The Origin Of Oreo’s Is Still Contested Today

Sam Porcello is widely credited for inventing the Oreo, but the story’s more complicated than that.

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Porcello started in Nabisco’s R&D Department before becoming the company’s principal scientist, earning himself the nickname “Mr. Oreo.”

For the record, four years before Oreos came into existence, Sunshine Biscuits first put creme filling between two chocolate cookies and called the combination Hydrox.  Obviously the name “Hydrox” isn’t nearly as catchy or tasty sounding as “Oreo,” but let the record show Hydrox came first. 

The year was 1908.
Nabisco’s “Oreo Biscuit” came out in 1912. 

When Porcello joined the company – in 1959 – it hadn’t yet perfected the ingredients in the Oreo that would ultimately make them desired by billions of people worldwide.

Journalist Sarah Joyner points out that Porcello’s largest contribution to the Oreo cookie is in tweaking the chemical composition of Oreo’s cream filling so that it’s solid at room temperature, but melts at 98 degrees when it’s in your mouth.  But he shares credit on the patent with three other food scientists.

“It would be inaccurate to say that Sam Porcello invented the modern Oreo creme,” Mondelez International, the parent company of Oreo, told Joyner.

Still, it was written in Porcello’s obituary when he died in 2012 that he invented the Oreo.

Porcello retired in 1993.  Since then Oreo’s filling has changed twice, first in 1997 when it became kosher, and again in 2006 when it became trans-fat free.

Put simply, the Oreo wasn’t invented by a single man.  It was invented by a team of humble food scientists, working across decades to produce the most popular and iconic cookie on the planet.

It’s estimated that 34 billion Oreos were consumed in 2020 alone, and over 450 billion Oreos have been consumed worldwide since they came on the market in 1912.

In 2019 Mondelez International reported Oreo annual net revenue at $3.1 billion, and the company has set a goal of $4 billion for 2023.

Photo by Israel Albornoz on Unsplash

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