Leaf Blog

Hidden in the trash heap of commerce there is buried treasure. Abandoned brands, even beloved, trusted brands, are waiting to be claimed and reborn. Today on the show, a man tries to build a nostalgia-fueled empire of iconic but forgotten brands. His biggest prize yet: the once-famous Hydrox cookie, it was Oreo, before Oreo existed. Can it come back? Check out this 'Planet Money' piece on Hydrox! http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2015/09/18/441546748/episode-652-the-hydrox-resurrection

As a child, the only sandwich cookie in Ellia Kassoff's home was Hydrox. Not Oreos. Hydrox. Decades later, the entrepreneur is resurrecting the product he used to love. After years of dormancy, Hydrox cream-filled chocolate sandwich cookies are coming back. The cookies, which predate Oreo, could challenge its former rival and are available only via pre-order on Amazon.com. Hydrox is scheduled for release Sept. 25. When they'll appear in grocery stores is an open question. Kassoff said major national grocery chains have expressed interest. "Nostalgia is powerful," said Kassoff, chief executive of Leaf Brands, a Newport Beach candy company that manufactures Hydrox at its factory in Vernon. "I want to capture that experience people had as a kid … the happier times that people remember." Paul Castrovinci, 60, said he has fond childhood memories of eating Hydrox with a glass of cold milk, and promptly ordered six packages the day it was listed on Amazon. "It was always my special treat to have Hydrox cookies before bedtime," said Castrovinci, a Nashville resident. "It's one of those old things you had as a kid, and they go away, and you wish they never went away." Hydrox debuted in 1908, originally manufactured by Sunshine Biscuits. In 1996, the Keebler Co. bought Sunshine and in 1999 changed the recipe and renamed the cookie Droxies, Kassoff said. "They really just played with the product so much that it alienated the customer base," he said. In 2001, Kellogg's acquired Keebler and Droxies soon was dropped. Other than a brief reappearance in 2008 for the cookie's 100th anniversary, Hydrox has been absent from shelves. Under federal law, a brand goes back into the public domain if it is not used for three years. Interested buyers can pay $275 to the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office to apply for the trademark. Last year, Kassoff snapped up the Hydrox trademark. Kassoff has revived other old brands like the cone-shaped candy Astro Pops and the pencil eraser-shaped Tart n' Tinys. He's not alone — a number of entrepreneurs have looked to past brands such as Turkish Taffy or Clearly Canadian sparkling water as potential moneymakers. But resurrecting brands can be tricky. Nostalgia is powerful. I want to capture that experience people had as a kid ... the happier times that people remember. - Ellia Kassoff, chief executive of Leaf Brands "If a brand dies, something led it to die," said Derek Rucker, professor of marketing at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. "There were probably associations that you and I as consumers didn't like about the brand." Kassoff said it was sales and marketing decisions, not the product, that led to Hydrox's demise. "The misconception about resurrecting brands is, 'Oh, these brands must have died because nobody wanted them anymore,'" he said. "In most cases, that isn't true." The biggest challenge was finding the original recipe, before it was reformulated. Kassoff is tight-lipped about how he accomplished that: There are enough people in the cookie industry that could serve as consultants, he said, and the original vendors for Hydrox ingredients helped rebuild the recipe. Kassoff set up a Facebook page for Hydrox cookies, and fans quickly started posting memories. Some of these fans also became taste testers for initial cookie samples. "You have to make sure you have fan buy-in with a lot of these products," Kassoff said. "If it's not exactly the way they remember it, you'll get one sale." Wendy Davie-Longnight of Eugene, Ore., said her father still has packages of cookies saved from the last time Hydrox was sold in stores. During holidays, the family held blind taste tests to see who could tell the difference between Hydrox and Oreo. Most got it right and said Hydrox was better. "I'm sure I will be doing the exact same thing," said Davie-Longnight, 50. "I will get Oreos and I will get Hydrox and I will make my children do the taste test." To take on the "powerhouse" Oreo, manufactured by Mondelez International Inc. of Deerfield, Ill., Hydrox will have to have a meaningful point of difference, Rucker said. "Oreo is definitely a more engaged brand with the public," he said. "What the best brands do is they become part of our lives, not just a badge of quality." Kassoff said Hydrox cookies are crispier, made of darker chocolate and have a less sugary filling with no high fructose corn syrup. He has also touted the cookie's distinction of being made in the U.S. In July, Mondelez said it would invest more than $130 million in its Salinas, Mexico., production plant, which would assume the Oreo production responsibilities from a Chicago facility. Company spokeswoman Kimberly Fontes said the Chicago plant will still operate and that Oreos will continue to be produced in several U.S. plants, including in New Jersey, Oregon and Virginia. Kassoff said a new competitor for the chocolate sandwich cookie will only be positive. "Hydrox is the one product that will keep Oreo in line," he said. samantha.masunaga@latimes.com View full article here: http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-hydrox-20150925-story.html

