Hydrox, Oreo, And The Fight For Sandwich Cookie Supremacy

Hydrox cookies are known as a cheap knock-off of Oreos, to the point that Hydrox has become pop culture shorthand for “second best.” But did you know that Hydrox came first? And that these two cookies have a rivalry that goes back more than 100 years?

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Dan Pashman?

  As we turn to fall and the weather starts to cool down, I think of things like crunching leaves. I think of sharing from the sidelines of a soccer game, walking the dog in the woods. And when I think of doing all those things, I'm usually wearing something from LL Bean. Whether it's my puffer vest, my puffer coat, my scarf, whatever you're doing outside this year, you probably need something from LL Bean, whether it's their boots, their Scotch plaid flannel, their rugged field coat, or more. Grab the layers and people you love and get outside. Visit llbean.com to shop the fall collection. LL Bean, be an outsider. As someone who has been lucky enough to go to Napa Valley, I can tell you it's everything people say it is. Beautiful scenery, quaint, beautiful towns, and phenomenal food and drink everywhere you go.

• 0:45Dan Pashman?

  I don't even know that much about wine, but I know that every glass of wine I had in Napa Valley was excellent. I mean, there's no bad glass of wine and no bad meal. Choose between hundreds of wineries, tasting rooms, and chef-led restaurants from a low-key lunch on a vineyard terrace to a full tasting menu paired by the winemaker. Plan your trip at visitnapavalley.com.

• 1:07Dan Pashman?

  113 years ago, a cookie was born. It would go on to become the best-selling cookie in the world.

• 1:19Dan Pashman?

  Today, Oreos are sold in more than 100 countries around the world in flavors including wasabi, Swedish fish, and green tea. But four years before Oreos came out, there was a different company, based in Kansas City, that first thought to pair two chocolate cookies with vanilla cream.

• 1:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, did you know that Hydrox is the original cream-filled chocolate cookie?

• 1:40Dan Pashman?

  Hydrox cookies, a creation of prolific Kansas City philanthropist Jacob Luce, were incredibly popular in the early 1900s. So why is it that more than a century later, one cookie is America's favorite, while the one that came first is basically unknown?

• 1:55Speaker 02

  Not only was Oreo this copycat of Hydrox, it was also built on the back of the company that Jacob had founded himself.

• 2:05Dan Pashman?

  This is The Sporkful. It's not for foodies, it's for eaters. I'm Dan Pashman. Each week on our show, we obsess about food to learn more about people. And before we get to the show, I have a very exciting opportunity for those of you in the New York area. Listen to this. We're gonna be doing a live taping for a select few listeners at Sirius XM's headquarters in midtown Manhattan. They got this awesome performance space. It's basically like a super tricked out radio studio. It's got seating for just about 20 people. We're gonna do a salad spinner episode with guests including comedian Mammary Hart, who has a new cookbook coming out called All I Think About Is Food, so she's obviously a perfect guest. Now, this show is next week, Monday, May 5th, and you can enter to win tickets. I'm gonna be posting the link to enter on my Instagram stories sometime in the next couple of days.

• 2:48Dan Pashman?

  So, follow me on Instagram, at The Sporkful, and watch out for that link. And maybe I'll see you in person next week. Okay, let's get to the show. This week, I'm talking with reporter Mackenzie Martin in Kansas City, one of the hosts of the KCUR Studios podcast, A People's History of Kansas City. Mackenzie's gonna tell us about a war that started in KC, the Sandwich Cookie War. Hey, Mackenzie.

• 3:10Speaker 03

  Hey, Dan. So, I'm curious.

• 3:13Dan Pashman?

  Yeah.

• 3:13Speaker 03

  Before we get into all of this, what do you know about Hydrox Cookies?

• 3:18Dan Pashman?

  I know that they were kosher before Oreos.

• 3:21Speaker 03

  Okay, that's true.

• 3:22Dan Pashman?

  Oreos used to have like an animal byproduct in them, and my wife grew up kosher, so like back in the 80s, they, her mom wouldn't get her Oreos, but she was allowed to have Hydrox.

• 3:30Speaker 03

  Have you ever had one, though?

• 3:32Dan Pashman?

  I have not, but spoiler alert, I got a bag of them sitting right here with me, and by the end of this episode, I think I'm gonna have some. But why don't you tell me first, like, how did you get into this story?

• 3:43Speaker 03

  Well, I always knew it was a David and Goliath story, you know, the story of Oreos and Hydrox, but I only recently realized that it was a Kansas City invention. And it was a complicated discovery because while I immediately, you know, wanted to be proud of this thing that we had created, Hydrox is also like a national running joke for being second best. You know, people are always making fun of Hydrox for not being as good as Oreos, or as popular as Oreos.

• 4:14Speaker 04

  Enjoy your Hydrox cookies and your silver medal, Mr. Vice. Would you like another Hydrox?

• 4:19Speaker 05

  Thank you. I'm all Hydrox down. They also really cheap out on the snacks. Hydrox cookies.

