Pod Insights The Sporkful Hydrox, Oreo, And The Fight For Sandwich Cookie Supremacy About this episode 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?
Transcript Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:00 Dan 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.
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1:07 Dan Pashman? 113 years ago, a cookie was born. It would go on to become the best-selling cookie in the world.
1:19 Dan 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.
1:36 Speaker 01 Yeah, did you know that Hydrox is the original cream-filled chocolate cookie?
1:40 Dan 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?
1:55 Speaker 02 Not only was Oreo this copycat of Hydrox, it was also built on the back of the company that Jacob had founded himself.
2:05 Dan 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.
2:48 Dan 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.
3:10 Speaker 03 Hey, Dan. So, I'm curious.
3:13 Dan Pashman? Yeah.
3:13 Speaker 03 Before we get into all of this, what do you know about Hydrox Cookies?
3:18 Dan Pashman? I know that they were kosher before Oreos.
3:21 Speaker 03 Okay, that's true.
3:22 Dan 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.
3:30 Speaker 03 Have you ever had one, though?
3:32 Dan 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?
3:43 Speaker 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.
4:14 Speaker 04 Enjoy your Hydrox cookies and your silver medal, Mr. Vice. Would you like another Hydrox?
4:19 Speaker 05 Thank you. I'm all Hydrox down. They also really cheap out on the snacks. Hydrox cookies.
4:26 Dan Pashman? So how aware are people in Kansas City of Hydrox's status as sort of a punchline? How do they feel about Hydrox?
4:33 Speaker 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.
5:12 Speaker 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.
5:39 Speaker 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.
6:10 Dan 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.
6:31 Dan Pashman? Okay, clearly the folks are out there in Kansas City. Still some fans. There's still some Hydrox lifers there in Kansas City.
6:36 Speaker 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.
6:56 Speaker 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.
7:04 Speaker 03 But then, her whole mindset shifted one day. At the time, she was far away from home, living in Japan.
7:10 Speaker 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.
7:50 Speaker 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.
8:18 Speaker 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.
8:30 Dan Pashman? All right, Mackenzie, so let's go back to that beginning.
8:33 Speaker 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.
9:13 Speaker 02 He seemed to be very interested in not making a name for himself, per se, but, like, achieving something.
9:21 Speaker 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.
9:31 Speaker 02 Packaged little biscuits, tea cookies.
9:34 Speaker 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.
10:06 Dan Pashman? I just want to say that Adolphus Green is a great old-timey name.
10:09 Speaker 03 It's an old-timey villain name.
10:10 Dan Pashman? It is, right. I could see him twirling his mustache right now.
10:13 Speaker 03 Yeah.
10:15 Dan Pashman? All right, so Jacob Luce forms this company. Adolphus Green's involved, rolling his mustache. Please continue.
10:21 Speaker 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.
10:37 Dan 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?
10:44 Speaker 03 Yes, it's all very exciting in Missouri here.
10:47 Dan Pashman? Missouri is a hotbed of packaged foods.
10:50 Speaker 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.
11:08 Dan Pashman? Okay.
11:08 Speaker 03 And this intense competition becomes a full-on biscuit war with these companies constantly trying to outdo each other with new products.
11:18 Speaker 02 And so you started seeing, like, animal crackers and vanilla wafers and graham crackers.
11:23 Speaker 03 Until 1897.
11:26 Dan Pashman? Oh, what happens in 1897?
11:27 Speaker 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.
12:03 Dan Pashman? Ah, National Biscuit Company, Nabisco. But so, you're telling me, though, Jacob is not happy about this merger?
12:10 Speaker 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.
12:27 Dan Pashman? Oh, drama.
12:29 Speaker 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.
12:58 Speaker 05 The two companies were constantly trying to compete by offering very similar types of cookies or biscuits.
13:06 Speaker 03 This is Kansas City food historian Andrea Broomfield.
13:09 Speaker 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.
13:20 Dan 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."
13:30 Speaker 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.
13:46 Dan Pashman? Is that where that saying comes from?
