Ritter Sport UK & IRE is launching two new 100g flavoured bars this autumn, Ritter Sport Salted Caramel and Ritter Sport Orange.
Ritter Sport Salted Caramel contains delicious, salted caramel crisps and crunchy caramel pieces smothered in the brand’s distinctive creamy milk chocolate.
Ritter Sport Orange is made from rich dark chocolate, wrapped around a smooth and zesty melt-in-the-mouth orange fondant filling.
The launch is being supported with a six-figure, 360 degree marketing campaign – the UK business’ biggest to date – with two day time television celebrities kicking things off as part of a cheeky social media campaign (@RitterSportUK on Instagram and @RitterSport on Facebook). The "Start your love affair with the square" campaign centres around the new Salted Caramel and Orange varieties, with Ritter Sport daring shoppers to grab a bar, experience their irresistible versions of the flavoured chocolate bars and fall in love with the brand. It aims to migrate more middle-aged women to the brand and runs in October, in print, digital and social, involving PR, marketing and sampling.
“With our biggest campaign to date, spearheaded by two brilliant female celebrities, I am convinced more consumers than ever before will discover, try, and fall in love with our quality chocolate," said Benedict Daniels, Ritter Sport UK & IRE Managing Director. "We’re confident that the new Ritter Sport Salted Caramel and Orange bars, which rival established brands, will kick start ‘a love affair with the square’ as more consumers are introduced to the brand. For retail customers, these launches create a great opportunity to stock premium versions of these staple and much-loved flavours, all year round.”
Caramel is the UK’s third largest chocolate flavour sector after milk and nut, worth around £110m, 11 per cent of the total market, and salted caramel is currently 20 per cent of that. Orange is also establishing itself as a key flavour in the block category, worth £35.2m MAT, or 4 per cent of the total and growing +66 per cent annually, outpacing the total block market’s 7 per cent growth rate.
2022 looks set to be another record year for quality chocolate brand Ritter Sport. Like-for-like growth is already projected to be significantly ahead of the market, with brand growth set to be turbo charged by the brand’s latest new customer. Eight SKU’s – including new Ritter Sport Salted Caramel – are launching nationally in Asda from mid-September.
Ritter Sport continues to significantly outperform the category with an 18 point outperformance versus total block total coverage, and a huge 45 point outperformance versus total block in grocery multiples.
“Impressively, Ritter Sport is one of only two top ten brands growing value sales in a declining market," said Daniels. "Our penetration is at record levels, with other key category and consumer metrics registering significant variance versus key competitors across value per kilo, value per buyer and frequency. It’s evident Ritter Sport continues to drive incremental value into retailers’ categories, and we remain hugely optimistic about the impact our new autumn launches will have.”
