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I have a special post for you all today - an interview with my friends over at the Ritter Sport Blog - SEE HERE. These guys were kind enough to answer some of the questions that always seem to crop up whenever Ritter are featured on the site. I hope you enjoy this post - pictured intermittently throughout are some pictures of their Christmas range 2011. Thanks so much to the Ritter Sport team who supplied me with the answers :D
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1. What are the top 3 best selling Ritter flavours and does it vary a lot by country?
UK:
1. Marzipan
2. Whole Hazelnuts
3. Peppermint
GER:
1. Whole Hazelnuts
2. Praline
3. Alpine Milk Chocolate
World:
1. Whole Hazelnuts
2. Dark Whole Hazelnuts
3. White Whole Hazelnuts
In general you can say the most successful flavours are the ones with nuts.
2. Who comes up with all the different flavours and are they running out of ideas?
Sometimes we ask customers which kind of flavour they would like in a chocolate or we think about what would be a good flavour/taste for the (special) season like spring, summer or winter. Another possibility is to meet with our department of Research and Development and ask them if they have discovered any interesting and new flavours lately. Yet there are still a lot of flavours to come
3. Why is there currently such a poor selection in the UK? Do you have plans to expand your range over here?
UK is not a big selling market yet. Less/no distribution in lots of markets ‘cause we are a nonfamous brand in the UK. But we do our best to change it. We work on it. -> London besides has a good distribution as you can find enclosed.
4. Have you ever made any TV commercials?
Yes, we have commercials (for promotions and standard flavours) in some countries, especially Germany, Italy, Russia, Netherlands and we also started with some in the USA this autumn.
5. What is it like working at Ritter?It’s fun to work at Ritter Sport. It’s a good working atmosphere, maybe the secret is that it is a family business and the owner is also in the company. Working in the marketing department gives me the opportunity to form the brand individually. Besides, I can work with a lot of different types of people and every day is different from the other. It is never boring to work for RITTER SPORT!
6. What is the business performance of Ritter like in these times of strained global finances?
Difficult question, I give you more information to that next week.
7. Are you ever going to create these flavours?
a. Caramel
b. Peanut Butter
c. Chilli
d. Sea Salt
e. Marshmallow
f. Coconut
We already sell Caramel + Nuts in Germany. We also had Coconut in our variety of goods. Peanuts are not included in the process of produktion any more because of the allgergy subject. We don’t have different machines to produce each product.
8. Why did you stop selling the Cocos bar?
We had low sales figures/demand for the Cocos so we had to take it out of our variety of goods. But we are thinking about a come back. We’ll see what happens.
9. Who would you say is your biggest competitor?Our biggest competitor is “Milka”. They sell the same chocolate bar products like us and have also the same target group.
10. Are Ritter planning on expanding in the future? If so what markets are they going after?
I give you more information to that next week.
11. Are Ritter ever going to change their packaging? Aren’t you running out of colours now?
In January 2010 we had a packaging relaunch. We changed the old pack with golden wings on both sides into their packaging colour. No, we didn’t run out of colours yet. There are still some left for new types.
12. Why are all your Bars Square shaped? Why not round or rectangular?
It’s quite easy it’s part of our brand label “Quality. Chocolate. Squared.”
Besides, it´s a unique selling proposition which differentiates us from other brands in the market.
13. Have you ever made a flavour that has been really unsuccessful?
No, we didn’t have an unsuccessful chocolate bar yet. It’s more than the demand declined
14. What have Ritter got planned for Christmas 2011?
In Germany we are selling Advent calendars, “Gold Edition”-stars (It’s Extra Fine Milk Chocolate with 40% Cacao, packed in star design) and Christmas trees filled with tiny “Gold Edition” bars.
15. Why do you use hazelnuts in so many of your chocolates?
As you can see in your first question chocolate with hazelnuts is worldwide a big seller for Ritter Sport. Lots of different countries like the special hazelnut chocolate.
