44 Fun Facts About Oreo

Which ship sank weeks after the first Oreo went on sale?

Titanic sank on 15 April 1912, about six weeks after the first Oreos were sold and a month after Nabisco filed to trademark the name.

Which earlier cookie was the Oreo an imitation of?

Hydrox reached shops in 1908, four years before the Oreo, but was outsold so thoroughly that most people now assume it was the imitation.

Which bakery, later the maker of Cheez-It, launched the cookie the Oreo imitated?

Sunshine Biscuits launched it in 1908; after the cookie was dropped, a later owner, Kellogg, revived it for its 2008 centenary following more than 1,300 phone calls and a petition from fans.

What three-step ritual did Oreo's advertising popularise for eating the cookie?

Twist, Lick, Dunk: pull the wafers apart, lick the creme, then dunk in milk; by the brand's own count, half of all Oreo eaters twist theirs open before eating.

One theory says Oreo comes from the Greek for 'mountain', because the cookie was first meant to be what?

Dome-shaped: Greek oros means mountain, and a hill-like test cookie is said to have inspired the name; a rival theory points to French 'or', gold, the colour of early packs.

In which New York City neighbourhood was the first Oreo made?

Chelsea: Nabisco's huge bakery complex between 15th and 16th Streets on Manhattan's West Side baked the first Oreos; the building later became Chelsea Market.

The first Oreo was sold on 6 March 1912 to a grocer in which city?

Hoboken, New Jersey lies just across the Hudson River from the Manhattan bakery where the cookies were made, so the very first sale was practically next door.

The Oreo Biscuit was renamed what in 1921?

Oreo Sandwich replaced the launch name, Oreo Biscuit, in 1921; two more renamings followed before Oreo Chocolate Sandwich Cookie stuck in 1974.

Which Pokémon was the rarest design on 2021's Pokémon Oreos?

Mew was by far the scarcest of the 16 designs stamped on the cookies, and resellers were soon listing Mew Oreos on eBay for hundreds or even thousands of dollars.

Which flavour of Oreo filling was sold alongside the original in the cookie's early years, then dropped in the 1920s?

Lemon creme was the only early alternative to the white filling; once it was dropped in the 1920s, the original stood alone for decades.

Which ingredient did Nabisco remove from the Oreo's creme in the 1990s over health concerns?

Lard gave way to vegetable oil in the 1990s, taking the animal fat out of the creme amid health worries.

What certification did the Oreo gain in the late 1990s after its creme recipe changed?

Kosher certification followed a lengthy, costly conversion of Nabisco's bakeries once the creme's old shortening was gone, and packs have carried the symbol ever since.

A 2003 lawsuit targeted which Oreo ingredient, removed by 2006?

Trans fat: BanTransFats.com sued Kraft in May 2003 over Oreos sold to young children, then dropped the case once Kraft said it would cut or remove the fat.

What was unusual about the rainbow Pride cookie Oreo advertised in June 2012?

It did not actually exist: the rainbow-creme cookie was only an image shared online for Pride, the first in a run of daily ads marking the Oreo's centenary.

What line appeared in Oreo's tweet when the lights went out at Super Bowl XLVII?

'You can still dunk in the dark' went out within minutes of the Superdome blackout, because the brand had a social media team standing by for the game, and drew nearly 15,000 retweets.

Which pop star's limited-edition Oreo came in pink wafers with green creme?

Lady Gaga's Oreos borrowed their pink-and-green look from her 2020 album Chromatica, which the limited-edition cookies were made to promote.

What was the Golden Oreo with chocolate creme called until 2007?

The Uh-Oh Oreo put the chocolate inside two golden wafers in 2003; by the brand's own account it was meant as a brief novelty but sold too well to drop.

Which NBA legend dunked an Oreo into a glass of milk in the brand's 2017 Dunk Challenge ad?

Shaquille O'Neal stretched out horizontally to dip his cookie in the ad, part of a Dunk Challenge campaign that ran in more than 50 countries.

Engineers at which university coined the term 'Oreology' in a 2022 study of twisting Oreos apart?

MIT engineers coined 'Oreology' for their 2022 Physics of Fluids paper, which found the creme nearly always stays on one wafer however the cookie is twisted.

Roughly how many Oreos were sold worldwide in the cookie's first hundred years?

About 400 billion: tallies published for the 2012 centenary ran from 362 billion to more than 450 billion, the sales behind the brand's claim to be the world's best-selling cookie.

Which ingredient gives Oreo wafers their near-black colour?

Alkalized cocoa: treating cocoa with alkali, the 'Dutch' process, darkens it and cuts its bitterness, and Oreo wafers use the heavily treated kind bakers call black cocoa.

Which company first brought Oreos to the Indian market, in 2011?

Cadbury India launched the Oreo in March 2011, a year after Kraft's takeover of Cadbury handed the American cookie a ready-made sales network there.

