Alfred Ritter GmbH & Co. KG

In 1912, Alfred (1885–1952) and Clara Ritter (1877–1959) founded a chocolate and confectionery factory in Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt. Later, in 1919, it introduced its own brand of chocolate, named "Alrika (Alfred Ritter Cannstatt)".

By 1926, the company had 80 employees and had bought their first company truck to transport the chocolate.

When production needs required a factory expansion in 1930, the company moved to Waldenbuch, a site a couple of miles outside Stuttgart. The chocolate brand known today, Ritter's Sport Schokolade, was launched in 1932 after Clara suggested creating a chocolate bar that would fit into any sport jacket pocket without breaking but weighed the same as a normal bar. Ritter Sport replaced the Alrika brand.

The Second World War halted production and Ritter chocolates disappeared until the 1950s, when chocolate rationing was ended in West Germany. The end of chocolate rationing did not mark the end of troubles for the firm since in 1952 the company's founder, Albert Ritter, died. His son, Alfred Otto Ritter, took over and focused the company on the chocolate square. From 1960 to 1970, sales tripled.

In 1966, Clara Ritter also died and the company was left solely in the hands of Alfred Otto. In 1964, he dispensed with many other product lines in order to focus on the square Ritter Sport bar.

The 1970s saw Ritter packaging become more colourful with a brighter unique colour assigned to each flavour. The brighter labels were seen in parallel with colour television, on which Ritter advertised. Another advance in packaging came with the snap-open pack (called the 'Knick-Pack'), which Ritter marketed as "practical and modern". In 1972 the company achieved sales of over 100 million DM for the first time.

After Alfred Otto Ritter's death in 1974, the company was managed by his wife, Marta, and in 1978 the company passed into the hands of the third generation, brother and sister Alfred T. Ritter and Marli Hoppe-Ritter. Alfred Theodor Ritter and his sister Marli Hoppe-Ritter joined the advisory board, and increasingly brought social, environmental and sustainability issues into the company management. Alfred Theodor Ritter took over the chairmanship of the advisory board in 1983. In 2005, he also took over the operational chairmanship of Alfred Ritter GmbH. In 2008 the company was making a profit again. In 2015, Ritter handed over the chairmanship to the previous managing director of production and technology, Andreas Ronken, and moved to the chairmanship of the advisory board, which his sister previously held.

In 1990, they launched project(s) "Cacaonica", which supports organic cocoa agriculture and reafforestation in Nicaragua, and "Ritter Solar", now the European market leader of solar thermal products and large solar thermal systems. The Ritter company owns a CHP power plant, which supplies 70% of the factory's energy needs, and since 2002 the company has been run entirely on renewable energy. The monomaterial chocolate packaging is designed to minimize its ecological footprint and is recyclable. The company has been certified to ZNU standard.

The Ritter Sport package was originally transparent with white lettering. From 1947 it was packaged in brown cellophane until Ritter introduced coloured packaging in 1974, allowing each variety to be differentiated by colour. In addition, in 1976, tubular bag packaging and the folded opening were introduced. The package allows the chocolate to be opened with a kink. The pack can be closed again using the resulting tab. Recyclable polypropylene has been used for the outer packaging since 1991.

Overall, the company logo has only changed slightly. It consists of the Ritter lettering, which has remained unchanged since 1919, including Sport, in large block letters since 1969. From 1987 it was surrounded by a square against a white background. Typically, the font colour is blue, the square background is white, and the square frame is gold.

A legal dispute between Ritter and Mondelēz International over the ability to trademark the square shape was going on for years. After Mondelēz initially succeeded before the Bundespatentgericht (Federal Patent Court), arguing that the Trademark Act prohibits the protection of shapes dictated by the nature of the goods, Mondelēz lost before the Bundesgerichtshof (Federal Court of Justice) in October 2017, which ruled that Ritter Sport could provisionally retain trademark protection and referred the case back to the Bundespatentgericht. After the lawsuit was dismissed, Mondelēz filed suit again, based on the previously unexamined ground that a shape trademark may not be granted if the shape confers significant value on the goods. When the Bundespatentgericht ruled in favour of Ritter, Mondelēz went to the Bundesgerichtshof, where it lost in 2020.

Controversies

In 2008, on the initiative of Alfred T. Ritter, the company's employees working in the lowest wage groups were regrouped into slightly higher ones. At the same time, however, the company outsourced the packaging to a subcontractor that paid lower wages than the collective agreement in the confectionery industry. In January 2008, the Federal Cartel Office investigated eleven German confectionery manufacturers, triggered by a leniency application from Mars GmbH. By the beginning of 2013, fines of over 60 million euros had been imposed in four cases, including a total of 7.5 million euros against the Ritter KG.

The "Voll-Nuss" (Whole Nuts) variety was rated "poor" by Stiftung Warentest at the end of November 2013. The assessment was based on the assumption that the proven flavouring substance piperonal could not be obtained in the required quantities in a "natural" way. Ritter Sport referred to an affidavit of guarantee from the flavour supplier Symrise, according to which it was a natural flavour that was "exclusively of natural origin" and "fully marketable and edible." In November 2013, Ritter Sport obtained an injunction prohibiting the foundation from claiming that Ritter Sport used chemically produced flavours in its nut chocolate. In January 2014, the Landgericht München I (Regional Court of Munich I) confirmed the decision. On 9 September 2014, the Oberlandesgericht München (Munich Higher Regional Court) also decided against Stiftung Warentest in an appeal before the court because the overall test verdict was based only on an indirect conclusion about the extraction of one of the ingredients and did not represent objectively justified criticism of the tested product. At the end of September 2014, Stiftung Warentest announced that it would recognize the judgment and not wish to continue the legal dispute.

In February 2021, Ritter Sport released a new product: Cacao Y Nada ("Cocoa and Nothing"). Ritter Sport advertised that the product was 100% cocoa and claimed that they could not call this product chocolate because (as the German chocolate regulations state) there is no added sugar. This claim was a marketing gimmick. The then Federal Minister for Food and Agriculture, Julia Klöckner, made it clear that Ritter Sport could call their new creation chocolate: "The cocoa regulation does not limit the use of sugary ingredients to certain types of sugar. Therefore, according to our ministry, a product that uses natural cocoa juice should also be allowed to be sold under the name chocolate."

After the Russian attack on Ukraine in 2022, the company came under criticism because it continued to hold on to business in Russia. Boss Andreas Ronken pointed out that continued sales are important for cocoa farmers in West Africa and Central and South America, who would otherwise lose their livelihoods. However, investments and marketing activities in Russia have been stopped. In January 2023 it was announced that an amount of 1.51 million euros from the proceeds of the Russian business had been donated to various organizations. According to press reports, Ritter Sport is donating profits from its Russian business to Ukraine.