16. What is your favourite chocolate blog to read ???www.ritter-sport.de/blog and of course http://www.chocolatemission.net/
17. What are your favourite Ritter Sport flavours?
I don’t really have a favourite flavour. I like many different Ritter Sport chocolate bars ‘cause they are all good in their own way. Depends on the season and the mood!
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69 comments:
This is all very interesting. Have they added anything further to the we will tell you all next week or has that just been left?
What a great feature thanks Jim. I was a little worried that the hotel chocolat stuff on Monday was going to overshadow anything else you did but you did a cracking job with this interview here. You asked a lot of the questions I had been wondering about them upscaling here in the UK etc.
This just shows that ritter care about their customers and dont just treat us as cash cows. thumbs up ritter.
Top work Jim. You asked all the right questions. I lol'd at the fave blog one :)
Awesome interview Jim nice one. Thank you aswell to ritter sport for taking the time to answer these questions. These are the ones that we always find people asking all the time.
I had completely forgotton we even sent them questions over for this. The one I submitted about what flavour was their favourite didn't get a very good answer did it lol. Talk about sitting on the fence.
Which whole hazelnut bar is it that creeps in to the UK's top bars? Is it the milk?white or dark one?
Wooop woop! Ritter sport you rock.
I see what they mean about the caramel and nuts being their caramel one but that doesn't 100% stack up for me.
Not only does that one include nuts (which I hate!!) but it also isn't proper caramel. It's a cream flavoured caramel filling if you get me. I want the traditional golden stuff like we get in Cadbury and Galaxy.
Doh. I can't have been reading the site when you were gathering all the questions to ask them. I would have had a whole long list you could have sent them about how they come up with all the different flavours etc.
Gee what an amazing company taking the time to come and speak on your blog Jim. They must think that using channels like blogs etc is a really great way for talking to people like us. It makes sense really. We are probs the most passionate people about ritter sport and we are all congregated in this one space. They must think that this place is a goldmine for ideas etc.
Hey Hun. how did you get them to do this interview? Did you have to pay them for it?
Ritter Sport is one of those brands of chocoalte that I would love to try more of but I just never come across them. If they were as popular or sold as easily as something like Green and Blacks or Lindt then I would buy so many more of their chocolates to try. Its just such a shame that they don't seem to be out there as much as other people are.
Rxxx
Its all well and good them showing off these advent calendars and boxs of chocs etc but actually how many of them are we going to be able to buy?
Its like dangling the carrot infront of us and then snatching it away at the last minute :( boooo
Whats with all the cryptic 'we will tell you next week' stuff about? When did they answer these questions originally Jim?
No offence jim but it could be more obvious that you are involved with this company somehow.
Is it just me coming away from reading this feeling not to positively about what they are going to do with Ritter in the UK.
The impression i've taken from this is that they are happy with the way things are going at the minute. This makes me sad as it means we wont like get anymore of their chocs for the time being. I wasn't hoping to read that :( We want more dammit.
Good interview but I had my hopes up for a competition =( =( =(
That was obvious about Milka being their nearest competitor. It always seems that as soon as one releases a flavour the other soon follows with exactly the same one. They mirror each other all year round.
I dont like the way they avoided all the questions on what they planned to do in the future :-) I was hoping they might give us some exclusive news :-o Oh well, it was still a fab read Jim. Thank you so much for doing it.
Some of those Xmas things look well cool. I would be well keen on a ritter advent calendar. I can dream anyways, no doubt I will get lumbered with some crappy cartoon one like normal.
Are you going to to a review of new christmas bar they have this year Jim? I can't tell what it is but it looks like it has raisins and some special sort of rum in it!?
Its disappointing to see that the other two are just being kept the same as last years ones, I don't know why I complain mind. Its not as if I got to try them last year so actually it makes no difference to me.
So that theory about the germans liking hazelnuts was total rubbish then lol???
If you look at their favourite bars compared to the rest of the world its actually the rest of the world that has the hazelnuts dominating the top 3. In Germany their tastes are obviously more varied vs the average as they have the praline and plain milk choc in there instead.
Jim have you ever approached a company to do an interview like this and they have declined?