13:47 Speaker 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.
14:10 Speaker 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.
14:53 Speaker 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.
15:03 Speaker 02 The Hydrox had this really elaborate laurel wreath and this really elaborate font. It was like a very broke little cookie.
15:11 Speaker 03 It especially takes off at soda shops, where it's the perfect pairing for ice cream.
15:15 Dan 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.
15:26 Speaker 02 When it hits your tongue, like, you can feel that embossed design on it. Like, that's a completely different experience.
15:34 Speaker 03 And then, of course, there's the name, which obviously stands out.
15:37 Dan Pashman? Even today, it doesn't sound like a cookie name. What's the deal with the name?
15:40 Speaker 03 I mean, it sounds chemically, but back then, it kind of fit into this American obsession with food sanitation.
15:47 Speaker 02 It's supposed to be like hydrogen and oxygen are these pure, clean elements. There's nothing cleaner, there's nothing finer.
15:54 Dan 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.
16:10 Speaker 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.
16:40 Speaker 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.
16:52 Speaker 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,
17:37 Speaker 03 sunlit institution with every modern sanitary device installed, without paying tribute to the genius which has devised it.
17:46 Dan 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.
17:54 Speaker 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.
18:10 Dan Pashman? Interesting. Okay. And so meanwhile, what's going on with Nabisco at this time?
18:13 Speaker 03 Well, at this point, the head of Nabisco is Adolphus Green.
18:18 Dan Pashman? Dun, dun, dun.
18:19 Speaker 03 The very same lawyer that helped Jacob Luce way back when he started American Biscuit.
18:26 Dan Pashman? I had a feeling we were gonna hear from Adolphus Green again.
18:31 Speaker 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.
18:45 Speaker 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.
18:59 Speaker 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.
19:17 Speaker 02 Not only was Oreo this copycat of Hydrox, it was also built on the back of the company that Jacob had founded himself.
19:26 Dan Pashman? Shots fired.
19:28 Speaker 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.
19:42 Dan 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.
19:53 Speaker 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.
20:24 Speaker 05 My great-grandfather, John H. Wiles, wasn't good with the employees. He was mean.
20:32 Speaker 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.
20:52 Speaker 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.
21:16 Speaker 02 Once Oreo came out, all the Hydrox advertisements had this really, like, whiny quality to them of like, "We here first."
21:24 Speaker 05 But you gotta remember my name, Hydrox. Hydrox, don't forget, Hydrox. Remember?
21:30 Speaker 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.
21:48 Speaker 02 There were lots of other products called Hydrox on the market, from table water to like literal bottles of hydrogen peroxide.
21:57 Speaker 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."
22:42 Speaker 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.
22:50 Speaker 05 I knew immediately that if I could get it back to the original design, I would have a home run.
22:56 Dan Pashman? Oh, it's getting exciting. That's after the break. Stick around.
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25:15 Dan 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?
25:38 Speaker 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.
25:44 Dan Pashman? And what is the Sunday pizza bus tour?
25:47 Speaker 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.
26:08 Dan Pashman? What's the thing that went the most wrong on one of these tours?
26:11 Speaker 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.
26:35 Dan 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.
27:01 Speaker 03 Something to know about Elia Kasoff is that he is an extremely nostalgic person.
27:06 Speaker 05 I had great memories of high school. I mean, I was the head of our high school reunion.
27:11 Speaker 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...
27:25 Speaker 05 We always were. Hydrox family.
27:27 Speaker 03 And that's because Elliot's family is Jewish and they kept kosher.
27:30 Speaker 05 My mom would order the kosher meat from LA and have it shipped on a Greyhound bus.
27:34 Dan 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.
27:45 Speaker 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.
28:01 Speaker 05 Nabisco items always had beef fat and lard. As a family, we always stayed away from that stuff.
28:06 Speaker 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.
28:30 Speaker 05 So it was my favorite lollipop growing up.
28:36 Speaker 03 Even as an adult, Elliot would regularly buy Astro Pops at his local corner store.
