> a peanut shortage prompted Delta, then America’s fourth-largest airline, to seek an alternative onboard snack
I never knew this was the reason. I had assumed that airlines stopped serving peanuts as an accomodation to the increasing number of people with peanut allergies.
It's both. That's why Southwest stopped, for instance. Literally just opening a small bag of peanuts around people who aren't eating peanuts is enough to bring someone with a severe allergy into anaphylactic shock.
Yea, I once brought some to game night, and another gamer brought actual Biscoff cookies. Then a third person put them together into a sandwich cookie which I thought was equal parts funny and violating some kind of Kosher rule "Do not seethe a kid in it's mother's milk" I invented in my head.
I'd read that there are a few snack items resistant to GLP-1 induced food aversions, when I was on a GLP-1, Biscoff cookies felt like one of them. I may have an Amazon scheduled delivery of Biscoff, which every month, I intend to cancel, and somehow forget to follow through.
I'm not on GLP-1s, but I am on metformin [1] which my wife says has similar food aversion properties to the GLPs, and for me I've noticed virtually anything with peanut butter I can still eat a nearly infinite quantity of. One of the worst things that has ever happened to me was finding out that peanut butter fudge is ridiculously easy to make.
[1] Off label for weight loss. My insurance wouldn't cover GLP-1s, and metformin is out of patent and super cheap, and I read that at least some people have had good success using it for weight loss. I am fortunately one of those happy few.
I first ran into speculoos in the south of France where they ground up and in all sorts of things, especially cheesecake crust. All of a sudden I saw "speculoos" every where. How it jumped from Belgium to Nice escapes me.
Biscoff is a registered trademark of Lotus Bakeries, while speculoos is a generic name. Hence why Lotus markets its under its owned name, and not the generic name; especially outside Belgium/Netherlands where people don't know about speculoos.
Once in a while we pick up a pack of these from Costco, when we haven't flown in a while. They're pretty sweet, so we don't get them too often, but once in a while as a treat.
They're also very chocolate-deficient and therefore not worth my time. Life is too short for anything vanilla, shortbread, or sugar cookie adjacent (which I recall Biscoff to be).
I understand that this is a blazing hot culinary take and might be the most controversial thing I've written on HN. Before downvoting please consider that this isn't elitism or opinion - everybody the world over deserves the joy of flavor in their confections instead of cloying bland sweetness. Embrace variety and live your life. Throw your Biscoff in the trash and buy some Tim Tams or Thin Mints.
Came here to say this. I thought I liked them when I was given just one packet on the airplane. So I bought them at Costco when I saw them there. It's been like two months since I bought it and I barely finished a third of that because it's too sweet.
The "then passengers fell in love" portion was enough context (for me, at least) to know we were about to read about Delta Airlines, the first place I've had Biscoff cookies, and other than when I get them at Costco, the only place I eat them.
Turns out just anyone can call themselves a nutritionist, according to Dr Ben Goldacre, but "dietician" is something you actually have to be qualified for.
So, you can call yourself a nutritionist, run a blog about it, write a book about it, anything really, and tell anyone any kind of bullshit you make up.
I think I'm on pretty solid ground with mine though.
> I have been known to inhale entire costco sized sleeves of biscoffs
> I don't look at the nutrition facts
Here's the title:
"What You're Eating Is Probably Pretty Much Fine"
The strapline is "maybe just not so much, and don't do it all the time"
Me too. Have you seen that Kodiak is now making "cookie butter" protein granola? Cookie butter is the US naming of speculoos and they're amazing. Love that stuff. Tried making my own to improve the macros more, but haven't nailed it yet.
Or hot tea. Along the same lines too, try the ultra-flat and crisp and dunkable Moravian cookies (specifically the spice or ginger flavors) or ginger-flavored Swedish thins.
And now with their popularity, they're almost everywhere now. Mcdonald's, Krispy Kreme, Cinnabon, Auntie Anne's have all had Biscoff partnered products.
Kind of cool to the explosion of popularity and them taking advantage and partnering with other brands to expand their markets.
In Hong Kong I've seen a gourmet cheesecake shop selling "Lotus Biscoff" flavored cheesecake, and supermarkets selling Biscoff butter (basically Nutella, but with Biscoff flavoring instead of chocolate).
I know the cookie mainly for being sold at Costco. I had no idea they were given out on flights.