• 4:26Dan Pashman?

  So how aware are people in Kansas City of Hydrox's status as sort of a punchline? How do they feel about Hydrox?

• 4:33Speaker 03

  I mean, before I did this story, I don't think people knew that Hydrox was a Kansas City thing. And so this was my question too, which is why I really made it my mission to reach out to a bunch of people around town. People in Kansas City history groups, et cetera. I asked everyone, does anyone remember Hydrox? And does anyone care about them? And I was shocked at how many people, including a number of my colleagues here at the local public radio affiliate, KCUR, just immediately had these vivid flashbacks of eating Hydrox cookies.

• 5:12Speaker 06

  One day we were having dinner and for dessert, Mema brought out Hydrox cookies. I had never had sandwich cookies like this before. I'd never seen anything like this before. I fell in love. I remember getting them out, getting the milk out because you couldn't have a sandwich cookie without milk. Because you had to dunk it and hold it and soften it.

• 5:39Speaker 05

  I was the kind that liked to open them up and eat the center first, slowly tasting all of that sugar. I was, you know, we were sugar freaks. So back in the 60s, I remember my sister in the backyard sunbathing with a stack of Hydrox cookies. Right by the towel, you have a stack of Hydrox cookies. And when I was a little kid, I preferred Oreos because they're sweeter. But my sister pointed something out, a Hydrox.

• 6:10Dan Pashman?

  This cookie tastes sharper. It's got a much more sophisticated taste than an Oreo. I remember going to a friend's house and they had Oreos. And because of the branding, I thought, well, these are probably better or whatever. But they weren't. I preferred Hydrox.

• 6:31Dan Pashman?

  Okay, clearly the folks are out there in Kansas City. Still some fans. There's still some Hydrox lifers there in Kansas City.

• 6:36Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah. And the idea that people have really strong attachments to these cookies is something I talked about with food writer Stella Parks. She is a nationally known pastry chef and cookbook author. She grew up eating Oreos, not Hydrox. But then, as an adult, she actually abandoned them in favor of other desserts.

• 6:56Speaker 02

  You come out of culinary school with your nose in the air a little bit. You're like, oh, I only make things from scratch. And, oh, you know, I only eat cream puffs.

• 7:04Speaker 03

  But then, her whole mindset shifted one day. At the time, she was far away from home, living in Japan.

• 7:10Speaker 02

  I'd been doing pretty well. And then one day, I was at this little, like, tiny supermarket corner store. And as I was like walking down the aisle, I just saw this like kind of flash of blue in the corner of my eye. And I glanced over and there's a package of Oreos. And suddenly, just like this wave of nostalgia hit me. And I felt so homesick in a way that I had not felt maybe ever. Guess it was like my Proust moment, where I realized like what a strong connection these foods have and that my childhood was not any less rich because it was built on these kind of packaged food-based memories.

• 7:50Speaker 03

  And this tiny package of Oreos changed the course of Stella's career. The first big food story she ever wrote was about the history of the Oreo, a story that went on to be included in her James Beard Award-winning cookbook, Brave Tart. That book features her own recipes for homemade versions of iconic American desserts like Twinkies, Snickers, Thin Mints, Wonder Bread, and yes, Oreos.

• 8:18Speaker 02

  You know, I guess from there, like, the Oreo became even more important to me in my own mythology. But of course, the most important thing in the Oreo mythology is, in fact, the Hydrox. And that just brings it back to the beginning.

• 8:30Dan Pashman?

  All right, Mackenzie, so let's go back to that beginning.

• 8:33Speaker 03

  So you can't talk about Hydrox without talking about Jacob Luce, who is the namesake of this giant park here in Kansas City. He was a really important philanthropist in his day. And I will kick off Jacob's story in 1870, when he's 20 years old, okay? That's when he moves from his home state of Pennsylvania to southeastern Kansas to get into the dry goods business. Then, in his 30s, he makes likely the smartest decision of his young life. He and his brother Joseph take over the Coral Cracker and Confectionery Company in Kansas City, Missouri.

• 9:13Speaker 02

  He seemed to be very interested in not making a name for himself, per se, but, like, achieving something.

• 9:21Speaker 03

  Sella Parks says the mid to late 1800s is when mass-produced crackers and cookies were just starting to pop up in America. Sugar wafers, Fig Newtons.

• 9:31Speaker 02

  Packaged little biscuits, tea cookies.

• 9:34Speaker 03

  And it dawns on Jacob that he and his brother would make a lot more money if they had less competition with other Midwest bakeries. So, in 1890, he hires this big-shot lawyer in Chicago, Adolphus Green, to get everyone together. And cooperatively, they form the American Biscuit and Manufacturing Company. Jacob Luce becomes the president, his brother Joseph is appointed to the Board of Directors, and Adolphus Green becomes their general counsel.

• 10:06Dan Pashman?

  I just want to say that Adolphus Green is a great old-timey name.

• 10:09Speaker 03

  It's an old-timey villain name.

• 10:10Dan Pashman?

