Nutella Café paired with Ankara simit, what can a local food tie-in do for a brand?
Nutella Café welcomed visitors in Ankara on 19 and 20 September and served the city’s simit, the sesame-crusted bread ring sold on every Turkish street corner, with Nutella (Perakende.org, 2 October 2026). Ankara is the first stop of the “Bu Hikâyede Ekmek Var” campaign, roughly “There’s Bread in This Story”, which pairs the breads and pastries of different cities with Nutella. The campaign also includes jars personalized with names, gift keychains, a campaign tote and a simit-shaped wheel in the Nutella App.
If you run a food brand or a café, here is what this tells you: even a global brand, when it enters a city, brings along the product already on that city’s counter. A local food tie-in lets a brand look less like an outsider and more like part of the neighborhood’s habits.
What did Nutella Café serve in Ankara, and how was the campaign built?
Over two days, simit was served with Nutella, jars were personalized with names and visitors who bought one received a gift. The café has a garden area. The campaign moves city by city, and Ankara is the first stop. Which cities come next has not been announced.
Let’s say it is mid-September and you are sitting in that garden in Ankara. On the table there is a simit spread with Nutella, and at the counter you wait for a jar with your name on it. On your phone, a wheel shaped like a simit is spinning. You leave with a keychain and a moment that is about your city as much as the brand.
Why does a local food tie-in like Nutella’s simit pairing add value to a brand?
BU BÖLÜMÜN ÖZETİ
- The city’s product lends the brand local roots
- Leaning on a habit is cheaper than teaching one
- A shared moment can outlive the ad
For three reasons: it gives the brand local roots, it leans on an existing habit and it creates a moment worth sharing. Teaching a new habit is slow; sitting next to a product the city already loves is not. In Ankara, that place is simit.
The city’s product lends the brand local roots
Let’s say you own a jam brand in İzmir and your jam is served on the same plate as boyoz, the city’s flaky local pastry. Customers stop seeing you as just a jar and start seeing you as part of their breakfast.
Leaning on a habit is cheaper than teaching one
Simit is already part of the morning routine for many people. The campaign adds a companion to that habit instead of inventing a new one.
A shared moment can outlive the ad
A named jar, simit in the garden, a keychain in hand: all of it is ready for a photo. What visitors post can keep circulating as user-generated content after the event ends. There are no numbers, but the setup looks built for it.
Who does Nutella’s city-by-city campaign affect, and how?
Simit sellers and bakeries, cafés and patisseries, and local food producers feel it most directly. The bakery sees its product on a brand’s stage. Cafés and patisseries may meet customers who now expect a new pairing. Local producers see a door to a similar tie-in, and in autumn 2026, café owners in Ankara may be the first to notice.
What does the simit wheel in the Nutella App show about the digital side?
It shows the physical event carrying on in digital form. In the app, people who spin the simit-shaped wheel get a chance to win a gift. Here’s the part that surprised me: even the most digital piece of the campaign is shaped like a simit.
How can a small café build a local food tie-in like Nutella’s?
By choosing one local product, one partner and one limit. The product should be something the city already loves. The partner should be the local business that makes it best. The limit is dates and quantities: two days or a month, how many jars, how many plates.
What should a café or food brand owner do this week after Nutella’s Ankara stop?
BU BÖLÜMÜN ÖZETİ
- List your city’s signature foods
- Add a small personal touch
- Set up the event’s digital trace in advance
This week, write down your city’s three iconic foods, pick one and go for a coffee with the business that makes it best. Then draft a one-page event plan with four headings: date, product, gift and digital trace.
List your city’s signature foods
Write down the local foods people eat at breakfast, in the afternoon and on the go. Look at which one your customers most often have with your product.
Add a small personal touch
Not every business can print names on jars. But a name on a cup, a handwritten note on a bag or a customer-specific label is possible.
Set up the event’s digital trace in advance
Prepare the event page, the map profile post and a hashtag for sharing ahead of time. We plan local tie-ins and experience design with businesses as part of our brand consultancy work. For other developments, take a look at our retail page, where we interpret the retail agenda for you.
