Key Points:
Introduced in 1908 by Jacob Loose’s Sunshine Bakery, Hydrox was the first chocolate sandwich cookie with vanilla crème filling.
Nabisco introduced Oreo in 1912 and hydrox was introduced in 1908.
Hydrox’s popularity declined over time, leading to its market withdrawal in 2003.
Can you imagine a landmark product so popular that its name itself has become a globally recognised brand? There are many such products in the world—like Band-Aid, whose name has become a generic term for adhesive bandages.
Similar stories exist around the world, but imagine a product that earns billions of dollars every year and yet has a secret origin story. An unfamiliar information kept concealed not because of their aloofness but because of the need to restrain from disclosing the fact that Oreo was not an original idea.
Oreo is a well-known cookie popular across the world for its distinguished taste and identity. One can easily identify the cookie at a glance with its chocolaty appearance or its appealing catchphrase—“twist, lick, dunk.” But what many are not aware of is that the world’s best-selling cookie is actually a mimic of another cookie.
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The sweet, cream-filled cookie introduced over a century ago was a copycat of another sandwich cookie named Hydrox. From its taste to its design and filling, Hydrox was the Oreo before Oreo was born. Hydrox was the first sandwich cookie the world saw before the advent of Oreo.
But why did the original product get replaced by its carbon copy? Why did the world forget its first edition of sandwich cookies, and how did its exact replica become a household name amassing billions of dollars in contemporary times?
Today, Oreo stands at a billion-dollar empire with various titles to its name, including being the world’s best-selling cookie. It was introduced in 1912 by the American cookie manufacturer Nabisco, which is owned by Mondelēz International, Inc., a food company based in Chicago. But before the mania of Oreo began, another sandwich cookie was introduced four years earlier in 1908—Hydrox.
Hydrox was a revelation. It used two chocolate biscuits with a filling of vanilla crème in the centre, giving it a sandwich-like appearance. Oreo’s popularity and marketing strategies were so unparalleled that its predecessor slowly faded into memory.
Hydrox was the product of a fight between two brothers — Joseph and Jacob Loose. The duo started their own bakery in Kansas City back in the 1890s. But their story did not have a happy ending. The brothers drifted apart as business got in the way.
The Loose bakery was flourishing beyond expectations, and Jacob Loose expanded the business by merging it with other smaller bakeries. At that time, their business became a well-known name in the country. Their strategy was to deal with competition by lowering the prices of their products. The rising pressure caused by the business eventually took a toll on Jacob's health.
Eventually, the business was taken over by Joseph Loose, who took charge and decided to merge with a group of competitors, despite Jacob strongly resisting the idea. The rift between the brothers later led to the creation of a cookie that would become a tradition in American households. Joseph’s decision to merge resulted in the creation of Nabisco.
By the time Jacob returned from his sabbatical, it was too late. Jacob later started his own bakery called Sunshine Bakery. His venture stood right behind Joseph’s Nabisco in terms of competition. It was Jacob’s bakery that later created a sandwich cookie with vanilla crème filling inside, named Hydrox.
Even though Hydrox was a much-loved sandwich cookie among the public, its popularity soon began to fade as Nabisco continued to grow. In the later years, the rivalry between the brothers turned into a competition between a fan-favourite cookie and a powerful organisation.
By the 1950s, Oreo had built its empire by heavily funding the marketing of its cookie brand. Its marketing became so influential that the public started to believe Hydrox was the cheap knockoff of Oreo. Oreo came to be seen as a premium brand with higher-quality cookies.
As time passed, sales of Hydrox began to decline, whereas Oreo’s sales skyrocketed. Hydrox cookies were finally pulled from the market in 2003 after profits continued to deteriorate.
Today, Oreos are available across the globe, with accessibility in over 100 countries. Over 100 years later, Oreo is the world’s best-selling cookie, holding a Guinness World Record for exceeding 500 billion sales since its introduction in 1912. Oreo became so globally dominant that consumers largely overlooked its original version, Hydrox.
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