  It is, right. I could see him twirling his mustache right now.

• 10:13Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 10:15Dan Pashman?

  All right, so Jacob Luce forms this company. Adolphus Green's involved, rolling his mustache. Please continue.

• 10:21Speaker 03

  And so there are a lot of companies joining up here, Dan. Like, one of the examples here, to just kind of give you a taste, is Frank L. Summer and Company, which is based in St. Joseph, Missouri. And they are often credited with inventing saltine crackers.

• 10:37Dan Pashman?

  Whoa, you're telling me that the inventor of the saltine cracker and the inventor of the precursors to the Oreo were working together in Missouri?

• 10:44Speaker 03

  Yes, it's all very exciting in Missouri here.

• 10:47Dan Pashman?

  Missouri is a hotbed of packaged foods.

• 10:50Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's wild. But it's worth pointing out that American Biscuit does not have a total monopoly here. Because there are two other very similar big bakery corporations. There's the United States Baking Company and the New York Biscuit Company.

• 11:08Dan Pashman?

  Okay.

• 11:08Speaker 03

  And this intense competition becomes a full-on biscuit war with these companies constantly trying to outdo each other with new products.

• 11:18Speaker 02

  And so you started seeing, like, animal crackers and vanilla wafers and graham crackers.

• 11:23Speaker 03

  Until 1897.

• 11:26Dan Pashman?

  Oh, what happens in 1897?

• 11:27Speaker 03

  Well, Jacob Luce is in poor health, so he steps away from the company. And in his absence, the people in charge of the other two companies decide they want to end the war. And they do something against Jacob's wishes. These rival companies team up and convince Jacob's company to merge with theirs. And Jacob's brother goes along with it. So together, the three biscuit empires form a powerhouse called the National Biscuit Company, which later changes its name to Nabisco.

• 12:03Dan Pashman?

  Ah, National Biscuit Company, Nabisco. But so, you're telling me, though, Jacob is not happy about this merger?

• 12:10Speaker 03

  No, he is not. He feels like his company has been taken away from him. He returns from his illness much richer, thanks to the merger, but also very bitter about it. So in 1902, Jacob announces that he is going after Nabisco.

• 12:27Dan Pashman?

  Oh, drama.

• 12:29Speaker 03

  And along with a businessman named John Wiles, he forms a new business, the Luce-Wiles Biscuit Company. At the time, The Wall Street Journal calls Jacob the "best-known bakery magnate in the country" and is basically like, Nabisco should be very worried. And they were right, because over the next six months, 40 or so employees quit Nabisco to go work for Loose Wiles, which obviously pisses off Nabisco.

• 12:58Speaker 05

  The two companies were constantly trying to compete by offering very similar types of cookies or biscuits.

• 13:06Speaker 03

  This is Kansas City food historian Andrea Broomfield.

• 13:09Speaker 05

  The famous Nabisco biscuit was called Unida, and Loose Wiles responded with Take Home A. So, you know, you need a biscuit, or take home a biscuit.

• 13:20Dan Pashman?

  These names were selected, thankfully, over the alternative, which was, "Perhaps right now would be a great time for you to snack on a small biscuit."

• 13:30Speaker 03

  And another thing to point out is that Nabisco's Unida biscuit was super popular because it was the first cracker that stayed really fresh. Like, it used to be that crackers were sold in barrels, which got disgusting towards the bottom. You know, the bottom of the barrel.

• 13:46Dan Pashman?

  Is that where that saying comes from?

• 13:47Speaker 03

  It is. But Nabisco perfected this technology they called the inner seal, which was this ingenious system of inner folded layers of wax paper and cardboard that kept things super fresh.

• 14:10Speaker 03

  In order to compete, Loose Wiles needed something special and innovative. And back then, the answer was chocolate. Native to Central and South America, for centuries, chocolate was imported, making it a delicacy. It wasn't until the mid to late 1800s that we got innovations like cocoa powder and milk chocolate. So Loose Wiles sees chocolate trending, and in 1908, they do something no one has done before. They put two crisp, bitter, dark chocolate wafers around a layer of sweet vanilla cream, and they call it Hydrox, America's first chocolate sandwich cookie. And it's an immediate hit.

• 14:53Speaker 03

  Hydrox isn't intended to be an everyday cookie. It's a special event, billed as the aristocrat of cookies. Here's Stella Parks again.

• 15:03Speaker 02

  The Hydrox had this really elaborate laurel wreath and this really elaborate font. It was like a very broke little cookie.

• 15:11Speaker 03

  It especially takes off at soda shops, where it's the perfect pairing for ice cream.

• 15:15Dan Pashman?

  Yeah, I just think it's hard for us, through today's lens, to understand just how new and different this cookie was. The incredibly elaborate design, and also a sandwich cookie. I mean, people hadn't seen something like this.

• 15:26Speaker 02

  When it hits your tongue, like, you can feel that embossed design on it. Like, that's a completely different experience.

• 15:34Speaker 03

  And then, of course, there's the name, which obviously stands out.