In 2016 a licence to bake Oreos lapsed and production for which country moved to China?

Japan: Yamazaki had baked the country's Oreos under licence; a year after losing the deal it launched a lookalike, Noir, from the very factory that used to make them.

What colour is the creme in the Oreo Halloween special edition?

Orange creme first marked Halloween Oreos in 1991, and the seasonal idea stuck: red-filled Christmas editions followed in 1995.

Which streetwear brand's red Oreos were listed on eBay for thousands of dollars in 2020?

Supreme's red, logo-stamped Oreos came three to a pack in March 2020, and eBay listings topped $15,000 before the cookies had even gone on sale.

In January 2021 Oreo added a permanent version made without what?

Gluten: the brand announced the cookie in late 2020 as a permanent line, not a limited edition, ending the cookie's years on the no-go list for people who cannot eat it.

The flavour of the first Mystery Oreo, sold in 2017, was revealed to be what?

Fruity Pebbles: Nabisco's 2017 Mystery Oreo contest invited fans to guess the creme flavour, and the answer, revealed in December 2017, was the fruity cereal taste.

Oreo's 2013 Super Bowl ad staged a whispered 'cookie or creme' fight in which setting?

A library: the 'Whisper Fight' ad had patrons silently brawling over whether the cookie or the creme is better, all while keeping their voices down.

How did grocers sell the very first Oreos in 1912?

In bulk tins, by weight: by the brand's own timeline, shoppers waited until 1923 for Oreos in a self-service package they could pick up themselves.

What decorative element ringed the face of the original 1912 Oreo?

A wreath ran around the edge of the first Oreo, with the name on a plain centre; the Nabisco emblem familiar today was only added in the 1952 redesign.

The Oreo's maker, Nabisco, is short for what?

National Biscuit Company was created in 1898 when rival baking groups merged, and it launched the Oreo 14 years later.

Roughly how many Oreos were the world's bakeries turning out each year by 2017?

About 40 billion a year were coming out of bakeries in 18 countries by 2017, more than five cookies for every person on Earth.

Which gummy candy lent its flavour to a 2016 limited-edition Oreo?

Swedish Fish Oreos put red, candy-flavoured creme between chocolate wafers, an in-house mash-up: the Oreo's owner also makes the candy for North America.

Which company has owned the Oreo brand since 2012?

Mondelez International, the snacks company formed when Kraft Foods split in October 2012, kept Nabisco and its Oreo brand; Kraft had bought Nabisco in 2000.

What did the Golden Oreo use in place of the chocolate biscuit?

Vanilla-flavoured wafers replaced the chocolate ones when the Golden Oreo launched in 2004, and they went on to carry limited editions from watermelon to pumpkin spice.

Oreo O's breakfast cereal was launched in the late 1990s by which cereal maker?

Post made Oreo O's until 2007, then brought the cereal back to American shelves in June 2017 after a ten-year absence.

After being discontinued in 2007, Oreo O's cereal survived in only which country?

South Korea kept the cereal alive through a local maker, Dongsuh Foods, and fans elsewhere paid steep prices on eBay to have boxes shipped over.

In 2024 Oreo and which soft-drink brand released limited editions flavoured like each other?

Coca-Cola made an Oreo-flavoured Zero Sugar cola while Oreo sold a Coke-flavoured cookie, a swap both brands pitched as a celebration of friendship.

In 2017, which company named version 8 of its phone operating system after the Oreo?

Google called Android 8 'Oreo' in August 2017, and limited-edition cookies with green creme and the Android robot stamped on one side were baked for the launch.

Oreo Cakesters, introduced in 2007, are Oreo's version of which soft snack?

Whoopie pie: Oreo Cakesters sandwich soft chocolate cakes around vanilla creme; launched in 2007, they returned in 2022 alongside a Nutter Butter version.

Where did Nabisco build a 2020 bunker to protect the Oreo recipe from an asteroid?

Svalbard, Norway: the Global Oreo Vault was a 2020 stunt modelled on the nearby Global Seed Vault, with Mylar-wrapped cookies stored in case asteroid 2018 VP1 struck, which it never did.

A 2015 decision to move some Oreo production to which country sparked a US boycott?

Mexico: the brand's owner shifted Oreo lines from its Chicago bakery to a new plant in Salinas, a move that cost about 600 jobs and prompted calls for a boycott.

The first British-made Oreos were baked at the Bassett's sweet factory in which English city?

Sheffield: the home of Bassett's Liquorice Allsorts opened Britain's first Oreo line in May 2013, its staff switching from sweets to biscuits.

Which Dairy Queen treat, launched in 1985, counts Oreo among its best-known flavours?

Blizzard: Oreo is one of the blended treat's signature mix-ins, and for its 25th anniversary in 2010 Oreo returned the favour with a 'DQ Blizzard Creme' cookie.