The other HC interview you did a few years back was just as interesting. One company I would love to pose a few questions to is thorntons. I wouldn't know where to start with the amount of things I want to ask them.
Was that the full answer they gave for the question where we suggested some new flavours? They didn't adress all of them which is a bit of a shame. I wanted to hear what they had to say about the marshmallow one. That would be something new.
What sort of person within RItter answered these for you Jim? Was it their press office? Marketing team? The big cheese chairman himself?
If you are reading thank you for doing this interview for us Ritter. Mega loves <3 <3 <3
I laughed at the answer they gave about the running out of colours for the packaging. They blatantly know that there aren't too many ones for them left to use. I wouldn't be surprised if they started doing ones with patterns one. Red backgrounds with blue spots etc (strawberry & blurberry btw lol :P )
Dx
They were a little evasive with some of their answers.
Whats all that about we will tell you next week garb? Have they said anything further about that to you Jimbo?
Even in France they at least have 4 times the amount of flavours of ritter than we get in England. I was over there on holiday earlier this summer and tried loads of their different flavours. In france its just as common as say cadbury is here, I dont get why they can provide them with a wider range but not us. That confuses me.
The list of people you can do interviews like this with is endless. Do you think you could do the same with cadburys, nestle or mars? It would be so interesting to hear their responses to similar questions you have asked here. Add lindt to that list.
Im not very familiar with ritter chocolate myself but I still loved hearing about them and what they had to say as a smaller chocolate company. The only surprise for me is that they didn't mention lindt when you asked them about their key competitor.
I would have said that Milka are more of a kiddie brand who compete with the likes of Kinder and that Ritter are more closely matched to lindt. Oh well thats my two cents on it all.
I would of thought the peppermint would have been the UK bestseller considering its the one I see on sale all the time. I've always thought that marzipan is an aquired flavour that wouldn't be as universally popular as mint is.
Wow its brilliant they took the time out to answer the questions we put forward. I remember us doing that ages ago now. Im glad they finally got back to us on them =)
Thanks for getting our questions answered big man. Much appreciated.
I saw a whole new flavour of ritter on sale the other day called biscuits and nuts. I should have bought it but I just didn't have enough spare ££ on me at the time.
I'm sad to hear they wont be putting peanuts in any of their chocolates from now on.
The original peanut bar they had wasn't the best but I always thought there would be great potential if they did like a PB or peanut cream flavour. By the sounds of it that isn't ever going to happen now.
Top stuff jim. You shoud try doing more interview features its always good hearing stuff coming from the top brass at these companies.
I'm surprised that so many of the top selling bars include nuts in. I've always thought the split of people that like nuts in there chocolate would be me more 50/50. It appears that they are more popular than I first thought.
You gotta be kidding me man. The maripan one sucks ass. How can that be our top selling chocolate? I would rather it plain than with that stuff in it.
I hope they win some more fans as a result of doing this. They deserve to get more people giving them a chance.
Ritter defo need to do some advertising here. I had to explain to one of my m8s the other day who they were and what they did lol. When I started rambling on to them about how great they were they just looked at me like I was talking rubbish.
I think im reacting similarly to a lot of people are to this. It's great hearing straight from them but at the same time it's disappointing hearing that they aren't planning much UK-side. I really respect them doing this for you though Jim. They come across a friendly company.
Whoa a JCM scoop! :D Thank you & Ritter marketing person for arranging this to answer our q's. Are those photos final development stage computer mock-ups Ritter sent you? that's so neat. They ought to sell that advent calendar in the UK...or team up with the German/Polish/Czech etc. delis to sell more flavors over here please :) huge market methinks.
PS @Ben well my best guess is that Jim works for HC in the morning, Cadbury at noon and Ritter in the evening...one of these days we're going to figure out which company takes up his spare time ;)
Fascinating interview; it was interesting to see what their top selling products are. I think they are right about not being hugely well known in the UK, I must admit, I don't think I've ever had one of their products, and I often get the company mixed up with Reese's.
