> 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.

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)

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.

Claire Saffitz makes cinnamon rolls with these cookies as the inner cinnamon filling, they’re so good with the spice

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.

Please, make sure you try these at least once in your life: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speculoos

As a Belgian I still dislike this new branding.

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

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.

This article is kind of one-sided – it consistently makes claims and then has to admit, in brackets, that Lotus disputes them.

Title makes it sound like Biscoff was created by an airline or something...

The bakery has been around since 1932, FYI.

Too sweet. Much would rather p-nuts.

Just like login session cookies.

I have been known to inhale entire costco sized sleeves of biscoffs

I don't look at the nutrition facts

In-flight internet sucks? Have a cookie.

They are temporary. They have a way of disappearing into my belly.

I love these cookies

Dunking these in coffee is super clutch

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

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?

>"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.

> 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.

Does anyone voluntarily buys them? I find them barely eatable food.

[flagged]

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.