Fact Check

Fried Chicken Oreos

Rumor: Nabisco has announced they will be producing Fried Chicken Oreos.

Published March 4, 2015

Claim:

Claim:   Nabisco has announced they will be producing Fried Chicken Oreos.


FALSE


Example:   [Collected via Twitter, March 2015]


Now they have Fried Chicken Oreos!!! I cant deal.... SMH



 

Origins:   In mid-2014, a rumor started to circulate online claiming that Nabisco had announced the creation of a Fried Chicken flavor of Oreo cookies. Although the concept might have seemed implausible to some, the company had previously unveiled unusual flavor variations of the popular Oreo cookie (including Watermelon and Candy Corn), so several blogs reported the rumor as straight news.

However, the story was almost immediately quashed by Nabisco on 17 July 2014, when a representative of the company officially denied the existence of the unusual flavor:



[A] PR person confirmed on behalf of the company, in a response to an inquiry, that the fried chicken flavor doesn't exist.

"The flavor you are referring to is in fact not real," said Lindsay Kaplan, a Weber Shandwick employee, wrote in an email.


On the same day, a representative for Nabisco explained in a separate interview that the Fried Chicken Oreo image was fan-generated and was not evidence of a limited edition or test flavor:



"A fan who really liked the Fruit Punch flavor came up with the fried chicken OREO packaging photo as a sort of joke. It's clearly gotten some traction over the internet, but the Fried Chicken OREO flavor is fake."

The rumor died down after Nabisco's initial denial, but it resurged in early 2015 in part because during the intervening months, a similar rumor featuring Red Velvet flavor Oreos arose that bore many of the same elements as its predecessor: like the rumored Fried Chicken Oreos, Red Velvet Oreos were allegedly spotted in test markets, and images of the packaging were shared on the Internet. And, after initial denials, Nabisco did later introduce the Red Velvet product as a limited edition product.

It's possible that the path blazed by Red Velvet Oreos from rumor to real-life convinced social media users that the Fried Chicken Oreo was also destined for a glass of milk near you. But there is no evidence that Nabisco has yet seriously considered manufacturing a flavor with such limited appeal.

Last updated:   4 March 2015


Sources:




    Galarza, Daniella.   "Fried Chicken Oreos Are Totally Fake, Oreo Confirms."

    Eater.   17 July 2014.


    Laasby, Gitta.   "'Fried Chicken' Oreo Flavor Is Fake, Company Says."

    Milwaukee Wisconsin Journal-Sentinel.   17 July 2014.


    Pham, Peter.   "SPOTTED: Fried Chicken Oreos."

    FoodBeast.   16 July 2014.


David Mikkelson founded the site now known as snopes.com back in 1994.

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