HN Reader

Growing hazelnuts is labor-intensive, back-breaking work in Turkey's northern (Black Sea) coast. It's also a key part of the rural economy of the region.

Back in August, the Odd Lots Podcast had a good show about speculation in hazelnuts. As I recall, Ferrero buys like 25% of the world's hazelnut supply.

It's odd that a publication like the Financial Times can't be bothered to use the correct name of the country, which is Türkiye and has been officially since 2022, per the UN.

Less rigor might be expected from a less erudite magazine, but these folks should know better.

Hazelnut politics are a big deal in Europe [0].

[0] https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2025/06/09/how-a-hazelnut... (archive link: https://archive.is/1UTf3)

Is it just me or did nutella go from almost solid to much more fluid about 5 years ago? And it got slightly darker? Anybody know what happened? The texture definitely changed.

> poor harvest and infestation of brown marmorated stink bug drove up prices

Holy cow, I live in central europe and the amount of these bugs this year has been insane, I find a dozen of these per day in my apartment.

I fear we should have started some eradication effort years ago and it's already too late, these bugs feed on a bunch of crops, and will damage yields massively.

Purchase from Georgia etc. instead. No need to feed Turks' economy.

The Turkish nut dealers will cave in first once their pantry at home runs out of Nutella.

all they have to do is add more sugar to make up for the missing hazelnut