Who Owns Butterfinger?

Butterfinger was founded in 1923 by Otto Schnering, the founder of the Curtiss Candy Company in Chicago, Illinois. Schnering was a prolific candy innovator who also created the Baby Ruth bar in 1921. The Butterfinger bar was distinctive for its crispy, flaky peanut butter-flavored center coated with chocolate, a combination that had not been seen in the candy market before.

The name "Butterfinger" was chosen through a public contest, with the winning name evoking the bar's buttery, finger-shaped form. Schnering was known for innovative marketing tactics, and he promoted Butterfinger by dropping bars from airplanes over major American cities, creating publicity and introducing the product to consumers in a memorable way.

The Curtiss Candy Company was acquired by Standard Brands in 1964, which later merged with Nabisco in 1981 to form Nabisco Brands. In 1990, Nestlé acquired the Curtiss candy brands from Nabisco, bringing Butterfinger, Baby Ruth, and other Curtiss brands into Nestlé's confectionery portfolio.

Under Nestlé's ownership, Butterfinger became one of the company's flagship American candy brands. The brand gained significant cultural visibility through a long-running advertising partnership with The Simpsons television show in the 1990s, with Bart Simpson appearing in Butterfinger commercials and the brand being featured in the show. This partnership helped reinforce Butterfinger's positioning as a fun, irreverent candy brand.

In 2018, Nestlé announced the sale of its U.S. confectionery business, including Butterfinger, Baby Ruth, and other brands, to Ferrero Group, the Italian confectionery company known for Nutella and Ferrero Rocher. The sale was completed in 2018 for approximately $2.8 billion. Butterfinger is now owned by Ferrero, not Nestlé.

Under Ferrero's ownership, Butterfinger underwent a significant reformulation in 2019. Ferrero changed the recipe to use higher-quality ingredients, including more peanuts and better chocolate, responding to consumer feedback that the bar's quality had declined under Nestlé's ownership. The reformulation was well-received by consumers and critics.