Some people really like Nutella and then there's Sara Rosso. An American ex-pat currently residing in Italy, Rosso is the founder of World Nutella Day –– an unofficial celebration of the popular chocolate-hazelnut spread.
Rosso started the event in 2007 and has celebrated every year since on February 5. The event has its own blog, featuring Nutella recipes as well as photographs of the spread. However, Ferrero, the company that produces Nutella, doesn't seem to share Rosso's passion for unofficial celebrations of their product, issuing her a cease-and-desist letter that ordered any mentions or likenesses of Nutella removed from her site.
It's unclear what motivated Ferrero's harsh response to what essentially amounts to free publicity from a very passionate fan, but the company backtracked earlier, issuing the following message to Italian news site Corriere della Sera, which was subsequently translated by Huffington Post:
"A positive contact between Ferrero and Sara Rosso, owner of the non-official fan page called World Nutella Day, closed the case. Ferrero wishes to express its sincere gratitude to Sara Rosso for her passion for Nutella, a gratitude it extends to all the fans of the Nutella World Day."
"The problem originally emerged from a routine procedure in defense of trademarks, activated following improper use of the Nutella trademark within the fan page," explains the company. [But once the solution was found], "we immediately interrupted any time [sic] of action. Ferrero considers itself lucky to have such a devoted and loyal fan as Sara Rosso."
It's unclear what initiated the chain of events that resulted in Ferrero's cease-and-desist letter, but a good guess would probably be the fact that her blog features Google Ads. The company likely misunderstood the intent of her blog, assuming Rosso was profiting off the Nutella trademark.
At any rate, the situation has now been resolved and World Nutella Day is saved. You can check out the official website here.
