Ritter Sport

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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.

Ritter Sport Chocolate Bar ("Half-bitter" flavor)

1 History
2 Availability and Pricing
3 Visiting Ritter
4 Varieties
5 Slogans
6 External link

[edit] 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.

[edit] Availability and Pricing

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 (of considerably lower quality) retails for about $0.60 in the US.

[edit] 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.

[edit] Varieties

Vollmilch – Plain milk chocolate
Halbbitter – Plain dark chocolate
Knusperkeks – Referred to in English as "Butter Biscuit", this variety is a chocolate-covered butter cookie
Mocca-Sahne – Coffee and cream flavoured chocolate
Olympia – Milk chocolate filled with honey and yogurt
Pfefferminz – Dark chocolate with Peppermint cream
Jogurt – Yogurt
Voll-Nuss – Milk chocolate with whole hazelnuts
Haselnuss – Dark chocolate with ground hazelnuts
Dunkle Voll-Nuss – Dark chocolate with whole hazelnuts
Weiße Voll-Nuss – White chocolate with whole hazelnuts
Knusper Flakes – Milk chocolate with corn flakes
Erdnuss Flakes – Milk chocolate with peanut bits
Ganze Mandel – Milk chocolate with whole almonds
Marzipan – 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 hazelnut nougat center
Kakaocreme – Alpine milk chocolate with chocolate cream center
Feinherb á la Mousse au Chocolat – dark chocolate filled with creme á la Mousse au Chocolat

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.

[edit] Slogans

[edit] Motto 1

"Quadratisch. Praktisch. Gut."

Translates as "Square. Practical. Good."; appears on English packaging as "The handy chocolate square".

[edit] Motto 2

"Qualität im Quadrat."

Translates literally as "Quality in a square." (Translating the German pun into English, the motto would be, "Quality Squared.")

[edit] 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"