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Flowing chocolate-hazelnut cream

8 July 2026 · 8 min

Hazelnuts in the chocolate industry

From praline to gianduja: the chocolate industry's century-old partnership with the hazelnut.

More than half of the world's hazelnut crop goes to a single sector: chocolate. Hazelnut tablets, praline fillings, gianduja and cocoa-hazelnut creams are the main engine of global demand — which is why crop forecasts on the Black Sea directly shape production planning at Europe's chocolate giants.

From gianduja to the modern era

The hazelnut-chocolate partnership traces back to 19th-century Turin: when cocoa grew expensive, Italian masters blended it with roasted hazelnuts and created gianduja. Today's global cocoa-hazelnut creams are the industrial descendants of that invention.

The industry uses hazelnuts in three main forms: whole kernels (in tablets), chopped and sliced (fillings and decoration), and paste/purée (filling and cream bases). Each form carries its own specifications for calibre, roast colour and oil release.

Selected hazelnut kernels
Calibre consistency in whole kernels keeps tablet lines running without stoppage.

What the industrial buyer expects

For large-scale buyers, continuity matters as much as flavour: low batch variance, aflatoxin and moisture assurance, on-time shipment and lot traceability. Koralla's industrial portfolio is built to meet those expectations with laboratory verification and standard operating procedures.