Hazelnut harvest drops by 60%: confectionery industry on alert
Turkish production also down: from ice cream to chocolates, companies look at fruit alternatives
3' min read
3' min read
After three poor years, 2025 is shaping up to be another black year for national hazelnut production. With harvest just beginning, estimates by the Italian Farmers' Association already speak of a 60% drop in yields.
A collapse that also alarms the food processing industry, from ice cream to the production of spreadable creams, so much so that some are already starting to think about other recipes based on almonds, pistachios or exotic fruits.
In our country, there are about 95,000 hectares of hazelnut groves, present in Latium and Campania but mainly concentrated in Piedmont.
"In July, we started to see empty hazelnuts fall to the ground," says Daniela Ferrando, a producer from Alessandria, Italy, "and the result is that now, compared to a normal yield of 20 quintals per hectare, I am harvesting 5. The blame? It's climate change: 'The hazelnut is not a rustic plant that adapts to the woods, as people believe,' Ferrando says, 'mild winters do not favour it, it suffers from drought but also from water stagnation. Fifteen years ago, when I started, we thought of the hazelnut tree as the new Eldorado for the Alessandria region. And now we don't really know what to do".
The industry is also worried: 'The low Italian quantity is combined with the fact that, due to the spring frost, production has also dropped in Turkey, where 70 per cent of the world's hazelnuts are grown,' says Pier Giorgio Mollea, owner of Marchisio, which has its processing plant in Cortemilia, in the province of Cuneo. 'This shortage is leading on the one hand to an increase in hazelnut prices, which has almost doubled, and on the other to a shift of interest towards almonds.
