Nutresa Buys Ecuador Chocolate Icon Despite Colombia Trade War

The Nutresa La Universal deal puts an iconic Ecuadorian chocolate maker in Colombian hands, even as a tariff war keeps goods from crossing the two countries’ shared border.

Colombia’s biggest food company is buying one of Ecuador’s best-loved brands. The timing is what makes the move striking.

Grupo Nutresa, the packaged-foods giant controlled by financier Jaime Gilinski, has agreed to buy all of Universal Sweet Industries, the Ecuadorian chocolate maker known to everyone in the country simply as La Universal.

The agreement was disclosed on June eighteenth in a filing with Colombia’s financial regulator, the Superintendencia Financiera. The seller is a Spanish-registered holding called Bia Culinary and Snacks Investments.

Neither side disclosed the price. The deal still needs regulatory clearances before it closes.

Why the Nutresa La Universal deal stands out

Colombia and Ecuador are in the middle of the worst bilateral break in South America in nearly two decades. What began in early 2026 as a security tariff escalated into near-total mutual barriers, froze around two and a half billion dollars in annual trade, and pushed Colombia out of the Andean Community.

Against that backdrop, a Colombian champion is planting a flag inside Ecuador. The lesson for investors is that capital can cross a border that goods no longer can.

Buying a local producer, rather than exporting into Ecuador, sidesteps the tariff wall entirely. The factory, the brands and the sales all sit on the Ecuadorian side of the line.

It also buys something money rarely builds quickly: trust. La Universal has sold sweets in Ecuador since 1889, and brands such as Manicho are household names there.

What Nutresa is getting

La Universal is based in Guayaquil and makes chocolates, candy and other cocoa-based products. Filings with Ecuador’s securities regulator show its plant turns out about 540 tonnes of sweets a month.

For Nutresa, the appeal is the cocoa. Ecuador is one of the world’s top cocoa producers, so owning a maker there ties the company closer to a key raw material as well as a new consumer market.

Cocoa prices have swung sharply on world markets in recent years, squeezing chocolate makers everywhere. Owning supply at the source gives Nutresa a hedge that pure importers do not have.

Nutresa already sells brands like Saltin Noel crackers and Jet chocolate in Ecuador, as El Universo reported. The acquisition turns a trading presence into an owned production base.

The purchase also drew a political reaction at home. President Gustavo Petro claimed the company would lock up local farmers’ cocoa for export, a charge Nutresa has not detailed publicly.

A pattern under Gilinski

The deal fits a clear strategy since Gilinski took the helm in January 2025. Nutresa has been buying and selling at speed, reshaping its portfolio around food it wants to own outright.

It bought the ice-cream maker Mimo’s, taking full control in May 2026. In the same period it shed a thirty percent stake in the Starbucks operator in Colombia and nearly forty percent of Bimbo Colombia.

The pattern is a rotation toward cocoa, snacks and ice cream, and away from franchises it merely co-owned. La Universal fits the cocoa side of that bet neatly.

Investors have rewarded the activity. The Rio Times notes Nutresa’s shares have climbed from around 92,000 pesos when Gilinski arrived to roughly 311,000 pesos by mid-June 2026, a gain of about 238 percent.

The forward question is what happens if the border reopens. A Colombian-owned Ecuadorian icon would then sit on both sides of a trade relationship that politics tore apart, a position few rivals can match.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is La Universal?

La Universal, formally Universal Sweet Industries, is an Ecuadorian chocolate and confectionery maker founded in 1889 and based in Guayaquil. Its brands, including Manicho, are household names in Ecuador, and its plant produces about 540 tonnes of sweets a month.

Why is Nutresa buying it during a trade war?

Owning a producer inside Ecuador lets Nutresa serve that market without shipping goods across a border blocked by tariffs. The deal shows that company investment can move between Colombia and Ecuador even while trade in goods is frozen.

Has the Nutresa La Universal deal closed?

Not yet, because the two sides have only signed a share-purchase contract and the deal still needs regulatory approvals before it is final. The purchase price has not been made public.