PPS News story http://www.stuff.co.nz/life-style/5767855/Chocolate-lovers-have-fewer-strokes-study/ (comments box isn't showing on the news page anymore).
Thank's Jim that was really interesting. I have been a Ritter Sport fan since I lived in Germany and the interview answered many of the things I have always wondered about.
I guess that they said they would answer the question about financial results next week because they are waiting for some quarterly/annual accounts to be finalised.
The ones who are really winning out in all this are thorntons. They totally ripped off the ritter bars with that range of blocked chocolates they have. All they need to do is copy what ritter do and they have a self made gold mine. Its cheeky but if ritter aren't going to do things properly over here you can hardly blame them.
Is it too much to ask that they send over some more flavours than just those three that supposedly make up our top 3!?
I love ritter but im so bored of having to buy their peppermint one the whole time. If the choice was wider I would happily stick to buying them but they just dont have the kind of flavours im interested in.
Some of the answers are typical marketing b/s but they have provided some nice insight as to why some things are like they are.
I don't like their answer to them getting more presence here in the UK. It doesn't sound like they are interested in developing here at all.
If they did sort their ranges and stuff out for us here I really think they could be a big success. I think people crave the variety they have to offer and they have such different flavours to loads of the other chocolate makes we currently have. Its as if they dont want to make money or something.
Were the people that answered this from Germany by any chance? You can tell by the language they use. It looks a little funny some of it.
How could the coconut flavour not be popular enough to carry on making? That sounds silly to me, especially when they have flavours like coffee and yogurt etc. No way are they going to be a more popular than coconut is.
Its nice hearing directly from one of the bigger companies for a change. Lol I would expect you would have more chance winning the lottery than getting something similar out of the likes of cadburys or mars etc.
Well folks it looks like we have a budding journalist on our hands with Mr Jim here :-] ah Im just pulling your leg its a gr8 interview you've done here. How did you get them to do it? Did they need a lot of convincing or were they happy enough to do it for you?
Were the people that answered this from Germany by any chance? You can tell by the language they use. It looks a little funny some of it.
To me it seems like they dont realise how popular they would be if they just make themselves more known here. They are so niche I bet you 9/10 wouldn't even know who they are. The thing is that 1 person that does will know how awesome they are and love them. Its silly.
The person I keep seeing interviewed everywhere like on tv etc is that paul young fellow. He keeps cropping up everywhere.
I love how they answered the question about the least popular/worst flavour they have. Its as if they didn't want to say one bad thing at all about themselves isn't it =-]
Reading this its obvious they are ver focused on making themselves larger in other markets than our one isn't it.
Thats a damn shame. The uk wants some Ritter love :(
I knew you had some cool up your sleeve. Great read Jim. Thanks for sending our questions along to them. I dont think there was anything else you could of tried getting out of them.
Hmm that answer of see what we say next week is annoying. Have they announced anything yet or is/was it just a fob off?
Im a wee bit surprised to see the marzipan at the top of our favourite list but I understand it in a way because it is the one that can be bought easiest. I think if they were to experiment with the mix up of the range they have here they would find that other flavours they have would be more popular than that one.
Wicked interview Jim mate. I cant believe they bothered answering our Qs. Well done ritter.
The only reason that the marzipan is our best seller is because its the only one you can bloody buy. If we had more choice in the matter im pretty certain that it wouldn't come out as number 1. I think if it was a level playing field then it would be something like the yogurt one that would come out top, either that or the praline.
There is defo room for a brand like ritter to come in and sweep someone like green and blacks aside. They are just begging to be mopped up by a more modern brand. I look at green and blacks these days and they just come across as so boring and old.
Why so much hate for the marzipan one its lush guys.
Im not sure how you got them to give you their time to do this but well done Jim. I love hearing the companies when you do reviews for them because it makes me feel like the feedback we are giving is used for something. I know they can never do anything with alot of it but at least it shows they are reading it.
I do find it strange that the coconut didn't sell well enough. It use to be one of the flavours we could actually get easily enough here and I remember it being nice enough. When ever the peppermint was there it was the next one I used to revert to.
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