Ferrero is the most important Italian multinational in the food sector. Giovanni Ferrero has been firmly the richest man in the country for several years, according to Forbes, with a personal net worth of 44 billion euros. The group claims to be at the forefront of sustainability: yet it turns out that in its factories, through the subcontracting system, the workers responsible for packaging the boxes of chocolates are paid 5 euros an hour.
The discovery was made after workers from Proteco Srl, which has a contract with Ferrero to package Kinder eggs, Mon Chéri chocolates, and Raffaello chocolates, protested in front of the gates of Ferrero's headquarters in Alba. During the demonstration, a Proteco employee pointed out that a box of chocolates costs more than an hour of her time.
On the other hand, the subcontracting mechanism, with its starvation wages, is strategic to the Alba-based multinational's cost structure: 90 percent of Ferrero-branded products are manufactured through external contractors. And while workers at Proteco srl must settle for a wage of 5 euros an hour, a Ferrero employee earns no less than 1.600 euros gross per month.
As for Sustainability, Ferrero has even created a website to tell its initiatives in this area (www.ferrerosustainability.com) and among the company's objectives, alongside the usual, generic Environmental Protection and Sustainable Sourcing of Ingredients(?), the Valorization of People is also included. By paying them 5 euros an hour?
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