The pilgrimage that inspired Ferrero Rocher chocolates
Ferrero Rocher chocolates. Creative Commons photo.
The grotto at Lourdes. Creative Commons photo.
The rocky hazelnut chocolate Ferrero Rocher filling Valentine’s Day aisles this week was created to honor the Virgin Mary and a little girl’s miraculous vision of her in Lourdes, France 162 years ago.
Michele Ferrero, the Italian businessman who owned the Ferrero Group and turned it into the global candy corporation behind Nutella, Kinder, and Tic-Tac, was a devout Catholic. He died in 2015 on Valentine’s Day.
Executives say that Ferrero had a devotion to the Madonna of Lourdes, another name for Jesus’s mother, and made a pilgrimage once a year to the French site, according to The Guardian. There were statues of the Virgin Mary in every company building.
“The success of Ferrero we owe to Our Lady of Lourdes. Without her we can do little,” Ferrero said at an event marking the 50th anniversary of the company.
At the end of 2018, the company sold $11.6 billion of chocolates, led by products like Nutella, Ferrero Rocher and Kinder Chocolate and primarily in Germany, Poland, France, Italy, U.K. and the U.S.
The chocolate’s rocky texture resembles the rock grotto in Lourdes, where Mary is believed to have appeared to a 13-year-old girl named Bernadette Soubirous on Feb. 11, 1858. The word “Rocher” is said to come from the name of the grotto in French — “Rocher de Massabielle.”
St. Bernadette of Lourdes. Creative Common photo.
The woman appeared 18 times in total at the grotto, revealing herself as the Virgin Mary to Bernadette and asking the girl to dig into dirt, where a spring of water — said to have miraculous healing properties — poured from and still continues to produce water today.
Pope Francis said on Feb. 11, the feast day of Our Lady of Lourdes and the Catholic Church’s World Day of the Sick, that he entrusts those who are ill, their families and healthcare providers to the Virgin Mary.
Lourdes is one of Catholicism’s major pilgrimage sites, with visits from millions of people each year. It’s also the second most popular destination in France after Paris. After the usual Vatican investigation, Pope Pious XI named Bernadette a saint in 1933.
Over half of U.S. consumers will spend money on candy for Valentine’s Day, according to the National Retail Federation. That’s more people than those who plan on buying jewelry or flowers, or those who plan to go out for the evening. Total holiday spending is expected to increase 32% this year to $27.4 billion, with $2.4 billion spent on sweet treats.