If you love chocolate and you’re in Europe you must take the time to visit the Ritter Sport Chocolate Factory, Museum and Store in Waldenbuch, Germany. It is a chocolate lovers paradise!
On my husband’s bucket-list of places to see before we leave Germany was the Ritter Sport Factory & Store in Waldenbuch, Germany. I went to the Ritter Sport store in Berlin a few years ago with friends, but my husband was deployed and couldn’t come. Boo. So, our family made sure to stop for a visit on our last vacation!
The Ritter Sport Factory has a beautiful art museum that is full of art inspired by the square. In the museum you’ll find Marli Hoppe-Ritter’s collection of contemporary geometric and abstract art in the museum building designed by the Swiss architect Max Dudler.* It’s fascinating and really quite fun to see so many bright colors and shapes. Matty, who is three, loved picking out the square shapes in the art and found all the bright colors fascinating to look at. I wasn’t allowed to take any pictures of the art, so you’ll just have to take my word for it!
*from the Ritter Sport website
In addition to the museum, Ritter also has workshop for kids and a cafe. An experience for the entire family!
Upon walking into the Ritter Sport ChocoShop, I felt a rush of excitement and joy as I was surrounded by chocolate! It was overwhelming and exciting all at once and I couldn’t wait to explore the store.
Shelves lined the store from wall to wall filled with every flavor of Ritter Sport chocolate you could ever imagine. Classic flavors like Alpenmilch (chocolate made with milk from cows raised in the German Alps) to adult flavors like Honig-Salz-Mandel (chocolate with honey, salt and almonds) and Rum Trauben Nuss (chocolate with rum, grapes, and hazelnuts).
Chocolate as far as the eye could see. Around every corner was a new flavor to explore!
One of my favorite surprises in the store were the tall, thin boxes filled with chocolate squares reaching one meter long! An entire meter of chocolate! Oh my! Of course, I needed a photo-op with the meter-o-chocolate! HA!
One of my favorite parts about the ChocoShop was the bright colors. Everywhere I turned it was a rainbow.
The store even had a cookbook full of recipes to make using Ritter Sport chocolate! I walked out of the store without buying this and I totally regret it!
Tucked into the back of the store was a special room. The room that had everyone excited and frantic. The Reject Room. Well, that’s not the official name, but that’s what I called it because it was full of the chocolate that wasn’t good enough to sell in the store. The imperfect chocolate. The defect chocolate. The ugly chocolate.
But really, do you care what your chocolate looks like when you eat it? I don’t. So… I bought a lot of chocolate from this room. It was SO CHEAP. Seriously. Pennies. I was in heaven. Blocks of 4 bars wrapped in paper just for me? Yes, please. I’ll take 3!
In this room was also chocolate sold in bulk. Bags and bags of bars of chocolate they just made too many of ready for me to take home and eat. Grab and go.
There were even bulk bags of the mini bars of chocolate. I can’t even. Seriously. What’s this? A huge basket full of tubs of hazelnut spread (aka the Ritter Sport version of Nutella). Yeah. Tubs for days. I could have bought all of those too.
There was one section of the Reject Room that I couldn’t get a picture of because there were people crowded in front of it the entire time. It’s for good reason too… this section had all the test bars. Yes, you read that correctly. Test Bars. Flavors that Ritter was testing out for possible future sale. Flavors you’ll never find anywhere else. Flavors like…
Wiesse Zimt Crisp. I mean white chocolate with cinnamon crispies inside. Have you ever heard of such deliciousness before? I seriously hope this become a staple Ritter Sport flavor because it was so incredibly delicious. Also in the test bar section was Schoko Brownie (chocolate brownie), Haselnuss (hazelnut), and Aprikose Holenderblute (apricot elderflower). My husband was in love with the elderflower bar as it was unlike anything he’d ever put in his mouth before. So good.
We picked out as much chocolate as we thought we needed and went to the register to pay. All of this for only €20. We went back three more times to get more.
Including this super cute tote bag. Living in Germany you tend to collect a lot of canvas bags. When I saw this one it went in my cart. Done deal.
For more info about the Ritter Sport Factory, Museum and Store make sure to goto their website! So much info there to help you plan your trip!
Address:
Ritter Sport
Alfred Ritter- Str. 27
71111 Waldenbuch
phone: +49 (0)7157 974 74
Hours:
SchokoAusstellung – Chocolate Exhibition
Monday to Friday: 0800 – 1830
Saturday: 0900 – 1800
Sunday: 1100 – 1800
SchokoShop – Chocolate Store
Monday to Friday: 0800 – 1830
Saturday: 0900 – 1800
Museum Ritter – Art Museum
Tuesday – Sunday: 1100-1800
Museum Cafe
October – March: Daily 0900-1800
April – September: Daily 0900-1900
All sites are closed on: Good Friday, Easter Sunday, Easter Monday, 1. May, Whit Sunday, 24. – 26. December, 31. December, January 1 & 6
Parking and Admission:
Parking is free.
Admission to the museum is €6 for adults. See their website for more pricing info.
GIVEAWAY!
You know I wouldn’t goto the Ritter Sport ChocoShop without getting some for my readers! I picked up 8 test bars, 6 mini bars of my all time favorite Ritter chocolate Goldshatz and a 10 year anniversary bar. You won’t find any of these in the USA, that’s for sure!
The test bars include 2 each of Weiss Zimt Crisp, Haselnuss, Schoko Brownie and Aprikose Holenderblute. The anniversary bar is a is a chocolate bar with crispies (knusper) and tortilla chips. Crazy, I know.
Open to USA and Germany mailing addresses only. Fill out the entry form below. Winner will be chosen July 22, 2105.
I love the Ritter with the biscuit!
I’m a total chocoholic, but I’d have to say milk chocolate is my favorite! Yeah, dark chocolate is better for you…(natch)..and I like it a lot too. But the milk….heaven! Thanks for the chance to win.
LOVE LOVE LOVE this chocolate!
I LOVE Ritter brand chocolate! Yum! =)
Would love to ramp up my cupboard before the holiday baking season starts for me.
Thanks for sharing info on the store. It looks really cool!!!
Hi I was wondering if you could share on how to get to the factory. Cos I checked on the map it seems like the place is middle of nowhere of some sort. What sort of public transportation is accessible there besides taxi ? If I were to come from Tegel Berlin aiport that is. Thank you.
Hi June – I’m not sure what public transportation goes out there to the factory. I know that you could probably take a DB train to the general area and then possibly take a bus to the factory. You’d have to research that though because I don’t know all the ins and outs of the public transportation in Germany… I usually drive everywhere. If you can’t make it out to the factory, there is a super cool Ritter Sport retail store in Berlin where you can make your own chocolate bars!