that didn't exist is just a fundamentally different product. Nothing like it ever existed in the world. And that's how the innovations continue to be created.'