• 15:37Dan Pashman?

  Even today, it doesn't sound like a cookie name. What's the deal with the name?

• 15:40Speaker 03

  I mean, it sounds chemically, but back then, it kind of fit into this American obsession with food sanitation.

• 15:47Speaker 02

  It's supposed to be like hydrogen and oxygen are these pure, clean elements. There's nothing cleaner, there's nothing finer.

• 15:54Dan Pashman?

  Oh, OK, that makes sense. And I guess this is sort of around the time, like, right after Upton Sinclair's The Jungle, and people are very concerned about factories. And like, when Wonder Bread came out, the slogan was "Untouched by Human Hands." There was a lot of discussion about, sort of, people wanted foods that seemed very pure.

• 16:10Speaker 03

  Yeah, and so Loose Wiles has a big emphasis on food sanitation and working conditions. By 1912, four years after Hydrox's debut, they have beautiful, sunlit factories from Chicago to Kansas City to Dallas, all the way to Boston and New York. And the sunlight in those workplaces is by design. At a time when most Americans think of factories as dirty and unsafe places to work, Loose Wiles is trying to be different.

• 16:40Speaker 02

  I really have a lot of admiration for Jacob Luce, that he wanted to bring all this light into the work floor, both for promoting sanitation and health, but also for the well being of his employees.

• 16:52Speaker 03

  The New York bakery in Long Island City, Queens, in particular, demonstrated Jacob Luce's commitment to his employees. It was called the Thousand Window Bakery. And as a side note, it was the world's largest bakery for more than 40 years. A muckraking journalist from the New York Globe, hoping to do an exposé on the factory, instead found something completely different, like that they were using more premium butter and making their own vanilla, and that they had women's restrooms furnished with beautiful rugs and lounge chairs, a laundry room, and trained nurses on site. The journalist came to the conclusion, and I'm just gonna quote here, that it was impossible to go through that wonderfully tiled, perfectly ventilated,

• 17:37Speaker 03

  sunlit institution with every modern sanitary device installed, without paying tribute to the genius which has devised it.

• 17:46Dan Pashman?

  So Jacob Luce is getting a lot of credit for his beautiful factories, for treating workers so well. But if he's opening all these factories, it sounds like the business is also going well.

• 17:54Speaker 03

  Yes. And, you know, reporters attributed these two things to each other. The company was successful because of the way that he encouraged and inspired his workers. Like, one thing that they noted was that he was always seeking advice from younger employees.

• 18:10Dan Pashman?

  Interesting. Okay. And so meanwhile, what's going on with Nabisco at this time?

• 18:13Speaker 03

  Well, at this point, the head of Nabisco is Adolphus Green.

• 18:18Dan Pashman?

  Dun, dun, dun.

• 18:19Speaker 03

  The very same lawyer that helped Jacob Luce way back when he started American Biscuit.

• 18:26Dan Pashman?

  I had a feeling we were gonna hear from Adolphus Green again.

• 18:31Speaker 03

  Adolphus and Nabisco respond to Luce Wiles and its impressive New York factory by building their own enormous New York bakery on 11th Avenue in Manhattan. Nabisco is a much bigger company, but Luce Wiles is still seen as a real competitor.

• 18:45Speaker 02

  There's a publication called The United States Investor, and they had this one article. The headline was "Exchange National for Luce Wiles"? So they're literally saying like... Abandon your stocks at Nabisco. Loose Wiles is really pulling ahead here.

• 18:59Speaker 03

  Then, on the 10th anniversary of the Loose Wiles Biscuit Company, Adolphus Green and Nabisco unveiled their own sandwich cookie, the Oreo Biscuit, advertised as two beautifully embossed chocolate-flavored wafers with a rich cream filling.

• 19:17Speaker 02

  Not only was Oreo this copycat of Hydrox, it was also built on the back of the company that Jacob had founded himself.

• 19:26Dan Pashman?

  Shots fired.

• 19:28Speaker 03

  To better compete with Nabisco, Loose Wiles decided they needed to rebrand as Sunshine Biscuits. Sunshine Biscuits made lemon coolers, Vienna fingers, and they acquired the company that invented Cheez-Its.

• 19:42Dan Pashman?

  Oh, right, because I feel like you see this on the box of Cheez-Its. I've often seen the Sunshine Biscuits logo. (singing) To make the sunshine in the middle of the night.

• 19:53Speaker 03

  Bake Cheez-It high, ho, to make the party right. The Baker Man can, the Sunshine Baker Man can. They also produced candy, cinnamon drops, licorice lozenges. At one point, Loose Wiles had the largest single candy factory in the US. But in 1923, Jacob dies, and the company is taken over by his co-founder, John Wiles. Both men were exceptionally driven in the business world, but they approached things a bit differently.

• 20:24Speaker 05

  My great-grandfather, John H. Wiles, wasn't good with the employees. He was mean.

