Ritter Sport Chocolate Factory And Museum

Stuttgart's probably best known outside of Germany as the home of Porsche and Mercedes but it should probably be better known as the home of the square. Well, actually, Ritter Sport, makers of the square chocolate bars:

Since I grew up in Philadelphia, chocolate always meant Hershey's, which is made in nearby Hershey, Pennsylvania. It wasn't until I was older that I began...experimenting...with other brands. I can remember seeing Ritter Sport's unusual, maybe even weird, multi-colored square chocolate bars at supermarkets in California. I could never figure out why it said "Sport" on the package and, until recently, figured that Europeans ate them as some sort of energy or protein-type bar when they were working out or playing sports. (I really thought that for a time.) It wasn't until I got to go to Ritter Sport's factory, art and chocolate museum, and cafe that I found out the real answer...but first...

Ritter Sport is now located in Waldenbuch. It's about 30 minutes via car south of Stuttgart but it was founded in 1912 in the Bad Cannstatt area of the city, which Diana and I recently visited. We just happened to come across the old Ritter Sport factory. If you look at the left-hand side of the front of the building, you'll see a tiny white sign that says that this building used to be the Ritter factory.

The company outgrew its Bad Cannstatt location in 1930 and they packed up the whole family and moved to their new digs. The new factory is surprisingly small considering how many chocolate bars they say that they make per day. Oh yeah, like the chocolate bars, everything is themed in squares, lots of colored squares...

The Ritter "complex" is made up of a handful of buildings including the factory and offices (above) and their relatively new combo art museum, chocolate museum, chocolate workshop, chocolate shop, and cafe:

The art museum houses the personal collection of the family and, guess what, it's all about squares! They do have special exhibits too with one of the upcoming ones about an art-and-chocolate theme. The chocolate museum includes exhibits about the history of the family and business, the raw materials...

...and the supply chain...

One of the more interesting things (probably only to me) was this one display where they highlight three Ritter employees. Other than advertisements, almost all the other non-chocolate displays are about the family, which I guess is appropriate since it's a family-owned business but I thought it was nice that they included something about these three folks...

Speaking of the family, they are currently on the third generation running the show. The main figurehead used in most of their materials is the grandson of the founder. It's somewhat funny as he's got big hair and has had big hair all the way back to photos from the 70s. On the left (below) is a book that Ritter Sport put together for the 100th anniversary of the company and you can see that Alfred's one of the things that's featured. Inside the book and mentioned somewhere during the tour, the company is co-run by him and his sister (she's on the right in the right photo below). I saw only one photo of the two of them together and they both looked fairly uncomfortable. The one below is actually two cardboard-cut-out style photos put next to each other (they did it -- not me). Call me crazy but I'd bet a box full of Ritter bars that the brother and sister team don't get along. I'm not sure why I feel that but it's the sense that I get from their photos... Hmm...conspiracy theory...

The chocolate museum has a video that shows more of the history of the company. It's really the only part of the whole museum that shows the actual manufacturing operation, which is what I'd really like to see. One of the more curious, but cool, things in the museum was this "game" that has a small version of the Ritter Sport factory in it. When the button is pressed, the factory lights up and shakes for a few seconds and a small truck with a mini Ritter bar on it comes out of the factory and "drives" to a slot in the front of the display. The chocolate bar is dropped off into a bin and you get to keep/eat it. This is Berat showing off his "winnings" to Diana and Xiao while Thanos gets ready to take his turn:

They also had an interactive display where they show Ritter Sport's commercials from over the years. Can you hear me now??? Thanos, Berat, me, and Xiao are enjoying the show:

By the way, our group was pretty international with me from the United States, Diana from Colombia, Thanos from Greece, Berat from Turkey and Germany, and Xiao from China. Yeah for international day!

After we were finished touring the museums we went to the factory store:

Surprisingly, there were no free samples but they do have a load of rejected chocolate bars (mostly broken/cracked) for sale really cheap. They also sell their full line of products for about 20% less than what they cost at the store. I was "moved" by the "minimeter" that has 100 mini bars of chocolate in it to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Ritter. What can I say, it was an emotional experience...

The one thing that I was bummed about with the whole visit was that they have a workshop where they let kids make chocolate bars. You might remember the time that I got to make Cup Noodles while in Osaka. (Definitely one of my favorite stories and among the best photos of anything I've written about.) Unfortunately, Ritter only allows "younger" kids to participate. Oh well, maybe next time...

Oh, and why the square shape? Ritter legend has it that Clara Ritter, the wife and co-founder of the company, noticed that local sports fans were buying chocolate and putting it in their sport-jacket pockets where the bars would end up breaking. I'm not sure why this'd be a huge problem but Clara had the foresight to get the company to change the shape of the bar into a square that could fit into the jacket pocket of her customers, thus the "Sport" in the name. For a time, the company had some trouble convincing their customers that the bar was still the same 100 gram weight but eventually the new design stuck and became synonymous with Ritter Sport. Like their motto says, "Square. Practical. Good." I agree.

Thanks again to my international travel companions for the fun day and especially to Berat for putting it all together. And, yes, I have enough chocolate to last for months at a reasonable rate of consumption...not that I expect that!