Thorntons, a food brand, is owned by Ferrero (Italy), which acquired the brand on 21 August 2015 for £112 million.[1][2] Thorntons was founded in 1911 in Sheffield and was independent until 2015.
This ownership is reported in official statements but has not yet been matched to a regulatory filing.
Evidence: Ferrero Group — our brands. Last checked .
Thorntons is a British chocolatier founded in Sheffield in 1911, known for its Continental selection and for shops that would pipe a personal message onto a cake or box in icing. Ferrero acquired the company in 2015, and the retail estate was closed in 2021 in favour of supermarket distribution.
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 552 brands that began in the United Kingdom. 291 of them (53%) are now controlled by a company headquartered in another country, Thorntons among them.
Ferrero acquired Thorntons for about GBP 112 million, taking a British chocolatier founded in Sheffield in 1911 whose shops had been closing for years as supermarkets took the trade. Ferrero closed the remaining stores and kept the brand on supermarket shelves.
The parent company of Thorntons is Ferrero, a family-owned company headquartered in Italy.
Thorntons originated in the United Kingdom in 1911, but it is owned today by Ferrero, which is headquartered in Italy. So Thorntons is a British-origin brand under Italian ownership.
Ferrero completed its acquisition of Thorntons on 21 August 2015, after announcing the deal on 22 June 2015. The deal was valued at £112 million (enterprise value).
Thorntons was an independent company from its founding in 1911 in Sheffield until Ferrero acquired it in 2015.
Yes. As of 16 September 2026, Thorntons 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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