• 20:32Speaker 03

  That's Wendy Case, John Wiles' great-granddaughter. And according to her, he was incredibly anti-union, which is relevant because from the 1920s through the 40s, there were several high-profile labor strikes. And this, among other things, contributed to declining company revenue.

• 20:52Speaker 03

  Then in the mid 50s, Nabisco really took the lead in the race between the two cookies when it increased the price of Oreos. Hydrox, which was suddenly much cheaper, started being seen as Oreo's budget-friendly off-brand alternative. And it didn't help, says Stella, that Sunshine was hell-bent on exposing Oreo as an impostor.

• 21:16Speaker 02

  Once Oreo came out, all the Hydrox advertisements had this really, like, whiny quality to them of like, "We here first."

• 21:24Speaker 05

  But you gotta remember my name, Hydrox. Hydrox, don't forget, Hydrox. Remember?

• 21:30Speaker 03

  The strategy backfired because Hydrox was constantly comparing itself to Oreo, and in doing so, it put more attention on Oreos. On top of that, Hydrox wasn't properly trademarked, which made it really hard to cultivate any kind of strong brand recognition.

• 21:48Speaker 02

  There were lots of other products called Hydrox on the market, from table water to like literal bottles of hydrogen peroxide.

• 21:57Speaker 03

  1966 is the beginning of the end. That's when Sunshine Biscuits is acquired by its first company in a long string of new owners, all of which tweaked the marketing, the formula, or rebranded Hydrox completely. But despite being beloved by many, Hydrox never lives up to sales expectations. So in 2003, Kellogg's, more or less, pulls the plug on the cookie. There was some outrage, as you would expect. The Wall Street Journal quoted a man named Gary Nadye from O'Fallon, Missouri, who wrote online, "This is a dark time in cookie history. And for those of you who say, 'Get over it, it's only a cookie,' you have not lived until you have tasted a Hydrox."

• 22:42Speaker 03

  And Hydrox probably would have stayed gone if it hadn't been for a man who is good at resurrecting things from the grave.

• 22:50Speaker 05

  I knew immediately that if I could get it back to the original design, I would have a home run.

• 22:56Dan Pashman?

  Oh, it's getting exciting. That's after the break. Stick around.

• 23:07Dan Pashman?

  And now, a delicious word from our sponsors.

• 23:15Dan Pashman?

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• 23:56Dan Pashman?

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• 24:43Dan Pashman?

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• 25:15Dan Pashman?

  Welcome back to The Sporkful. I'm Dan Pashman. A few weeks ago, I joined Scott Weiner. Scott is one of the most knowledgeable and passionate pizza experts in America. He also has the Guinness Record for the world's largest collection of pizza boxes. He's up to nearly 2,000. He's the founder of Scott's Pizza Tours, and on Sundays, he puts together a very special kind of tour. So Scott, set the scene. Where are we and what's happening today?

• 25:38Speaker 05

  So we're at the corner of Fulton and Gold Street in Lower Manhattan, which is where I start every Sunday pizza bus tour.

• 25:44Dan Pashman?

  And what is the Sunday pizza bus tour?

• 25:47Speaker 05

  Sunday pizza bus tour is electric. This is unlike the other tours we do throughout the week that are walking tours, where you go to one neighborhood and we go to a bunch of places in that neighborhood. The Sunday tour, we go around all over the place, wherever the school bus will take us. So it's the most improvisational tour, and it's like the one that's definitely the most interesting because the most can go wrong.

• 26:08Dan Pashman?

  What's the thing that went the most wrong on one of these tours?

• 26:11Speaker 05

  You know, fortunately, it hasn't gotten that bad because it's always salvageable. But there have been times where I'm like, oh, I forgot that today's the Five Borough Bike Tour. Oh, there was one time there was a car show on Arthur Avenue. And I was like, okay, we're gonna park the bus a block away. Everybody will find us. Everybody didn't find us then. I left two people in the Bronx. That was, okay, scratch what I said about nothing ever going wrong.

• 26:35Dan Pashman?

  This was such a fun episode. You gotta listen and ride along with Scott and me. We get to hear him figuring out the route on the fly, taking the temperature of pizza ovens with an infrared thermometer, and debunking some very common New York City pizza myths. And also, we get a big update on Scott's love life since he was on the show back in 2018. That one's up now. Check it out. All right, now back to reporter Mackenzie Martin in Kansas City and the story of Hydrox.

• 27:01Speaker 03

  Something to know about Elia Kasoff is that he is an extremely nostalgic person.

• 27:06Speaker 05

  I had great memories of high school. I mean, I was the head of our high school reunion.

• 27:11Speaker 03

  Elia grew up in Palm Springs, California, a land of hot springs, manicured golf courses, and a vacation getaway vibe. He didn't eat a lot of packaged goods because his mom was really health-conscious, but when he did...

• 27:25Speaker 05

  We always were. Hydrox family.

• 27:27Speaker 03

  And that's because Elliot's family is Jewish and they kept kosher.

• 27:30Speaker 05

  My mom would order the kosher meat from LA and have it shipped on a Greyhound bus.