The biggest question I've always had about them was whether the "Lotus" in their name is the same brand as the Chinese supermarket chain Lotus. I think it isn't?
it isn't. It's a really old Belgian company that kind of was slowly there for 80 years being fine dozing off and selling their cookies on the local market. And suddenly an invention show on the local television where a finalist invented biscoff spread woke them up to innovation and it seems that in 10 years they conquered the world.
>"But until 1986, when Delta Air Lines began serving them as a temporary replacement for peanuts, the cookie—typically something enjoyed with a cup of coffee in a Belgian café—was practically unknown in the US. Today, Biscoff is a global phenomenon, with its manufacturer Lotus Bakeries touting it as the world’s fifth-bestselling cookie."
How do you make your unknown product known?
You put it in front of as many people as you can!
In the above case, cookies in front of airline-passengers seemed to be the winning business formula, but this is only one example of a product meeting a market at a specific interface/connection point, with the Delta customers' drop-down in-flight tray tables being that "connection point".
In the study of business, this is one example (or subcase) of that much broader pattern...
Honestly that's one of the few things I look forward to when flying these days, and a serious consideration on picking Delta if other factors are equal between airlines.
Pardon? You mean the traditional Belgian, Dutch, French, and German cookie? Because it's a cross-border (food) cultural good, it's not something invented by, or to this day cherished in, one specific country.
Aren't they supposed to be full of sugar? Each time I've been tempted to pick them up when shopping, one look at the ingredients and nutritional profile is enough to dissuade me. I guess trying them once in a while won't kill me, though.
Apparently, they are a brand of speculoos cookies, and this Wikipedia synopsis is eye opening:
> speculaas [speːkyˈlaːs] ⓘ refers to the more traditional variant, made with a mix of various spices, which is nowadays most popular in the Netherlands; speculoos [speːkyˈloːs] ⓘ refers to a Belgian variant that omits the traditional spices in favour of caramelized sugar for flavour, and which is nowadays the most common variant in Belgium and worldwide
So the Belgians enshittified speculaas to create speculoos, pumping it full of sugar, and presented it to the world as something special.
> So the Belgians enshittified speculaas to create speculoos
Yes and no. This "Speculoos is actually cheap Speculaas" isn't completely true. That's what people like to say today, but the "Speculoos" name has been around much longer than Lotus bakeries. It's just a dialect thing and there is no reason.
Some people called it "Speculaas", some people called it "Speculoos", and _then_ a cheaper variant got made and they choose the "Speculoos" term for it.
It all just sounds really fitting because the "-loos" suffix in Dutch means "without".
> a peanut shortage prompted Delta, then America’s fourth-largest airline, to seek an alternative onboard snack
I never knew this was the reason. I had assumed that airlines stopped serving peanuts as an accomodation to the increasing number of people with peanut allergies.
It's both. That's why Southwest stopped, for instance. Literally just opening a small bag of peanuts around people who aren't eating peanuts is enough to bring someone with a severe allergy into anaphylactic shock.
Have you heard of Biscoff spread? It's kinda like peanut butter except, it's made out of cookies https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_BZsIY6PUPU (might not be sfw)
Yea, I once brought some to game night, and another gamer brought actual Biscoff cookies. Then a third person put them together into a sandwich cookie which I thought was equal parts funny and violating some kind of Kosher rule "Do not seethe a kid in it's mother's milk" I invented in my head.
If you care about your health at all, do NOT buy a jar of trader joe's cookie butter, or their cookie butter ice cream...
I use that often as a filling for snickerdoodles, it's quite good.
Slightly related but you can crumble these cookies and use them as a (cheese)cake bottom. It's nice.
Yes because I read the article.
ChocZero makes a zero sugar version of the speculoos cookie butter and it's amazing.
Wife got the same thing but it’s Oreo cookie spread. The stuff is crack.
lol how could this not be sfw??? I can't open right now because I'm at work but I'm so curious haha
Oh my
This is usually the first thing I think of when I think of f**InG BiScoFf.
I'd read that there are a few snack items resistant to GLP-1 induced food aversions, when I was on a GLP-1, Biscoff cookies felt like one of them. I may have an Amazon scheduled delivery of Biscoff, which every month, I intend to cancel, and somehow forget to follow through.
I'm not on GLP-1s, but I am on metformin [1] which my wife says has similar food aversion properties to the GLPs, and for me I've noticed virtually anything with peanut butter I can still eat a nearly infinite quantity of. One of the worst things that has ever happened to me was finding out that peanut butter fudge is ridiculously easy to make.
