I Love Ritter Sport

As the post regarding the Bananroulade clearly showed, this blog is not limited to posts about gaming and the horrors associated with it. Posts concerning German chocolate, or posts containing even the slightest hint of chocolate from any country, are more than welcome here.

I will take this opportunity to pass down some of my knowledge on how to judge the level of various chains of supermarkets. As yours truly, as well as yours sincerely, is presently located in the kingdom of Denmark, these rather scientific results will mainly be limited to cover Danish supermarkets.

Note, that the level of a certain supermarket may or may not have any connection to the overall quality of the supermarket. While everyone is free to select his or her favourite place to buy certain products, the level is a standard of measure that goes beyond mere personal taste and other such superficial judgements.

Although the origins of the Supermarket Level are kept a secret from most people, it is safe to say, that it is a system that has existed no more than twenty or perhaps twenty-two years. The guidelines, or code if you will, state that the level is measured by the supermarket's Ritter Sport availability. The system has proved to be close to perfect, as all supermarkets in Denmark seem to carry Ritter Sport products. This is, however, more or less a given, as a store has to carry Ritter Sport in order to be considered a supermarket.

Thus, supermarkets fall into the following categories:

Level 1: Stores that carry only the basic selection of Ritter Sport, i.e. Alpenmilch(Light Blue), Voll-Nuss(Dark Brown), Pfefferminz(Turquoise), Marzipan(Red), Knusperkeks(Brown), Weisse Voll-Nuss (Beige) and Nugat (Dark Blue).

Level 2: Stores that, along the basic selection, carry at least Cappuccino (Coffee Brown), sometimes accompanied by the less known Halbbitter (Dark Purple), fall into this category. Although heartily appreciated, the availablility of the Halbbitter is not considered enough for a supermarket to advance beyond level 2, which is reached as soon as Cappuccino is included in the selection. Halbbitter has so far never been seen unaccompanied by Capuccino, and as such, the system does not cover the theoretical existence of such a selection, although the fundamental flexibility of the system makes it ready to cover such cases, should the need arise.

Level 3: Denmark has yet to see a supermarket above the third level. This means, that the few existing level 3-supermarkets are highly revered by the local enthusiasts. Level 3 is reached when the supermarkets carry the two high level Ritter Sports; that is Knusperflakes (Yellow) and Joghurt (White). Due to the considerable esteem associated with these two variants, the code states that only one of them need to be available for a supermarket to reach level 3. Since they since times long past always have appeared together, this is a seldom used rule.

Level 4: This level represents the theoretical existence of a supermarket which, in addition to all the previously mentioned variants, also is home to the considerably rare Kakaocreme (Light Brown) and Cocos (Grey) variants. Note, that in order to reach level 4, all the lower ranking variants must appear in the supermarket, including the Halbbitter. This rule effectively prevents smaller kioskesque establishments from being considered elite supermarkets due to a few rare variants appearing unaccompanied by the basic and advanced selections.

Level 5: The final level is reserved for the case of a supermarket in which all Ritter Sport variants, past and present, appear; hereby creating a full circle for the enlightened. While Level 4 supermarkets are rumoured to appear in Germany, Level 5 is so far nothing but speculation. Past variant include the now rather legendary Vollmilch (Blue) and Hazelnuss (Green).

Note that availability of limited edition variants, such as Edelbitter do not add to the level of the supermarket in question. Only variants which customers can expect to find on the shelf permanently can add to levels. As such, the limited variants are not covered by the code unless, as it sometimes happen, they become regular variants.

Questions are tolerated, but generally not appreciated. Comments are more or less completely disregarded. Be reminded that I am certainly not making the rules, I am merely passing on the code.