The Ferrero family built Italy's largest fortune by turning chocolate from a luxury item into an everyday staple through packaging innovation and marketing genius, then expanding via M&A.

2:00thought. I was like, "Oh, that's so like so wonderful." And Diego was like, "So, we're going to go?" I was like, "No, hell no. We're definitely not going." But but I I will play him the song and and give him the clap. This is great. Okay, I want to tell you about this this business story that that to me this is this is a billy of the

2:17week. So, this is a a billionaire family that I I found really fascinating. I've been into these like family dynasties. Last last week I think we were talking about Cargill. And this one is >> Wait, can I want to try and guess these? I like trying to guess. >> Let me give you a couple of clues so you know which direction you're going. The richest man in Italy.

2:38>> Sunglasses or chocolate? >> Chocolate. >> Okay. [laughter] >> Do you know who it is? >> Yeah. I Roche Roche is it called Roche something? For for Ferrero Roche. >> Yeah. >> So, okay. Well, you got that pretty quick. >> [laughter] >> It's a lot less fun when you just know the answer, huh? If I was a teacher, I would just be like, "Well, fine. Teach yourself then."

3:03And walk out of the classroom. Um Dude, this family story is amazing. So, I love Ferrero Roche the chocolate. I don't know if you've like if do you're a fan? Do we have Do we have one? Oh, here. So, if for those who don't know, I have some here. Got this from from the grocery store this morning cuz I was so inspired by these guys. I was like, "I'm going to go

3:20support their small business." >> [laughter] >> Yeah, you bought local. >> He's worth 32 billion dollars. Um so, the these chocolates are kind of amazing. They're The packaging is amazing. If you've ever had one of these, you really feel like you're eating something special. And that got me kind of interested in like, "What's the back story of this?" Turns out this family invented Nutella. They invented Tic Tacs. They invented like a whole

3:42bunch of Kinder the Kinder bars and Kinder eggs. They invented like several of these like really big things. And now they own a whole bunch of other businesses. So, I want to tell you that the story of this this company that's it's one of the most secretive family-owned businesses in the world. They do like $20 billion a year in revenue. The founder is the the the main

4:00guy that this the heir. He runs the company and is the richest man in Italy. And the way they did it is really fascinating. So, um back in the day this was post right after World War II, Italy, which was like, you know, not in great shape post-World War II, um it was trying to kind of bounce back. And so, this guy uh the grandfather uh of of this guy, he decides, "I'm going

4:23to start um making chocolate." Chocolate was really expensive. It was like this luxury item. It wasn't like a little common thing you found at every store. Not everybody was eating it. And so, he starts and he the he had the form factor wrong. He was trying to make a a bar like a a spread. So, it's like butter. It would be like this kind of hard chocolate like butter stick essentially.