[1] Off label for weight loss. My insurance wouldn't cover GLP-1s, and metformin is out of patent and super cheap, and I read that at least some people have had good success using it for weight loss. I am fortunately one of those happy few.
Biscoff is so filling, imho. like eating chalk. i cannot imagine eating more than a few, versus Reece's which I can eat dozen at once.
Claire Saffitz makes cinnamon rolls with these cookies as the inner cinnamon filling, they’re so good with the spice
They make a great graham-cracker style crust for a skyr cake.
I first ran into speculoos in the south of France where they ground up and in all sorts of things, especially cheesecake crust. All of a sudden I saw "speculoos" every where. How it jumped from Belgium to Nice escapes me.
Please, make sure you try these at least once in your life: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speculoos
As well as ‘taaitaai’, the chewy variety ( https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taaitaai )
As a Belgian I still dislike this new branding.
Biscoff is a registered trademark of Lotus Bakeries, while speculoos is a generic name. Hence why Lotus markets its under its owned name, and not the generic name; especially outside Belgium/Netherlands where people don't know about speculoos.
If it's any help, the company denies that Delta came up with the name, but doesn't offer an explanation to the origin of the name itself.
It's also funny how they deny that the original deal with Delta was only a temporary short term deal, but that it was always a longterm deal.
Same.
Soon after these became ubiquitous in grocery stores, the manufacturer stopped using butter. I don't buy them anymore.
Wow. Seems people do love it. My thought was always there could be no cheaper or worse snack that airlines can offer
I moved to America in July 2011, first delta flight in August that year, and have pretty much not bought any other cookie since.
When I was young and shameless back then I would even ask for an extra one! My wife hates the cookie though, so probably in your boat
Grinding them up as bottom for cheesecake is heaven!
Yeah I'm so confused in the comments, these things suck.
same. biscoff is loathsome
like eating chalk. never understood the hype about it
Once in a while we pick up a pack of these from Costco, when we haven't flown in a while. They're pretty sweet, so we don't get them too often, but once in a while as a treat.
> They're pretty sweet, so we don't get them too often, but once in a while as a treat.
Then a Costco pack should be close to a lifetime supply.
Too sweet. Much would rather p-nuts.
Same. All these snacks have added sugar or oils, I'd rather have something simple.
Are there allergy concerns with nuts?
They're also very chocolate-deficient and therefore not worth my time. Life is too short for anything vanilla, shortbread, or sugar cookie adjacent (which I recall Biscoff to be).
I understand that this is a blazing hot culinary take and might be the most controversial thing I've written on HN. Before downvoting please consider that this isn't elitism or opinion - everybody the world over deserves the joy of flavor in their confections instead of cloying bland sweetness. Embrace variety and live your life. Throw your Biscoff in the trash and buy some Tim Tams or Thin Mints.
Came here to say this. I thought I liked them when I was given just one packet on the airplane. So I bought them at Costco when I saw them there. It's been like two months since I bought it and I barely finished a third of that because it's too sweet.
Title makes it sound like Biscoff was created by an airline or something...
The bakery has been around since 1932, FYI.
The "then passengers fell in love" portion was enough context (for me, at least) to know we were about to read about Delta Airlines, the first place I've had Biscoff cookies, and other than when I get them at Costco, the only place I eat them.
This article is kind of one-sided – it consistently makes claims and then has to admit, in brackets, that Lotus disputes them.
I have been known to inhale entire costco sized sleeves of biscoffs
I don't look at the nutrition facts
Turns out just anyone can call themselves a nutritionist, according to Dr Ben Goldacre, but "dietician" is something you actually have to be qualified for.
So, you can call yourself a nutritionist, run a blog about it, write a book about it, anything really, and tell anyone any kind of bullshit you make up.
I think I'm on pretty solid ground with mine though.
> I have been known to inhale entire costco sized sleeves of biscoffs > I don't look at the nutrition facts
Here's the title:
"What You're Eating Is Probably Pretty Much Fine"
The strapline is "maybe just not so much, and don't do it all the time"
Just like login session cookies.
In-flight internet sucks? Have a cookie.
I love these cookies
Me too. Have you seen that Kodiak is now making "cookie butter" protein granola? Cookie butter is the US naming of speculoos and they're amazing. Love that stuff. Tried making my own to improve the macros more, but haven't nailed it yet.
I do too, but realized i like ginger snaps, at least some varieties at least as well if not better.
They are temporary. They have a way of disappearing into my belly.
