Alison Baulos

It took Nestlé ~30 years to grow Nerds to $40M in annual sales Then, Chicago-based Ferrara took the brand from ~$40M to nearly $1 BILLION in just 6 (read: SIX) years Nerds' origins date all the way back to a powdered drink mix in 1934, before taking a detour in St Louis through a $25M Willy Wonka movie that was actually one big commercial for Quaker Oats, a British confectionery acquisition, and ultimately 30 years under Nestlé's ownership By 2018, Nerds was a largely overlooked brand inside a nearly $100B food conglomerate, responsible for 10% of Nestles confectionary revenue, which was 10% of their overall business. Then Ferrara came along and acquired Nestle's entire confectionary business for $2.8B. Today, I estimate Nerds alone is worth north of $2B. The craziest part? None of this was an accident, at all. Ferrero was the perfect company to seize the opportunity, having just acquired the gummy manufacturer behind Trolli and Black forest just a year earlier What's more - Nestlé had actually introduced the underlying concept nearly two decades earlier with Nerds Rope in 2001, and the Ferrero employee credited with the Nerds Clusters patent actually worked at Nestle on similar concepts in the past Nestle had the brand, the concept, and the talent Ferrara just executed better. What follows is one of the most remarkable growth stories in all of CPG history. I wrote 3,000 words on the history of Nerds, and its journey to becoming the number one non chocolate candy brand in the country - the full deep dive is coming in my newsletter this friday, subscribe at the link in the comments