Ferrero Plant Manager Federico Forti
On episode #54 of the Building BN podcast, BNEDC CEO Patrick Hoban and Community Marketing Manager, Whitney Chesher sit down to speak with Federico Forti, VP of Industrial Operations, for the candy maker Ferrero. Forti has been with Ferrero for over twelve years, and has been working for the company in Bloomington-Normal since 2020.
Ferrero was started as a small, family bakery and cafe over 70 years ago in Alba, a small city in Northern Italy by Pietro Ferrero and then expanded by his son, Michele Ferrero. It is now the third-largest manufacturing company in the world and is still family-owned. Ferrero broke ground on its first-ever North American chocolate manufacturing facility in Bloomington, IL, in October 2021. Ferrero, explains Forti, wants “to have the best chocolate and per tradition, [Ferrero] wants to make our own chocolate or at least the majority of our own chocolate.” This new facility allows Ferrero to do just that.
Forti explains, “Now is the time to start to make our own chocolate. So, what we are building out here is a chocolate manufacturing facility. We will receive raw materials like cocoa, cocoa butter, milk, et cetera. And we will process them to make our own chocolate. And we will do that for the Bloomington facility, which will be the main consumer. But we will also be producing chocolate for all the Ferrero plants in the area.” The plant will also serve Ferrero plants in Canada and Mexico.
Ferrero recently announced, after the podcast recording, another major expansion at the Bloomington plant. The company plans to add close to 169,000 square feet as part of a planned $214 million expansion, which will allow the company to produce Kinder Bueno bars in the U.S. This expansion will reportedly add 200 jobs by 2026.
Listen to the entire podcast here, which includes Forti’s favorite places in Bloomington-Normal, job opportunities at the Ferrero plant, the one Ferrero specialty he cannot say no to, and his view on the importance of economic development.
