Schokolade für den Chef (2008)

After heart surgery, Ernst Schmitt, head of a multinational food company and Germany’s eighth-richest person, reluctantly hands over the running of the company to his nephew Marc under pressure from his sister Waltraut. One of Marc’s first acts is to decide to close the company’s headquarters because it is not profitable enough, increasing Ernst’s suspicions of him. Ernst Schmitt then decides to intervene with the help of his chauffeur, Hubert Ollerbeck: using a false name, he gets himself hired at his company as driver to its managing director, Stefan Gräber. He once trained there as a pastry chef. He tells his family that he is going to a health resort. This way, he discovers that Gräber is deliberately harming the company so he can make commission on the sale of its property. He turns down profitable orders for specialty chocolates and limits production to the unprofitable mass-market business of block chocolate. Schmitt must then drop his disguise so he can expose the scheme and save the company. With his help, a major order is saved, since he knows the people he needs to talk to. But the recipe for the special praline requested, the Arosa Krokantkugel, has disappeared—that is, Gräber has destroyed it. Fortunately, Schmitt still remembers the recipe very well, since he began working at the company founded by his grandfather as an apprentice. Thanks to this major order, the company is saved financially and does not have to be sold. This role reversal also helps Schmitt’s chauffeur, who has represented him very well throughout, find personal happiness. While posing as “Schmitt,” Ollerbeck meets and falls in love with the wealthy Miranda Sotschmann, who at first describes herself as a humble beautician and says she won the stay. He gives up his job and moves in with Sotschmann.