Oreo's New Collaboration Is The Ultimate Sweet And Salty Mashup

If you've ever accidentally sprinkled salt into your coffee or sugar on your French fries, you probably have a visceral sense of the distinction between salty and sweet. And from a chemical standpoint, these two are as different as night and day. But like many odd couplings, the combination of sweet and salty works like a charm. And though pairings like sea salt-studded caramel have been trending in recent years, the human craving for salty-slash-sweet flavors is a tale as old as time.

As Discover Magazine explains it, salty flavors have a way of cancelling out bitterness, thus enhancing the existing sweetness in foods. Plus, foods that are both sweet and salty address two of our most fundamental needs as humans: energy (sugar) and fluid balance (salt). Accordingly, the human body has become evolutionarily programmed to register good feelings when we consume foods that contain this double bang for the buck. And good feelings are what some some Twitter users are looking forward to as Mondelez International, the parent company of both Oreo cookies and Ritz crackers, sets up the May 26 launch of its latest snack, which brings together sweet cream-filled Oreo chocolate sandwich cookies with buttery crisp Ritz crackers and a dollop of peanut butter cream, just to salty-sweeten the deal. 

There is one small catch, however.

On May 24, 2022, Oreo took to Twitter to announce the launch of a new sweet and salty sandwich cookie comprised of an Oreo wafer on one side, a Ritz cracker on the other, and a layer of both Oreo cream and peanut butter cream in the middle. Interestingly, this new sweet and salty mashup does not appear to have been given a proper name, but the packaging, which is designed to look like a mashup of a Ritz box on one side and an Oreo package on the other, more than adequately tells the tale. According to Oreo's Instagram, this new sweet and salty treat will be available starting May 26 at noon, Eastern Standard Time. 

Judging from the enthusiastic fan response on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook, we're guessing this sweet-salty-crunchy-creamy treat is going to be very well-received. The only issue we can foresee at this time is that Oreo has said on its website that it is making a mere 1,000 packages available for retail purchase. It's also not entirely clear exactly where fans can buy them. However, Oreo seems to be using the element of mystery to its marketing advantage, suggesting that anyone who wants to grab a pack (or 10) when they hit stores will be notified of important details by signing up for Oreo's newsletter here.