Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.
That's all can say when I look at the latest offering from Mondelez International, the snacking giant that is the keeper of such iconic brands as Kraft and Cadbury and Nabisco. I'm not talking about their Cadbury Double Decker Ice Cream or their new line of Devour Frozen Foods or even their Kraft Natural Cheese made with milk from cows raised without artificial growth hormones. Each is a serious entry in a crowded marketplace that has likely been focus group tested to death before it hit the shelves.
No, on this National Girl Scout Cookie Weekend, I choose not to focus on Thin Mints or Samoas or Trefoils, but on another staple of the stable. For while young female entrepreneurs sell 200 million boxes of their wares to the tune of about $800 million a year, that total is spread over a dozen brands. On the other hand, Mondelez owns the over $2 billion singular gorilla in the category, the biscuit born the same year as the Girl Scouts themselves, Oreo.
Since 1912 Oreo has spread far and wide, adding variations to keep the brand fresh and appeal to local tastes. In China you can get them with Green Tea crème, while Argentina has Oreo Duos with two flavors in the middle, such as banana and dulce de leche. In Indonesia there is a Blueberry Ice Cream variety, while Mexico has the Oreo Trio, where each individual cookie and the not-so-white stuff are a different type of chocolate.
This country has its own number of twists as well. There are chocolate, mint and berry varieties, as well as special editions like orange Halloween Oreos or this year's purple Easter Egg variety. Last year brought limited edition entrees including Chocolate Peanut Butter Pie and Kettle Corn, while new flavors this year include Carrot Cake and Dark Chocolate.
However, if you are a purist, you likely gravitate back to the original formulation. The recipe has been tweaked over time, most notably in the early 1990s when health concerns prompted Nabisco to replace the lard in the filling with partially hydrogenated vegetable oil. But it all comes down to the simple binary of a pair of chocolate wafers sandwiching a layer of vanilla crème.
In that incarnation it was a smooth unbroken line until 1974. That was the first time the balance of flavors changed with the introduction of Double Stufs. As the name implied, there was twice as much filing as before. Sacrilegious to some, nirvana to others, it found a devoted following and became a staple on supermarket shelves.
Of course, anything worth doing is worth overdoing. And so in 2013 they released the Mega Stuf Oreo. It had even more of the vanilla filling, approximately a third more than the Doubles. But It was a limited-edition product, and so disappeared faster than a bag of Nutter Butters at my house.
Just as 4G was a necessary precursor to 5G, this year brings us the next step, The Most Stuf Oreo. It has approximately 4 times the crème of the original, sandwiched between a pair of chocolate wafers. If Double was double and Mega was triple, this is merely the logical evolution in the product's continuum.
But the reason for the laughter in the beginning is not the cookie itself. Rather it is in the labeling on the side. Original Oreos have a suggested servings size of 3 cookies, while Double Stufs recommend an appropriate portion of 2 pieces. But due to the massive amount of filling, The Most Stuf cookies recommends that you open the pack, slide out the sleeve and have the appropriate portion of a single cookie.
I say again: Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. Like that's going to happen.
More likely you will eat three or more times that, filling your entire allotment of fat and sugars for the day in one go. If you are one who twists the sandwich apart and scrapes the crème off the carriers, you will sand your front teeth down millimeters with a single serving, completely eradicating your incisors by the end of a binge. And you will do it in mere moments while standing over the sink during a commercial break.
Next up: Just Stuf. No wafers, just a tub of filling. Try stopping at a spoonful of that.
-END-
Marc Wollin of Bedford loves cookies of all types. His column appears regularly in The Record-Review, The Scarsdale Inquirer and online at http://www.glancingaskance.blogspot.com/, as well as via Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.
That's all can say when I look at the latest offering from Mondelez International, the snacking giant that is the keeper of such iconic brands as Kraft and Cadbury and Nabisco. I'm not talking about their Cadbury Double Decker Ice Cream or their new line of Devour Frozen Foods or even their Kraft Natural Cheese made with milk from cows raised without artificial growth hormones. Each is a serious entry in a crowded marketplace that has likely been focus group tested to death before it hit the shelves.
No, on this National Girl Scout Cookie Weekend, I choose not to focus on Thin Mints or Samoas or Trefoils, but on another staple of the stable. For while young female entrepreneurs sell 200 million boxes of their wares to the tune of about $800 million a year, that total is spread over a dozen brands. On the other hand, Mondelez owns the over $2 billion singular gorilla in the category, the biscuit born the same year as the Girl Scouts themselves, Oreo.
Since 1912 Oreo has spread far and wide, adding variations to keep the brand fresh and appeal to local tastes. In China you can get them with Green Tea crème, while Argentina has Oreo Duos with two flavors in the middle, such as banana and dulce de leche. In Indonesia there is a Blueberry Ice Cream variety, while Mexico has the Oreo Trio, where each individual cookie and the not-so-white stuff are a different type of chocolate.
This country has its own number of twists as well. There are chocolate, mint and berry varieties, as well as special editions like orange Halloween Oreos or this year's purple Easter Egg variety. Last year brought limited edition entrees including Chocolate Peanut Butter Pie and Kettle Corn, while new flavors this year include Carrot Cake and Dark Chocolate.
However, if you are a purist, you likely gravitate back to the original formulation. The recipe has been tweaked over time, most notably in the early 1990s when health concerns prompted Nabisco to replace the lard in the filling with partially hydrogenated vegetable oil. But it all comes down to the simple binary of a pair of chocolate wafers sandwiching a layer of vanilla crème.
In that incarnation it was a smooth unbroken line until 1974. That was the first time the balance of flavors changed with the introduction of Double Stufs. As the name implied, there was twice as much filing as before. Sacrilegious to some, nirvana to others, it found a devoted following and became a staple on supermarket shelves.
Of course, anything worth doing is worth overdoing. And so in 2013 they released the Mega Stuf Oreo. It had even more of the vanilla filling, approximately a third more than the Doubles. But It was a limited-edition product, and so disappeared faster than a bag of Nutter Butters at my house.
Just as 4G was a necessary precursor to 5G, this year brings us the next step, The Most Stuf Oreo. It has approximately 4 times the crème of the original, sandwiched between a pair of chocolate wafers. If Double was double and Mega was triple, this is merely the logical evolution in the product's continuum.
But the reason for the laughter in the beginning is not the cookie itself. Rather it is in the labeling on the side. Original Oreos have a suggested servings size of 3 cookies, while Double Stufs recommend an appropriate portion of 2 pieces. But due to the massive amount of filling, The Most Stuf cookies recommends that you open the pack, slide out the sleeve and have the appropriate portion of a single cookie.
I say again: Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. Like that's going to happen.
More likely you will eat three or more times that, filling your entire allotment of fat and sugars for the day in one go. If you are one who twists the sandwich apart and scrapes the crème off the carriers, you will sand your front teeth down millimeters with a single serving, completely eradicating your incisors by the end of a binge. And you will do it in mere moments while standing over the sink during a commercial break.
Next up: Just Stuf. No wafers, just a tub of filling. Try stopping at a spoonful of that.
-END-
Marc Wollin of Bedford loves cookies of all types. His column appears regularly in The Record-Review, The Scarsdale Inquirer and online at http://www.glancingaskance.blogspot.com/, as well as via Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.
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