Oreo Cookies

You may know Oreo as a delicious cookie with two wafers and a creamy center. But aside from that, you’ve probably never given much more thought to them. It’s just a cookie, after all. Except that it’s not just any cookie. It’s one of the most popular cookies in the world and has been for many years.

Oreo’s have become an icon of 20th-century culture. From Oreo-based dessert recipes spreading on the internet to festival favorites featuring the beloved cookie, it is clear that the world has a soft spot for this famous snack, and the cookie has only grown in popularity since it was invented in 1912, propelling it to the rank of best-selling cookie in the United States.

History of the Oreo

In 1898, several baking companies merged to form the National Biscuit Company, also called Nabisco. This was the beginning of the corporation that would create the Oreo cookie. In 1902, Nabisco rolled out Barnum’s Animal Crackers for the first time, making them famous by selling them in a little box designed like a circus animal cage that featured an attached string so that the box could be hung on Christmas trees.

In 1912, Nabisco had an idea for a new cookie, though it wasn’t exactly its own—two chocolate disks with a creme filling in between had been done already by the Sunshine Biscuits company in 1908, which called the cookie Hydrox. While Nabisco has never named Hydrox as its inspiration, the Oreo cookie invented four years after the world was introduced to Hydrox closely resembled the biscuit that preceded it: two decorated chocolate discs with white creme sandwiched between them.

Since the oreo has been around there has been 362 billion cookies sold which then makes it the “best-selling” cookie. The first oreo to be sold was in Hoboken, NJ. At this time the packaging of the cookie was a “bulk tin and was sold by the weight.”

The oreo is designed with a patterned thin edge and center. The name OREO is placed in the middle of the cookie. The two outer disks are wafers and filled with what we call the creme. The oreo is also in over 100 countries but is the most popular in the United States. At this current time there has now been over 491 billion cookies sold and produced here. The oreo cookie in the U.S. is “egg and dairy free.” The oreo is made now at supposedly 21 bakeries world wide.

Do you know that almost half of the people that eat oreos do what we call the “Twist, Lick, Dunk Ritual?” It is where you take apart the cookie and eat one side first. They say that “women do it more than men.”

Know about Oreo cookies

Some think the word “Oreo” represents the cookie itself, with the two “O’s” as the wafers and the “RE” as the cream, according to Serious Eats. The original packaging was gold, so one theory is that it comes from the word “or,” which is the French word for “gold.” Another points to a class of appetite stimulants called orexigenics as the source of name. My favorite theory is that the word comes from “Oreodaphne,” which is the genus of flower found on Hydrox cookies.

Every Oreo cookie, aside from Double Stuf, Mini Oreos, Mega Stuf, and Oreo Thins, is exactly 71% cookie and 29% cream. Although, as a very inquisitive math class found out, Double Stuf actually equated to about 1.86 times the amount of cream of a regular Oreo and Mega Stuf holds about 2.68 times the amount, according to CNN.

Long before they were known as “Milk’s Favorite Cookie,” Oreo tried out quite a few slogans. In 1950, “Oh! Oh! Oreo” became their first slogan and jingle. The ’80s feel like a time of indecision for the company, who changed slogans five times in the span of 10 years. Those included “For the Kid in All of Us,” “America’s Best Loved Cookie,” “The One and Only,” “Who’s the Kid with the Oreo Cookie?,” and “Oreo, the Original Twister.” The latter stuck around until their most recent change in 2004 to “Milk’s Favorite Cookie.”

It might surprise you to know there was a time when you couldn’t get an Oreo in pretty much every flavor imaginable, but that time was very real.

The first flavor they added to the brand was a lemon-filled Oreo, but it was soon discontinued, according to Biscuit People. It wasn’t until the 2000s when the company began releasing numerous limited edition and holiday-themed flavors every year.

Not only is Oreo the best selling cookie in the world with over $2 billion in annual sales, but it has increased its parent company Mondelez’s net revenue by 2.1%. The brand also has a massive social media presence and consistently proves itself to be a brand that understands the medium.

Oreo cookies are technically vegan, according to Delish. The ingredients are fairly simple and include sugar, flour, oil, cocoa, high fructose corn syrup, leavening, cornstarch, salt, soy lecithin, vanillin, and chocolate.

They are “technically vegan” because although there are no animal ingredients on the list, the company is careful to warn that cross-contamination with dairy products is possible. The cookies have also been kosher since 1997 when lard was removed from the ingredient list, according to Cornell.

The chocolate wafers on an Oreo cookie are either dark brown or black depending on who you ask. The official answer is that there is no answer.

On the Oreo FAQ page, Mondelez provides the following response to questions about the cookie’s color: “We do not have a color assigned to the cookie portion of an Oreo. Some people think the Oreo is a shade of brown, while others view the color closer to black.”