In the 1940s, during the Second World War, cocoa beans were in short supply in northwestern Italy. Pietro Ferrero, the founder of Ferrero Company, used hazelnuts instead of cocoa beans and invented the predecessor of Nutella, "Hazelnut" Stick", and in conjunction with the advertising campaign, the hazelnut stick was named pasta gianduja after Gianduja, a well-known local carnival character. Hazelnut sticks are solid and packaged in tinfoil, and must be sliced ??with a knife before eating. Later, Ferrero changed the recipe to "hazelnut paste" and named it supercrema gianduja, which means "spreadable gianduja".

In 1963, in order to promote its products to a wider European market, Ferrero adopted a new brand name Nutella, which was a combination of different European languages: the "Nut" in it represented the material "hazelnut" of the product. (hazelnut, shortened to nut in English; nuss in German), and "ella" is taken from the common suffix in Italian, meaning "sweet". In this way, the brand name not only lets people know the materials and taste of the product, but also implies the Italian origin of the product. The manufacturer hoped that the new name would be recognized by consumers, and registered the Nutella brand and trademark in 1963/1964, which is still in use today. Nutella was introduced to the United States in 1983, and a production plant was opened in Somerset, New Jersey about ten years later.