Under the Influence
This copycat cookie overtook the original to become the world's chocolatey, biscuity favourite. And it's probably in your pantry today.
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Under the Influence27:26Copycat Brands
Oreo is the best-selling cookie in the world.
It is now sold in over 100 countries.
Oreo was first produced in 1912 by the National Biscuit Company, now known as Na-Bis-Co. But did you know Oreos are a copycat product?
Four years earlier, in 1908, another cookie was launched. It was two chocolate biscuits with a sweet vanilla crème in the centre. That cookie was called Hydrox. And it was the result of a rift between two brothers who ran rival bakery companies.
Back in the 1890s, brothers Joseph and Jacob Loose opened a bakery together in Kansas City, Missouri. It was very successful, and Jacob, who had a knack for business, knew that in order to grow they would have to merge with other bakeries. Through several acquisitions, Jacob created the American Biscuit and Manufacturing Company. This new business was now the second-largest bakery in the country at the time.
For the next seven years, their company fought other big bakery corporations in what seemed like a race-to-the-bottom price war. It was grueling work, and the pressure and strain caused Jacob's health to suffer. To recuperate, he moved to Europe, and his brother Joseph took over temporarily.
Joseph believed the only way to win the price war was to merge with two other rival bakeries and create an even bigger company. Jacob disagreed strongly, and wrote letters from his sickbed urging Joseph not to merge. But there wasn't much he could do from so far away, so brother Joseph went ahead with the mergers and created the National Biscuit Company.
Once Jacob recovered, he returned home and started his own company, called the Sunshine Bakery. Ten years later, it was the one of the largest bakeries in the nation, second only to his brother's company, Nabisco. Even though Jacob's bakery was smaller, it had a winning cookie the country loved. It was two beautifully-embossed chocolate wafers with a sweet vanilla filling in the centre. They called it Hydrox.
While that name sounds more like a household cleanser today, that wasn't the case in 1908. Back in the early 1900s, people had become increasingly concerned about the purity of food. So the government cracked down and passed a food purity law. The Sunshine Bakery always advertised that they used the highest-quality ingredients. So when it came time to brand their new cookie, they wanted a name that suggested purity. And what was more pure than water?
So they created a brand name from the words hydrogen and oxygen – the two chemicals that make up water. Hydrox.
Four years later, rival Nabisco come out with a new cookie. It was two beautifully-embossed chocolate wafers with a sweet vanilla filling in the centre. They called it Oreo. And positioned it directly against Hydrox. Interestingly, the Oreo couldn't compete with the success of Hydrox. Oreo was priced cheaper, and was considered a copycat cookie. Hydrox was the clear favourite of cookie lovers everywhere.
The brothers battled it out until the early 1920s, when they died one year apart. Jacob had the best-selling cookie, Joseph had the bigger company.
Over the years, Nabisco grew to become a massive corporation, with powerful marketing and distribution departments. It decided to put millions of dollars behind the marketing of the Oreo. In the 1950s, Oreo was relaunched at a higher price point, which made Oreo seem like the premium choice.
It became a rivalry like co*ke versus Pepsi, the Beatles versus the Stones. But Hydrox couldn't compete with Nabisco's marketing muscle. Soon, the cookie began losing market share, and the public began thinking that Hydrox was a generic Oreo knock-off. Even though Hydrox was the original.
With sales continuing to fall, Hydrox cookies were finally pulled from the market in 2003. 12 years later, a company called Leaf Brands decided to resuscitate Hydrox. And in 2015, original-recipe Hydrox cookies reappeared on grocery store shelves. By that time, Oreo was generating sales of $660 million annually. It was the best-selling cookie in the world, and was marketed as "milk's favourite cookie." But sure enough, the feud re-ignited.
In 2018, Leaf Brands filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission accusing Oreo of sabotaging Hydrox cookies in grocery stores. Oreo, now owned by snack food giant Mondelez, has a direct-to-store distribution model, where employees of Oreo stock the grocery store shelves themselves. Leaf Brands maintained Oreo employees were using that access to hide Hydrox cookies by blocking or moving them to undesirable shelf positions.
Mondelez has denied the claim. Leaf Brands is seeking $800 million in damages.
And that's the way the cookie crumbles.
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