• 27:34Dan Pashman?

  Right, this is what I was saying. So my wife Janie has very vivid memories of Hydrox cookies because those are the kosher ones. Those are the ones that her mom would buy. And Hydrox was certified kosher by the Orthodox Union.

• 27:45Speaker 03

  Yes, they were certified by the Orthodox Union in 1924. And what that meant is that there was a stamp on the package so that you could tell at a glance what packaged food was kosher. Oreo, on the other hand, was not kosher when Elliot was growing up.

• 28:01Speaker 05

  Nabisco items always had beef fat and lard. As a family, we always stayed away from that stuff.

• 28:06Speaker 03

  Oreos cut out those ingredients and finally went kosher certified in 1997, more than 70 years after Hydrox. So for a long time, Hydrox had a huge hold on the kosher market. And cookies and other treats like this had a huge hold on Elliot. Another one of his favorite childhood sweets was Astro Pops, which are these cone-shaped, brightly colored suckers.

• 28:30Speaker 05

  So it was my favorite lollipop growing up.

• 28:36Speaker 03

  Even as an adult, Elliot would regularly buy Astro Pops at his local corner store.

• 28:41Speaker 05

  One day I walked in, I said, "Where's your Astro Pops?" And they said, "Oh, I think they're discontinued."

• 28:48Speaker 05

  And I said, "What?"

• 28:52Speaker 03

  So this is around 2010. Elliot was a recruiter in the tech industry at the time.

• 28:58Speaker 05

  I was freaking out, so I called up the company, which was Spangler Candy. They make Dum Dum Lollipops and Circus Peanuts. And I spoke to the president, and it just came out of my mouth. I just said, "Would you sell the rights?"

• 29:13Speaker 03

  Spangler would indeed sell the rights. And thus Elliot starts on the arduous journey of reviving brands that had disappeared from shelves. Astro Pops are just the first of many. His new title, CEO for Leaf Brands LLC.

• 29:30Speaker 05

  I just said to myself, what other favorite candies did I have as a kid? That would help me bring back my old memories of childhood that are no longer being made? Next was Wacky Wafers, then Tartan Tiny's.

• 29:40Dan Pashman?

  And let me guess, pretty soon, Elliot sets his sights on Hydrox.

• 29:44Speaker 03

  Yes. At the time, its trademark was owned by Kellogg's. So in order to snag the trademark for himself, Elliot had to legally prove that Kellogg's had no intentions to produce more Hydrox.

• 29:57Dan Pashman?

  Okay, so how does he do that?

• 29:58Speaker 03

  So partly, he poses as a customer. You know, he emails Kellogg's and is basically like, "Hey, I really love Hydrox. Are you making any more of them?" And they send him this official letter that's like, "We have discontinued Hydrox. We don't plan to make any more of them." And he uses that to claim the abandoned trademark.

• 30:19Dan Pashman?

  Right. So if you own a trademark, if you're not using it, if you're not defending it when somebody else may be encroaching upon it, then it can be declared abandoned. So he basically uses that to prove that they have abandoned the trademark, and he's able to get it?

• 30:31Speaker 03

  Yes. But once he gets the trademark, he's still at square one. It's not like Kellogg's gave him the secret formula. So Elliot gets an old, vintage, 1998, unopened box of Hydrox cookies on Craigslist. And it is worth pointing out here that this is around 2012, 2013. So this box is going on 15 years old here. And he recruits a food scientist. And he basically goes to work trying to recreate the sandwich cookie of his boyhood dreams. And Elliot gets a ton of Hydrox super fans to taste test the prototypes. So he starts mailing out these samples and asking for people's reactions. Like, is this the same kind of chocolate flavor?

• 31:15Speaker 03

  How does the texture of the cream compare to what you remember?

• 31:19Speaker 05

  And there was one of the samples, and I don't remember which one. It was pretty much almost unanimous.

• 31:23Speaker 03

  Finally, in 2015, about two and a half years after he sets the wheels in motion to revive the cookie, Elliot relaunches Hydrox to much national fanfare.

• 31:35Speaker 01

  They're back. Remember Hydrox cookies?

• 31:37Speaker 03

  Some 4,000 supermarkets start carrying them.

• 31:40Speaker 04

  Hydrox cookies are back. Pretty exciting for the few who remember them.

• 31:45Speaker 03

  Kathy Greider in Kansas City told me she totally freaked out when she found out. When I first came back, I ordered like five packages.

• 31:52Speaker 05

  So I could give everyone from my family a package. Look, everyone hates change. If I can slow that down in certain aspects of people's lives, then I've done my job.

• 32:05Speaker 03

  In 2016, Elliot's Hydrox made about half a million dollars in sales. Oreo, on the other hand, made about 2 billion in sales globally.

• 32:14Speaker 05

  We probably sell about the same annually as Mondelez drops on the ground per day in production.

• 32:20Speaker 03

  Mondelez is the parent company of Nabisco that now owns Oreo. And if you ask Elliot why Hydrox's sales are so low, he says the one to blame partly is big Oreo. He claims they're sabotaging him.

