If there’s anything that (almost) everyone can agree about, it’s that Nutella is delicious. In fact, it’s so deliciously inspiring that fans themselves went out of their way to create and maintain the brand’s Facebook fan page for years. But at of the start of August, Nutella caught on and took over the fan pages. Now what? Can Nutella possibly lead a multi-million person fan page that it had no hand in creating?

Let us illustrate Nutella’s grassroots popularity for you. Back in June we wrote a story called “The Nutella Conundrum” that questioned the way brands normally rate their social media performance. Why was Nutella so important? Because it was one of the top-ten “Liked” brands on Facebook, but the fan page was not in the hands of the company. It was completely fan-managed. This, of course, had serious implications on how one could properly rate a brand’s popularity online.

As of the beginning of this month, however, Nutella stepped in and “combined” several fan-created pages into one international hub for hazelnut spread loving. Exactly how the company did this is unclear, but the Nutella fan page wall proudly displays the final product:

So where from here? A brilliant social media marketing campaign that will utilize the already massive intrinsic motion of the fans? Perhaps an integrated crowdsourcing campaign to simultaneously find the best Nutella recipe and build up the Facebook fan base to rival even the most popular brands like Starbucks? Think again. Nutella’s first act as manager of one of the biggest fan clubs online was announced on its Facebook fan wall just three days after the takeover:

Wait. What?

Nutella’s first act as caretaker for its fan page is to take a summer vacation? Public relation departments in the US need not apply – this could only happen in Europe.