Ritter Sport
Ritter Sport is a German chocolate bar, distributed throughout Europe and elsewhere. Each square-shaped bar is divided into 16 smaller squares, creating a four-by-four configuration.
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.
Availability and pricing
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In Germany, Ritter Sport is considered to be an inexpensive but high-quality chocolate, retailing for about 0.65 euro per 100 grams in the supermarket. Ritters are becoming increasingly available in groceries throughout the United States, for a typical price of $1.50 to $2.50 per 100 gram bar. This price is still reasonable, considering a 40 gram Hershey bar retails for about $542 in the US.
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
- Halbbitter – Plain dark very bitter chocolate
- Knusperkeks – Chocolate filled with a biscuit
- Mocca-Sahne – Coffee and cream flavoured chocolate
- Olympia – Milk chocolate filled with honey and yogurt
- Pfefferminz – Dark chocolate with peppermint cream
- Joghurt – Yogurt
- Voll-Nuss – Milk chocolate with whole hazelnuts
- Haselnuss – Milk chocolate with ground hazelnuts
- Dunkle Voll-Nuss – Dark chocolate with whole hazelnuts
- Weiße Voll-Nuss – White chocolate with whole hazelnuts
- Knusperflakes – Milk chocolate with corn flakes
- Erdnuss Flakes – Milk chocolate with peanut bits
- 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
- Kakaocreme – Alpine milk chocolate with chocolate cream center
- Feinherb á la Mousse au Chocolat – dark chocolate filled with chocolate mousse
From 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 slight, yet strong, champagne taste.
Slogans
Motto 1
- German packaging: "Quadratisch. Praktisch. Gut." ("Square. Practical. Good.")
- French packaging: "Carré. Pratique. Gourmand."
- English packaging: "The handy chocolate square"
- Italian packaging: "Quadrato. Pratico. Buono"
- Danish Packaging: "Kvadratisk. Praktisk. Chokolade der er firkantet!
Motto 2
"Qualität im Quadrat."
Literal translation used on American packaging: "Quality in a square."
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"