• 32:34Speaker 05

  I guess it's a thing where the big guys, they go in and they hide the competitor's product.

• 32:39Speaker 03

  In 2018, Leaf Brands actually filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission asking for 800 million dollars in damages. Elliot never heard back, but obviously I had to reach out to Mondelez. They sent me a statement, part of which said, "As we have stated numerous times in the past and in numerous forms when Hydrox raises these allegations, our shelf placement in stores stems from the fact that Oreo is the number one cookie in the US, loved by consumers and retailers."

• 33:09Dan Pashman?

  Does Elliot have any proof?

• 33:11Speaker 03

  He has anecdotes from customers saying they saw Hydrox shoved behind other cookies on shelves or way on the top where you can't see them.

• 33:19Dan Pashman?

  Yeah, I mean, I can tell you that the world of supermarket shelf space is very competitive and big companies do use their power to protect their territory and try to keep out rivals. But there are ways for them to do that without breaking the law.

• 33:34Speaker 03

  Elliot says he's still planning an antitrust lawsuit against Mondelez. But in the meantime, Hydrox are barely sold anywhere these days. Their number one distributor is Amazon, but they're always going out of stock because of some manufacturing snags that Elliot keeps hitting. And so last year, I'd never had one and I really wanted to have one. And I had heard that Cracker Barrel is the place where you can get them, so I stopped by.

• 33:58Dan Pashman?

  Wow. So wait, what were your expectations going in?

• 34:02Speaker 03

  I mean, they were extremely high.

• 34:05Speaker 03

  You know, I was nervous, but I was also very excited because I've been hearing so much about them from people and how they're so much better than Oreos.

• 34:13Dan Pashman?

  All right, so you get to Cracker Barrel.

• 34:14Speaker 03

  I get there and there are only three boxes left. I'm not. Because an employee named Ginny Neal told me people regularly come to Cracker Barrel explicitly to get Hydrox.

• 34:27Speaker 05

  We have a hard time keeping him in stock. I actually have some at home right now. I like to crumble them on vanilla ice cream and make it like cookies and cream.

• 34:37Speaker 03

  Do you ever buy Oreos?

• 34:38Speaker 05

  I don't buy Oreos, but I get the Hydrox, yeah.

• 34:42Speaker 03

  Wow, what's behind your loyalty?

• 34:43Speaker 05

  I guess for being a kid and liking them so much, and I like to see things come back.

• 34:49Speaker 03

  For a lot of people, eating these cookies really is this tangible connection to their childhood. You know, it's like a safety blanket almost when everything around you has changed.

• 34:59Speaker 05

  I came from a family of six children, so whenever we got treats, it was special. So when Dad would go buy cookies, it was because he had the little extra money to get them.

• 35:09Speaker 03

  I heard a similar sentiment from Mary Elizabeth Lewis. She grew up in Kansas City, and she's been a fan of Hydrox ever since her mom would buy them for her as a kid.

• 35:18Speaker 05

  She didn't have any money. I think she made $40 a week.

• 35:22Speaker 03

  I kept asking Mary Elizabeth what she thought of the taste of Hydrox cookies, and eventually she was basically like, "Mackenzie, it's not about the taste."

• 35:31Speaker 05

  Maybe I'm being far too serious, but a lot of times it's not just the Hydrox cookie, it's the story around it. It's the feeling you get. That's where the story lies.

• 35:41Speaker 03

  Well, now that we're really getting into Hydrox fandom here, I just have to say, it really does run deep. The most fun part of reporting this story by far has been talking to people in Kansas City who remember Hydrox disappearing and then surprising them with one. Because while they've been back for 10 years now, a lot of people miss the memo and haven't had a Hydrox in like decades.

• 36:04Speaker 06

  I feel like Hydrox is the underdog sandwich cookie.

• 36:10Speaker 03

  I like that. And do you know who conceived of it? It was Jacob Luce of Luce Park.

• 36:14Speaker 06

  You're kidding me.

• 36:16Speaker 03

  Yeah, Kansas City.

• 36:18Speaker 06

  It started in Kansas City? No, I did not learn that they were started here. Kansas City, Mo, I'm shocked. This is a beautiful thing. So is there any way to buy Hydrox cookies? Because I really want to, I really want to get some for this weekend.

• 36:31Speaker 03

  Okay, what if I told you that in this bag, I had a Hydrox cookie?

• 36:37Speaker 06

  Are you kidding me? Are they legit? Oh, my God.

• 36:41Speaker 03

  Hmm, that's what I remember. This is such an exciting moment. That's so good. I think they are less sweet, but maybe it's because they're not exploding with the cream stuff. Because they've gotten out of hand, the mega triple stuff, that's a mess. So to me, they taste stale. Now, maybe they are stale. Have they expired? No, these are brand new.

