What Is The Best-Selling Cookie In The World?

Our love of cookies begins when we're children and they're the perfect-sized snack for little hands to hold. With countless kinds globally, from traditional regional treats to international brands, one came out on top as the world's best-selling cookie, Oreo. While it's mass-produced by a corporate giant, it's also a beloved icon that's been around for over a century. More than 60 billion Oreo cookies are sold each year in over 100 countries, according to brand owner Mondelēz International.

It's not clear exactly when Oreo became the global king of cookies; however, the Guinness Book of World Records stated in 1985 that it held the title, and a 2015 Statista report also found they were the world's bestseller. Creating flavors that appeal to regional tastes helped Oreo conquer the world market, and similarly, continuing to introduce new, mostly limited-time versions maintains customer interest. Between the two, some strange flavors have hit store shelves. 

Among the different flavors and shapes around the world are tubular chocolate wafer rolls in China, which have a creme filling in flavors like vanilla, matcha, and guava and green grape, along with similar rectangular creme-filled wafer versions there. In Argentina, an Oreo based on the traditional alfajores sandwich cookies is still round, but has a taller profile from a third chocolate biscuit layer, and is coated in milk chocolate.

The world's second-most popular cookie is another classic American brand, Chips Ahoy, according to a 2024 Euromonitor report (per VRT NWS) that showed Oreo holding strong in first. In our ranking of the most popular grocery store brands, Oreo actually came in second to Lofthouse Sugar Cookies, although it was the peanut butter flavor, with the original landing in fourth.

National Biscuit Company (later shortened to Nabisco) sold the first Oreo cookies in 1912 in Manhattan, after being made at its nearby factory. However, it wasn't the first company with the idea of sandwiching a creme filling between two round chocolate cookies, as Sunshine Biscuits debuted the nearly identical Hydrox in 1908. The two competed for decades, and Hydrox actually was more popular for a long time, until a big marketing push in the 1950s led Oreo to take the lead. Consumers began to think Hydrox was the imposter, and it continued to lose ground until it was discontinued in 2003. The company Leaf Brands brought it back in 2015, but as of September 2026, it's out of stock at both Amazon and Walmart.

Where the Oreo moniker came from is something of a mystery, and Nabisco has kept mum. Different theories on the truth behind how they got their name include that it's based on the French word for gold, or that it came from the name of a plant that was part of the design on Hydrox.

Oreo inspired the creation of another iconic flavor, cookies and cream, which was first introduced as an ice cream and has competing claims on its invention. The cookies are often featured as a versatile part of other sweet treats, including as recipe hacks for the favorite cookies.