Ritter Sport has announced a milestone in its sustainability journey with the launch of Don Choco - a limited-edition dark milk chocolate bar made from 100% certified, sustainable cocoa from its own cacao plantation in El Cacao, Nicaragua.
Don Choco (100g, rrp £1) is the company’s first dark milk bar and is made with 40% cocoa. Darker and higher cocoa content chocolate is growing +9% YOY (Nielsen +80g block chocolate YOY to wk. 20.12.20) so the firm is expecting the new bar to help drive incremental category sales.
The packaging features the Don Choco sloth character, recently hired as the new ‘Director of Slo-perations’, modelled on a real-life sloth living on the El Cacao plantation. The back of pack also tells the story of the work at the plantation and helps educate consumers about Ritter Sport’s sustainability credentials.
The bar is being supported with a ’Slo-cial’ campaign across Facebook and Instagram, as well as PR activity.
Confirmed retailer stockists include: Booths, BP, and Spar. The brand will also be available through Cash and Carries and Wholesalers including: Dhamecha, SOS Wholesale, Filshill, Rayburn, and CJ Lang.
Katy Clark, head of marketing at Ritter Sport UK & IRE said: “Sustainability is already on trend, and dark milk has a strong appeal for shoppers wanting to try darker and higher cocoa content chocolate and so this delicious new bar, made from 100% certified, sustainable cocoa, is set to be a win-win with consumers and retailers alike.”
The company claimed that it had achieved Climate-Neutral certification last year. Ritter Sport has owned El Cacao since 2012, when it became the first major block chocolate brand to own and operate a cocoa plantation. Today El Cacao is one of the world’s largest cocoa plantations at over 2,500 hectares. Here CO2 is extracted from the atmosphere by approximately 1.7 million cocoa and shade trees, as well as forest areas. El Cacao has since been recognised as a Carbon positive, Gold Standard certified climate protection project.
Family-owned Ritter Sport was founded in Germany in 1912. Ritter Sport UK & IRE posted a record year in 2020, the sixth consecutive growth year since launching here. The brand outperformed the block chocolate market in all channels with 37% YOY growth, which it claims is 50% ahead of the category (Nielsen Homescan total coverage, block chocolate market 80g+ 52 WE 26.12.20).
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