(Article as apears in Food Business New) NEWPORT BEACH, CALIF. — Leaf Brands L.L.C. officially relaunched Hydrox cookies on Sept. 4 with the onset of production at the company’s facility in Vernon, Calif. Leaf acquired the trademark for Hydrox sandwich cookies, Tart n Tinys, Wacky Wafers and Quicksand Bubblegum in May 2014. Hydrox cookies debuted in 1908 and were manufactured by Sunshine Biscuits. Keebler purchased Sunshine Biscuits in 1996, and in 1999, Keebler replaced Hydrox with a similar but reformulated product named Droxies. buy domain name Keebler later was acquired by the Kellogg Co. in 2001. Kellogg removed Droxies from the market in 2003 and then revived Hydrox in 2008 in celebration of the cookie’s 100th anniversary. Distributed under the Sunshine label, Hydrox cookies shipped in late August 2008 with a slightly different recipe from the original. Less than a year later the products again were off the market. After acquiring Hydrox last year, Leaf Brands said it set out to rebuild the cookies in their original formula, using sugar and high-quality cocoa. Ellia Kassoff, c.e.o. of Leaf Brands. “You will notice the ‘Other Guys’ use high-fructose corn syrup and other low quality ingredients because they’re all about increasing margins, even if that means moving to Mexico,” said Ellia Kassoff, chief executive officer of Leaf Brands. “We think it’s more important to sell an American-made product that only uses the best ingredients. That’s why we rolled back the formula to a recipe that doesn’t include any hydrogenated oils or HFCS, which were added to the cookie when Kellogg’s and Keebler owned it. The project took a while, but after a year of product development, we are extremely excited to start production.” Leaf Brands said it has partnered with Amazon for the initial roll-out of Hydrox. “There are many consumers waiting for the cookies as soon as they come off the line, and what better company to fulfill the initial influx of orders than Amazon,” Mr. Kassoff said. Many of the major national and local supermarket and chain stores also will offer the cookies. “The hardest part of bringing back such a well-known brand is managing the initial run on product and keeping up with production,” said Cody Sheean, vice-president of marketing and international sales for Leaf Brands. “We call it, ‘The Twinkie Effect,’ relating to the huge rush of consumers buying Twinkies after they were brought back a few years ago.” At the time of its acquisition of the Hydrox trademark last March Leaf said its strategy was to rebuild one of the largest candy and snack companies in the United States, through acquisition and development of new and fun products for people to enjoy.

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How neat! Robert Kenimer, one of our Hydrox fans sent us this neat picture of the 50th Anniversary Hydrox cookie given to his dad. Here is the story: "My father, Marvin A. Kenimer, was a traveling route salesman for Sunshine Biscuit Company for over 26+ years until the system was changed from salesmen to the product being delivered to the stores via truck only thereby eliminating the need for salesman. My father being a Georgia boy was living in Air N.D. (yes it is truly a state in the union: not a government plot) from 1949-1953. When he packed up his family to move south for warmer weather (he hated snow) to take a route salesman’s job with Sunshine Biscuit Company that lasted for over 26+ years. He received the cookies as an award for qualifying as one of the two top salesmen in his territory the prior year. I remember the story about the cookies and the pride he exuded when he related the story many times over his career. From 1958-2000, the year my father died, he moved his home approximately 11 times each time carrying with, him but unknown to me, the award. While clearing up his final personal items I stumbled upon two of his priced trophies that I had assumed were long lost. First was the trophy he won in 1960 as the top salesman for Sunshine Biscuit and the cookies you are now aware of." We want to thank Robert for sharing the picture and interesting Hydrox story. Do you have a Hydrox story? Share it with us!