Oreo O's is a

breakfast cereal Breakfast cereal is a category of food, including food products, made from food processing, processed cereal, cereal grains, that are eaten as part of breakfast or as a snack food, primarily in Western societies. Although warm, cooked cereals li ...

that consists of

Oreo Oreo (; stylized in all caps) is an American brand of sandwich cookie consisting of two cocoa biscuits with a sweet fondant filling. Oreos were introduced in 1912 by Nabisco, and the brand has been owned by Mondelez International since its me ...

-flavored O-shaped pieces of cereal. It was conceived of by an Ogilvy & Mather NYC advertising employee and introduced in 1997 by

Post Cereals Post Consumer Brands, LLC (previously Post Cereals and Postum Cereals; also known simply as Post) is an American consumer packaged goods food manufacturer headquartered in Lakeville, Minnesota. The company, founded in 1895 by C. W. Post, own ...

. In 2001 the cereal got a new recipe with real creme filling. A variation of Oreo O's called Extreme Creme Taste Oreo O's contained Oreo filling-flavored marshmallows. The cereal was launched in 1997Pioneer Press: Search Results
and discontinued in 2007 everywhere other than

South Korea South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia. It constitutes the southern half of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and borders North Korea along the Korean Demilitarized Zone, with the Yellow Sea to the west and t ...

. In May 2017, Post Cereals announced that it would restart production of Oreo O's starting June 23 and continue production indefinitely.

Advertising

Several advertisements were run on television for Oreo O's during the late 1990s and early 2000s. The variation Extreme Crème Oreo O's had its own television commercial starring the "Créme Team," a troupe of humanoid marshmallows sporting sunglasses, in 2001. The advertisement promoted the Extreme Crème Oreo O's variation as more chocolatey in taste and creamier.

Discontinuation

The cereal was a joint product from Post Cereals and Kraft Foods, which allowed both companies to share the rights, distribution and profits after 1997. The cereal was very successful when it came to sales, and parental approval as a suitable breakfast food. In 2007, both companies ceased co-branding, which made the cereal impossible to produce. Kraft foods owned the copyrights to the name

, yet Post owned the copyrights to the cereal recipe itself. Neither company wished to relinquish either rights; therefore forcing the cereal to become discontinued worldwide. On December 4, 2024, Post announced that Oreo O's will be discontinued again to make way for Oreo Puffs, which will consist of crunchy spheres made of actual Oreo wafers and marshmallow pieces.

International availability

Due to an international loop hole with the rights of Oreo O's, they were only produced and available in

, with boxes of the product being available for international purchase on

eBay eBay Inc. ( , often stylized as ebay) is an American multinational e-commerce company based in San Jose, California, that allows users to buy or view items via retail sales through online marketplaces and websites in 190 markets worldwide. ...

from third-party sellers for well over $10. Korean food manufacturer Dongsuh Foods was established as a joint venture of

General Foods General Foods Corporation was a company whose direct predecessor was established in the United States by C. W. Post, Charles William (C. W.) Post as the Postum Cereal Company in 1895. The company changed its name to "General Foods" in 1929, a ...

and Dongsuh Companies Inc., and had distribution rights to produce Post Foods cereals in Korea. When

Kraft Foods Kraft Foods Group, Inc. was an American food manufacturing and processing conglomerate (company), conglomerate, split from Kraft Foods Inc. on October 1, 2012, and was headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. It became part of Kraft Heinz on July ...

acquired General Foods, half of Dongsuh Foods' stock automatically became property of Kraft, thus making Dongsuh Foods the only company with both licenses required to make Post Foods and Oreo O's. The product was recalled in 2014 due to Dongsuh having intentionally diluted

E. coli ''Escherichia coli'' ( )Wells, J. C. (2000) Longman Pronunciation Dictionary. Harlow ngland Pearson Education Ltd. is a gram-negative, facultative anaerobic, rod-shaped, coliform bacterium of the genus ''Escherichia'' that is commonly foun ...

-contaminated product with normal product.SBS CNBC
동서식품 '대장균 시리얼' 알고도 재판매…뻔뻔함 어디까지?
,2014-10-14 In September 2016, Dongsuh resumed selling Oreo O's within South Korea when it spun off from General Foods.

Experimental off-brand and worldwide return

In early 2017, a subsidiary company of Post, Malt-O-Meal Cereals, continued selling the cereal in the United States as a market test. The only differences were that the marshmallows from the 2001 version were not included, the cereal contained artificial flavors and it did not use the Oreo name for licensing reasons. Instead, the cereal was called "Cookies & Cream" and was sold in bags in many Walmart stores. Due to high sales and a marketing deal made by

Walmart Walmart Inc. (; formerly Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.) is an American multinational retail corporation that operates a chain of hypermarkets (also called supercenters), discount department stores, and grocery stores in the United States and 23 other ...

, Post announced that

Nabisco Nabisco (, abbreviated from the earlier name National Biscuit Company) is an American manufacturer of cookies and snacks headquartered in East Hanover, New Jersey. The company is a subsidiary of Illinois-based Mondelēz International. Nabisco' ...

would once again co-brand the cereal. Soon afterward, Oreo O's were re-released with their original 1997 recipe worldwide as a Walmart Exclusive Product, including the United States on June 23. As of 2018, the cereal was available to all grocery stores. On June 17, 2019, Walmart started selling the cereal with the marshmallows from the 2001 recipe as an exclusive product for a limited time. Instead of being labeled "Extreme Créme Oreo O's", it was labeled "Mega Stuf Oreo O's". The product returned for a limited time in early 2024.

Advertising

Discontinuation

International availability

Experimental off-brand and worldwide return

See also

References

Further reading