One principle: if you borrow a local product, give it the stage; your own brand will show up on that stage naturally.
Quick Summary
- Nutella Café served simit with Nutella in Ankara on 19 and 20 September (Perakende.org, 2 October 2026).
- Ankara is the first stop of the “Bu Hikâyede Ekmek Var” campaign; the next stops have not been announced.
- Name-personalized jars, gift keychains, a campaign tote and a simit wheel in the Nutella App are part of the campaign.
- The story does not say whether the café is permanent or temporary, where it is or who runs it.
- A small business can try the same idea with one local product, one partner and a limited time window.
Short Glossary
- Experiential marketing
- Experiential marketing is the marketing approach used to give customers a physical or digital moment with a brand.
- Co-branding
- Co-branding is the partnership model used when two brands or businesses appear together in a product or event.
- User-generated content
- User-generated content is the term used to describe the photos, videos and comments customers share about a brand.
Frequently Asked Questions
Next Step
For a partnership or event idea built around your city, fill in the consult your expert form.
Sources: Perakende.org, 2 October 2026 · Nutella Türkiye official website
Updated: October 2026
Sık Sorulan Sorular
The campaign idea is to pair each city’s own bread or pastry with Nutella. For Ankara, the chosen product is simit. Nutella’s Turkish website also puts eating it with bread up front, and according to the brand, 43 countries have taken up the “Nutella&Bread” pairing.
Jars carried personal names, buyers received a keychain shaped like a caravan or a jar, and a campaign tote was offered for purchase. Their shared job is to make sure the visitor leaves with something in hand. A named jar goes to the kitchen and reminds you of the brand at breakfast.
The headline says the café “opened its doors”, but the text only covers 19 and 20 September. Whether it is a permanent branch or a temporary event, the exact address and the operating company are not in the story. So do not assume a permanent Nutella Café exists in Ankara.
Simit takes a leading role in a global brand’s campaign. For the neighborhood bakery, the opportunity is to put a sweet companion next to simit and grow the average basket.
When customers see a pairing somewhere, they may ask for it at their own café. If the menu has no answer, the customer turns around at the door. Make your own version with your own products; using another brand without permission is a different matter.
For cheese, jam or tahini makers, the campaign shows a template: pair with the city’s pastry. The right partner opens a showcase beyond the shelf.
An experience that starts in the garden continues as a game on the phone. That link can turn a two-day event into a longer touchpoint. For a small business, the equivalent is not an app but a simple prize-draw page opened with a QR code.
Nutella’s Turkish website shows no page about the Ankara campaign; the site carries the general “Nutella&Bread” story. Someone searching for the event finds no official page to land on. For your own event, a single page and a post on your map profile keep that search from coming up empty.
Yes, a name on a jar and a user spinning a wheel in an app both generate personal data. If you build something similar, check the privacy notice and explicit consent rules for Türkiye; verify with the official source, as this is not legal or financial advice. We look at the loyalty side separately through Praticar’s digital rental experience.
Let’s say you run a coffee shop in Gaziantep. You add the city’s pastry to your menu on a shared plate, and customers start calling it “our plate”. When choosing, ask yourself one thing: do customers already buy this every week?
With a bakery or producer, two things go in writing from the start: whose name appears where, and how revenue is shared. A co-branding agreement can be short, but it should be written. A partnership built on a handshake falls apart the day the till stops ringing.
Nutella’s Ankara stop lasted two days. Try a weekend first, then make it permanent based on how customers react. If you are thinking about a chain model, look at Coffee Factory’s balance between franchising and central control.
The story only covers the event on 19 and 20 September. Whether it is a permanent branch, and where it is, has not been announced.
Ankara was announced as the campaign’s first stop. The next cities and dates are not in the story.
You can build a pairing with a local product on your own menu. If you plan to use another brand’s name or logo, get written permission and check the legal position with the official source.