Dunking these in coffee is super clutch
That also helps reduce the crumb issues. Though I do prefer the stroopwafels served by another major US airline.
Or hot tea. Along the same lines too, try the ultra-flat and crisp and dunkable Moravian cookies (specifically the spice or ginger flavors) or ginger-flavored Swedish thins.
And now with their popularity, they're almost everywhere now. Mcdonald's, Krispy Kreme, Cinnabon, Auntie Anne's have all had Biscoff partnered products.
Kind of cool to the explosion of popularity and them taking advantage and partnering with other brands to expand their markets.
#1 reason to fly delta tbh
American serves them too.
pairs well with a coffee but with a gin and tonic pretzels are the way to go.
In Hong Kong I've seen a gourmet cheesecake shop selling "Lotus Biscoff" flavored cheesecake, and supermarkets selling Biscoff butter (basically Nutella, but with Biscoff flavoring instead of chocolate).
I know the cookie mainly for being sold at Costco. I had no idea they were given out on flights.
The biggest question I've always had about them was whether the "Lotus" in their name is the same brand as the Chinese supermarket chain Lotus. I think it isn't?
it isn't. It's a really old Belgian company that kind of was slowly there for 80 years being fine dozing off and selling their cookies on the local market. And suddenly an invention show on the local television where a finalist invented biscoff spread woke them up to innovation and it seems that in 10 years they conquered the world.
https://www.gva.be/regio/antwerpen/rivierenland/bornem/vlaan...
>"But until 1986, when Delta Air Lines began serving them as a temporary replacement for peanuts, the cookie—typically something enjoyed with a cup of coffee in a Belgian café—was practically unknown in the US. Today, Biscoff is a global phenomenon, with its manufacturer Lotus Bakeries touting it as the world’s fifth-bestselling cookie."
How do you make your unknown product known?
You put it in front of as many people as you can!
In the above case, cookies in front of airline-passengers seemed to be the winning business formula, but this is only one example of a product meeting a market at a specific interface/connection point, with the Delta customers' drop-down in-flight tray tables being that "connection point".
In the study of business, this is one example (or subcase) of that much broader pattern...
Still, it's a pretty cool example! :-)
Honestly that's one of the few things I look forward to when flying these days, and a serious consideration on picking Delta if other factors are equal between airlines.
You can just buy some from a shop.
> traditional Belgian cookie speculaas
Pardon? You mean the traditional Belgian, Dutch, French, and German cookie? Because it's a cross-border (food) cultural good, it's not something invented by, or to this day cherished in, one specific country.
Can you just let us have this one? The other countries already have plenty to talk about!
More seriously, the biscoff variant is quite distinctively Belgian, as it's using caramel rather than a traditional mix of spices.
Does anyone voluntarily buys them? I find them barely eatable food.
Sure. They even sell a sandwich version with cream: http://nibblesnscribbles.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Lotu...
It's like eating a cinnamon-y, ginger-y oreo.
Yeah, put two of them in a cup of plain yogurt, let them sit for a short while and then stir them it - it's just perfect, not too sweet.
Aren't they supposed to be full of sugar? Each time I've been tempted to pick them up when shopping, one look at the ingredients and nutritional profile is enough to dissuade me. I guess trying them once in a while won't kill me, though.
Apparently, they are a brand of speculoos cookies, and this Wikipedia synopsis is eye opening:
> speculaas [speːkyˈlaːs] ⓘ refers to the more traditional variant, made with a mix of various spices, which is nowadays most popular in the Netherlands; speculoos [speːkyˈloːs] ⓘ refers to a Belgian variant that omits the traditional spices in favour of caramelized sugar for flavour, and which is nowadays the most common variant in Belgium and worldwide
So the Belgians enshittified speculaas to create speculoos, pumping it full of sugar, and presented it to the world as something special.
They're... cookies. A treat.
Looking at the nutritional profile of cookies doesn't make sense. You're supposed to eat them in such low quantity/frequency that it doesn't matter.
> So the Belgians enshittified speculaas to create speculoos
Yes and no. This "Speculoos is actually cheap Speculaas" isn't completely true. That's what people like to say today, but the "Speculoos" name has been around much longer than Lotus bakeries. It's just a dialect thing and there is no reason. Some people called it "Speculaas", some people called it "Speculoos", and _then_ a cheaper variant got made and they choose the "Speculoos" term for it.
It all just sounds really fitting because the "-loos" suffix in Dutch means "without".
Yes things made with sugar have sugar.