Nutella maker Michele Ferrero dies on Valentine’s Day

ROME – Michele Ferrero, the world’s richest candy maker whose Nutella chocolate and hazelnut spread helped raise generations of Europeans and defined Italian sweets, died on Valentine’s Day, the company said. He was 89.

Ferrero, who had been ill for several months, died Saturday in Montecarlo where he lived, surrounded by his family, the company said in a statement.

Ferrero was the patriarch of the eponymous family empire best known for its Nutella and Ferrero Rocher chocolates. The company’s products also included Tic Tacs and the Kinder line of products – including the eggs beloved by children for the treat inside.

Ferrero’s father, Pietro, started making Nutella when cocoa was still rationed during World War II, Forbes noted in ranking Ferrero and his family 30th on the list of the world’s richest billionaires in 2014, worth $23.4 billion.

The company was one of Italy’s most successful, a prime example of the “Made in Italy” brand of food and luxury goods that have defined the private sector in postwar Italy.

Italian President Sergio Mattarella praised Ferrero as one of the leaders of Italian industry, ‘’always ahead of his time thanks to innovative products and his tenacious work and reserved character.”

Pietro Ferrero opened his first chocolate laboratory in Alba, in Italy’s northwest Piemonte region, in 1942. The business passed to Michele upon Pietro’s death in 1949.