The German family-owned company Alfred Ritter GmbH & Co. KG is launching a new product onto the market for chocolate bars. This product named “Cacao y Nada” is the first variety to be made of 100% cocoa. Natural cocoa juice is used for sweetening which Ritter extracts in an innovative process on its own El Cacao plantation in Nicaragua. But there is a problem in Germany: chocolate without any added sugar, the choocolate may not be labelled as chocolate in Germany. “That’s absurd”, claimed Ritter Sport CEO, Andreas Ronken.
Although the juice of the cocoa fruit has been approved as a foodstuff in the EU for the past year, chocolate without sugar is not regarded as chocolate in Germany. Even if it is naturally sweet, tasty and is made from 100% cocoa fruit. “Our food legislation needs to keep pace with innovations such as this”, demanded Ronken. “If sausage can be made of peas, chocolate does not need any sugar. Wake up! This is the new reality.”
The Cacao y Nada variety contains nothing but cocoa. It comprises cocoa mass, cocoa butter, cocoa powder and cocoa juice. Unlike previous chocolate varieties with 99/100% cocoa content, it does not have a bitter taste but is as pure and sweet as good chocolate should taste.
Alfred Ritter GmbH & Co. KG is probably the only chocolate producer in the world to grow cocoa on its very own plantation. This is what gave rise to the idea to use the natural fruit sweetener from the cocoa fruit for a choco**** but which Ritter Sport can only officially refer to as “cocoa fruit bars”. Or cocoa fruit squares. This innovation in the famous square shape is to be available soon as a limited edition. For now, the cocoa juice extracted at El Cacao only suffices for around 2,300 bars. But there are plans for a full market launch in the medium term.
Cacao y Nada – the “chocolate” which must not be called chocolate – will be available as of early February as 57g square bars (retail price of €4.99) in the Ritter Sport
ChocoShop in Waldenbuch and online. But only while stocks last.
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Kiran Grewal
Editor, International Confectionery
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