Ritter Sport

Ritter Sport is a German chocolate bar, distributed throughout Europe, Canada, North America, South America and elsewhere throughout the world. Each 100 gram square-shaped bar is divided into 16 smaller squares, creating a four-by-four pattern. Large bars weighing 250 grams and 16.5 gram mini bars are also available, although in fewer varieties.

History

In 1912 Alfred Ritter and his newly wedded wife Clara founded a small shop in Stuttgart-Cannstatt making chocolates. Shortly afterwards they founded the company "ALRIKA" (Alfred Ritter Cannstatt). The company moved to Waldenbuch, a couple of miles outside Stuttgart, in 1930."Ritter's Sport Schokolade" started in 1932. The typical square chocolate bars were Clara's idea, who wanted to create a chocolate bar that would fit into every jacket pocket without breaking.When Alfred was found having an affair, Clara left him, but he continued to use her idea. She had not copyrighted the square chocolate bars.

Corporate Responsibility

The current generation of company owners, namely Alfred T. Ritter and his sister Marli Hoppe-Ritter, are engaged in ecology and fair trade projects. In 1990 they launched project "Cacaonica", which supports organic cocoa agriculture and reforestation in Nicaragua. The Ritter company owns a CHP power plant and buys additional electricity from renewable resources. The monomaterial chocolate packaging is designed to minimize its ecological footprint.

On the whole, their products are neither certified organic nor certified fair trade. However, in April 2008 they launched an organic product line called "Ritter Sport Bio".

Ritter Museum

The [http://www.museum-ritter.de/ Ritter museum] is a »Hommage to the square« - to describe the Sammlung Marli Hoppe-Ritter. The collection consists of nearly 600 paintings, objects, sculptures and graphic works, a breadth of painterly and sculptural confrontation with the square form used as the design for the Ritter chocolate.

Visiting Ritter

Ritter's factory is located in Waldenbuch, outside of Stuttgart. They have a shop and museum there as well that is open to visitors.

Varieties

# Vollmilch – Plain milk chocolate
# Dunkle Vollmilch – Plain medium dark chocolate, 40% cacao
# Halbbitter – Plain dark chocolate, 50% cacao
# Edelbitter – Plain dark chocolate, 71% cacao
# Knusperkeks – Milk chocolate with a butter biscuit
# Pfefferminz – Chocolate with peppermint
# Joghurt – Yogurt
# Erdbeer Joghurt – Milk chocolate strawberry and yogurt filling
# Voll-Nuss – Milk chocolate with whole hazelnuts
# Dunkle Voll-Nuss – Dark chocolate with whole hazelnuts
# Weiße Voll-Nuss – White chocolate with whole hazelnuts
# Knusperflakes – Milk chocolate with corn flakes
# Voll Erdnuss – Milk chocolate with whole peanuts
# Ganze Mandel – Milk chocolate with whole almonds
# Marzipan – Dark chocolate with marzipan center
# Cocos – Milk chocolate with flakes of coconut in the center
# Trauben-Nuss – Milk chocolate with raisins and hazelnut pieces
# Rum Trauben Nuss – Milk chocolate with rum-soaked raisins and hazelnut pieces
# Cappuccino – Milk chocolate and cappuccino cream
# Alpenmilch – Special milk chocolate with high milk proportion
# Nugat – Milk chocolate with hazelnuts nougat center
# Feinherb à la Mousse au Chocolat – dark chocolate filled with chocolate mousse
# Williams Birne Truffel – dark chocolate filled with pear brandy mousse
# Haselnuss – Milk chocolate with hazelnutsFrom time to time, various special and limited edition flavours are released, sometimes with seasonal themes. For example, Marc de Champagne contained a truffle-like center with a champagne flavour.

logans

Motto 1

*German packaging: "Quadratisch. Praktisch. Gut." ("Square. Practical. Good.")
*French packaging: "Carré. Pratique. Gourmand."
*English packaging: "The handy chocolate square"
*English packaging (UK): "Quality in a Square."
*Italian packaging: "Quadrato. Pratico. Buono."
*Danish Packaging: "Kvadratisk. Praktisk. God."
*Russian packaging: "Квадратный. Практичный. Хороший."
*Kazakh packaging: "Рольставни. Пбилеи. Ваше."

Motto 2

"Qualität im Quadrat."

Literal translation used on English language packaging: "Quality in a square."However, the German original contains a pun with the algebra meaning of square, so it would be better translated as "Quality squared". English packaging now features "Quality. Chocolate. Squared." to provide a similar pun.

Mascot

Ritter Sport is sometimes represented by "Quadrago", a banner-carrying baby dragon. This may be partly attributed to the German word "Ritter" meaning "Knight".

External links

* [http://www.ritter-sport.com/ Ritter Sport's Official Website]