• 37:03Speaker 06

  Now, I remember the Hydrox being a little bit stale and brittle like this. Yeah, that's where, that's where you get your, into your Hydrox. Look at the, the design on a Hydrox cookie. It's much more intricate. It's much more like you are eating something amazing.

• 37:21Dan Pashman?

  So Mackenzie, you have your Hydrox?

• 37:24Speaker 03

  I have my Hydrox.

• 37:25Dan Pashman?

  I have mine.

• 37:29Dan Pashman?

  Shout out to managing producer Emma Morgenstern's mom, who went to a Cracker Barrel in Massachusetts to get these Hydrox and sent them to me. Thanks, Mrs. Morgenstern. Now, uh, wait, have you ever had, is this the bag you just got? Have you ever had them?

• 37:42Speaker 03

  I have had them, but I have not had one now in a year.

• 37:45Dan Pashman?

  Okay, here we go. As far as I know, I've never had a Hydrox.

• 37:49Speaker 03

  I'm really excited to hear what you think. I think you're gonna have a lot of strong thoughts, knowing you.

• 37:55Dan Pashman?

  First, the aroma. Oh, it smells very different. It smells very sweet. And the, right off the bat, I feel like the frosting, the vanilla cream layer looks thicker, but it doesn't go as far to the edges.

• 38:09Speaker 03

  I would agree with that.

• 38:10Dan Pashman?

  Normally, when I eat Oreos, I will, I separate them and I take one cookie, put it on top of the other, and then eat it frosting side down. So the frosting lands directly on my tongue. But just for research purposes, I'm gonna start off with just an unadulterated. I'm not gonna alter it, just straight up bite of Hydrox.

• 38:30Dan Pashman?

  That's really good. And I gotta tell you, Mackenzie, I don't love Oreos because I find them to be very brittle and not enough frosting. And this solves for both of those things. The cookies are still, they're still crisp and the frosting has so much more flavor. There's more of everything.

• 38:48Speaker 03

  I think they're amazing. Like, like truly, I wasn't expecting this going in, but I've been preaching about how good Hydrox cookies are for the last year since I first had one.

• 38:57Dan Pashman?

  Mmm. That's really good.

• 38:59Speaker 03

  And I'm extremely proud that they come from Kansas City.

• 39:02Dan Pashman?

  You should be.

• 39:06Dan Pashman?

  That's producer reporter Mackenzie Martin. She hosts her own podcast, A People's History of Kansas City from KCUR Studios. On that show, she digs into the backstory of things like movie popcorn. Did you know popcorn used to be banned from theaters? And topics like Henry Perry, the father of Kansas City's iconic barbecue. We'll link to her podcast in our show notes. Gabe Rosenberg and Suzanne Hogan edited the version of this episode that appeared on their feed. And huge thanks this episode to Mackenzie's coworkers at KCUR who spoke to her so enthusiastically about Hydrox cookies. David Fulk, Michael Byers, Martha Atlas, Allison Lawson, Sarah Reinhardt, and Frank Morris. You heard archival audio in this episode from Nabisco, Sunshine Biscuits, and Spangler Candy, in addition to NBC, ABC, AMC, NPR, and KCAL.

• 39:50Dan Pashman?

  Music in this episode from Ben Selvin's Novelty Orchestra and courtesy of Black Label Music. If you're hungry for even more on this story, there's a great episode about this from our friends at Planet Money called The Hydrox Resurrection. Mackenzie also highly recommends Stella Parks's cookbook Brave Tart, which features an incredible recipe for making homemade Oreos that many home cooks swear by. Will they be as good as Hydrox? You be the judge. Remember to follow me on Instagram for your chance to win tickets to our intimate live taping in New York City at Sirius XM Headquarters next week. On Instagram, I'm at TheSporkful. Next week here on the podcast, we have another story of a beloved product and business rivalry, but on a whole other level. This is the story of Jose Cuervo, who created a tequila empire and kept it going during a bloody revolution.

• 40:33Dan Pashman?

  His name is iconic around the world, and yet, little has been written about this guy. We'll talk to- Author who spent more than a decade uncovering the Cuervo story and got access to the family's secret archives. That's next week. And hey, did you know you can listen to The Sporkful on the Sirius XM app? Yes, the Sirius XM app, it has all your favorite podcasts, plus over 200 ad-free music channels curated by genre and era, plus live sports coverage. Does your podcasting app have that? And there's interviews with A-list stars and so much more. It's everything you want in a podcast app and music app all rolled into one. And right now, Sporkful listeners can get three months free of the Sirius XM app by going to siriusxm.com/sporkful. This episode was produced by me along with Mackenzie Martin, managing producer. Emma Morgenstern.

• 41:18Dan Pashman?

  And senior producer. Andres O'Hara. Our engineer is. Jared O'Connell. And our intern is. Julia Leo. Music help from Black Label Music. The Sporkful is a production of Stitcher Studios. Our executive producer is Camille Stanley. Until next time, I'm Dan Pashman.

• 41:31Speaker 06

  And I'm Shane from St. Louis, Missouri, reminding you to eat more, eat better, and eat more better.

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