Baby Ruth is owned by Ferrero (Italy), which acquired the brand on 31 March 2018 from Nestlé, as part of a $2.8 billion deal that also included Butterfinger and Crunch.[1] Before Ferrero, Baby Ruth was owned by Nestlé from 1990 to 2018.[1]
This ownership is reported in official statements but has not yet been matched to a regulatory filing.
Evidence: Ferrero Group — our brands. Last checked .
Baby Ruth is an American candy bar dating to 1921, its maker claiming it was named for President Grover Cleveland's daughter rather than the baseball player, an assertion widely read as a way of avoiding paying for an endorsement. Ferrero acquired it from Nestlé in 2018.
Controlling ownership as of . Brands grouped under the entity that owns them; large groups are collapsed.
Open the full Ferrero ownership tree →
See the full Ferrero brand portfolio (23) →
Ferrero controls 23 brands on Brandtree, 23 of them in food.
The 131 brands in chocolate on Brandtree belong to 45 owners. The largest is Mars, with 9; Ferrero has 6.
| Brand | Owner | Owner based in |
|---|---|---|
| Bounty | Mars | 🇺🇸 United States |
| Cadbury | Mondelēz | 🇺🇸 United States |
| Danusia | Wawel | 🇵🇱 Poland |
| Elizabeth Shaw | Colian | 🇵🇱 Poland |
| Almond Joy | Hershey | 🇺🇸 United States |
| Caffarel | Lindt & Sprüngli | 🇨🇭 Switzerland |
| Eitt Sett | Nói Síríus | 🇮🇸 Iceland |
| Águila | Arcor | 🇦🇷 Argentina |
Ferrero is a family-owned company headquartered in Alba, Italy, founded in 1946. Brandtree records 23 brands under its control.
Ferrero was founded by pastry maker Pietro Ferrero in Alba, Piedmont in 1946, where wartime cocoa shortages led him to stretch chocolate with local hazelnuts. It remains family-owned through a Luxembourg holding company and has expanded into American biscuits and ice cream by acquisition.
Brandtree records a controlling owner for 2,549 brands that began in the United States. 478 of them (19%) are now controlled by a company headquartered in another country, Baby Ruth among them.
Nestlé sold its United States confectionery business, including Butterfinger, Baby Ruth, Crunch and around twenty other brands, to Ferrero. Nestlé kept its confectionery businesses in every other market.
The parent company of Baby Ruth is Ferrero, a family-owned company headquartered in Italy.
Baby Ruth originated in the United States in 1921, but it is owned today by Ferrero, which is headquartered in Italy. So Baby Ruth is an American-origin brand under Italian ownership.
Ferrero completed its acquisition of Baby Ruth on 31 March 2018, after announcing the deal on 16 January 2018. The deal, which also included Butterfinger and Crunch, was valued at $2.8 billion (enterprise value).
Before Ferrero, Baby Ruth was owned by Nestlé from 1990 until 2018.
Yes. As of 25 September 2026, Baby Ruth is still owned by Ferrero. The ownership record was last checked against primary sources on that date.
Last verified . Every ownership fact above is backed by one of these primary documents. Numbers in brackets in the text refer to this list.
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