Price evolution of Oreo Cookies in the United States

1. Relevance of the price of Oreo Cookies
2. Price evolution of Oreo Cookies
   1. Absolute price of Oreo Cookies per year
   2. Inflation adjusted price of Oreo Cookies per year
3. Conclusion
4. FAQs about Oreo Cookies's price in the the United States
5. Price evolution table and full chart

Oreo cookies were first introduced to the market in 1912. That’s right, Oreo cookies are more than 100 years old, and are still one of the most popular snacks!

Having been on the shelves of supermarkets and convenience stores for that long, it is no wonder that this cookie, made out of two chocolate biscuits or cookie pieces with a sweet creme filling, has become an icon of American culture just as much as the Campbell’s Tomato Soup or M&M’s.

Over the years Oreo’s packaging has changed in size. Even today, you can often find family-size packages alongside the regular ones. Because Oreos are always sold in packs, and the size and weight of those packs can be different, we have adjusted the prices we’ve collected per pound in order to be able to draw a fair comparison of the price evolution.

Before moving on, it is also important to highight dat our data set of prices for Oreo Cookies has some gaps. From the 63 year period we will be looking at between 1960 and 2023 there are 22 years we do not have data for. These years are 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022. So please keep that in mind moving forward.

Price evolution of Oreo Cookies

The average price of a pound of Oreo Cookies between 1960 and 2023 was $1.64, with the lowest price being $0.45 in 1960 and the highest $5.14 in 2013 (at least within the timeframe we have data for).

Absolute price of Oreo Cookies per year

We collected data from several sources in order to write this article. You can check such sources at: the Food Timeline and Morris County Library .

The absolute price of Oreo Cookies in the the United States has gone from $0.45 in 1960 to $4.04 in 2023. That's an absolute increase of $3.59, or 797.78% in a period of 63 years. (go to the next section for inflation-adjusted values).

This increment has not been linear though. During this period of 63 years the price of Oreo Cookies actually decreased year over year 19 times, in 1963, 1964, 1968, 1970, 1972, 1976, 1978, 1980, 1982, 1984, 1986, 1991, 1992, 1994, 1996, 2005, 2009, 2014, 2015.

The biggest absolute price decrease in the price of a pound of Oreo Cookies was in 2015, when the price dropped by $-5.02, or -100%. The biggest price increase was $1.69, or 106.29% in 1993.

So yes, it's had its ups and downs, but overall, price increases outweight the deceases, making Oreo Cookies pricier than it used to be.

Inflation-adjusted price of Oreo Cookies per year

As accurate as the information above might be, it can also be somehow deceiving. This is because the value of money changes over time, usually decreasing. That means that $1 of today's money cannot buy as much as $1 in the past. This phenomenon is called inflation, and can make it complicated to compare historical pricing data. Luckily, we can adjust for it and calculate what a dollar value of the past would be equal to in today's money.

So let's not take a look at the evolution of the price of Oreo Cookies in the the United States, in that same 63 years period between 1960 and 2023, but adjusting prices to inflation (aka. in today's money).

When we adjust for inflation, we see that the price of Oreo Cookies actually peaked in 1995, when it cost $7.54 (in today's money), and was at its lowest in 1992 when it sold for $3.60.

The biggest drop in adjusted price happened in 1996, when the inflation-adjusted price dropped by $-7.54 (-100%). Even when adjusting for inflation, the biggest price increase of Oreo Cookies was still in 1993. However, the $1.69 jump actually felt like $3.60 to the consumer due, to the effect of inflation.

The average price of Oreo Cookies during this period of time, adjusting for inflation, has been $4.97, and the most current price of $4.04 is 18.71% below that average. Enjoy it while it lasts!

Conclusion

While the price of Oreo Cookies has increased by $3.59 (797.78%) since 1960, it has actually been selling for cheaper during the last decade, with a drop of $-1.10 ($-21.40%) since 2013.

Now, as we've explained earlier, the absolute price of a product does not necessarily represent its affordability fairly. For that we have to look at its inflation adjusted price, or in other words, the price evolution in today's money.

When we look at the inflation-adjusted price of Oreo Cookies, we see that it has varied ± 75.88% over this period of time, and is currently 18.68% cheaper than the average over these years.

So not everything is bad news after all!

Even at $4.04 (per pound), Oreo Cookies is actually more afordable in 2023 than it was in 1960.

So if there had to be one single take away from this article it would be this: The average person has to make less of an economic effort to purchase Oreo Cookies today than in the past.

That being said, the current price of Oreo Cookies might be somehow close to what it was in 1960 (in today's money, of course), but it has had so much volatily over the years that it's really hard to predict how it might evolve from here.

FAQs about the price of Oreo Cookies in the the United States