28:41 Speaker 05 One day I walked in, I said, "Where's your Astro Pops?" And they said, "Oh, I think they're discontinued."
28:48 Speaker 05 And I said, "What?"
28:52 Speaker 03 So this is around 2010. Elliot was a recruiter in the tech industry at the time.
28:58 Speaker 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?"
29:13 Speaker 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.
29:30 Speaker 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.
29:40 Dan Pashman? And let me guess, pretty soon, Elliot sets his sights on Hydrox.
29:44 Speaker 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.
29:57 Dan Pashman? Okay, so how does he do that?
29:58 Speaker 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.
30:19 Dan 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?
30:31 Speaker 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?
31:15 Speaker 03 How does the texture of the cream compare to what you remember?
31:19 Speaker 05 And there was one of the samples, and I don't remember which one. It was pretty much almost unanimous.
31:23 Speaker 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.
31:35 Speaker 01 They're back. Remember Hydrox cookies?
31:37 Speaker 03 Some 4,000 supermarkets start carrying them.
31:40 Speaker 04 Hydrox cookies are back. Pretty exciting for the few who remember them.
31:45 Speaker 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.
31:52 Speaker 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.
32:05 Speaker 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.
32:14 Speaker 05 We probably sell about the same annually as Mondelez drops on the ground per day in production.
32:20 Speaker 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.
32:34 Speaker 05 I guess it's a thing where the big guys, they go in and they hide the competitor's product.
32:39 Speaker 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."
33:09 Dan Pashman? Does Elliot have any proof?
33:11 Speaker 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.
33:19 Dan 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.
33:34 Speaker 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.
33:58 Dan Pashman? Wow. So wait, what were your expectations going in?
34:02 Speaker 03 I mean, they were extremely high.
34:05 Speaker 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.
34:13 Dan Pashman? All right, so you get to Cracker Barrel.
34:14 Speaker 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.
34:27 Speaker 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.
34:37 Speaker 03 Do you ever buy Oreos?
34:38 Speaker 05 I don't buy Oreos, but I get the Hydrox, yeah.
34:42 Speaker 03 Wow, what's behind your loyalty?
34:43 Speaker 05 I guess for being a kid and liking them so much, and I like to see things come back.
34:49 Speaker 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.
34:59 Speaker 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.
35:09 Speaker 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.
35:18 Speaker 05 She didn't have any money. I think she made $40 a week.
35:22 Speaker 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."
35:31 Speaker 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.
35:41 Speaker 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.
36:04 Speaker 06 I feel like Hydrox is the underdog sandwich cookie.
36:10 Speaker 03 I like that. And do you know who conceived of it? It was Jacob Luce of Luce Park.
36:14 Speaker 06 You're kidding me.
36:16 Speaker 03 Yeah, Kansas City.
36:18 Speaker 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.
36:31 Speaker 03 Okay, what if I told you that in this bag, I had a Hydrox cookie?
36:37 Speaker 06 Are you kidding me? Are they legit? Oh, my God.
36:41 Speaker 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.
37:03 Speaker 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.
37:21 Dan Pashman? So Mackenzie, you have your Hydrox?
37:24 Speaker 03 I have my Hydrox.
37:25 Dan Pashman? I have mine.
37:29 Dan 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?
37:42 Speaker 03 I have had them, but I have not had one now in a year.
37:45 Dan Pashman? Okay, here we go. As far as I know, I've never had a Hydrox.
37:49 Speaker 03 I'm really excited to hear what you think. I think you're gonna have a lot of strong thoughts, knowing you.
37:55 Dan 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.
38:09 Speaker 03 I would agree with that.
38:10 Dan 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.
38:30 Dan 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.
38:48 Speaker 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.
38:57 Dan Pashman? Mmm. That's really good.
38:59 Speaker 03 And I'm extremely proud that they come from Kansas City.
39:02 Dan Pashman? You should be.
39:06 Dan 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.
39:50 Dan 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.
40:33 Dan 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.
41:18 Dan 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.
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