Delta’s Biscoff Cookies Were Supposed to Be Temporary. Then Passengers Fell in Love.

How Speculoos Took Over Belgium

Biscoff is a brand of speculoos cookies, a sweeter, less heavily-spiced variation of the traditional Belgian cookie speculaas. In the early 20th century, speculoos became a popular accompaniment to coffee. During hard economic times, when meat or cheese was too expensive, workers tucked crushed speculoos between pieces of bread, creating a Belgian speculoos sandwich akin to the American PB&J.

In the 1930s, speculoos went from being hand-rolled in home kitchens to being produced on an industrial scale by companies, including Lembeke-based Lotus Bakeries, which was founded in 1932. In the 1950s, the company began individually wrapping its cookies and encouraging café owners to serve them alongside coffee. The strategy helped introduce Lotus’ speculoos, which was not yet branded as “Biscoff,” to a much wider audience, a formula the company would later replicate on a larger scale via its partnership with Delta.

How Delta went From Peanuts to Biscoff

For decades, Lotus’ speculoos remained largely unknown outside of Europe. That changed in the 1980s, when a peanut shortage prompted Delta, then America’s fourth-largest airline, to seek an alternative onboard snack. A drought and a succession of blights in the South had devastated peanut production, creating what The New York Times called “the great peanut crisis.”

Delta spokesperson Caitlan Fowler says the airlines discovered Lotus at a food conference, where the company was introducing its cookies to American corporate buyers. In 1986, Delta and Lotus Bakeries struck a deal. According to Fowler, the cookies were intended as a temporary replacement—just long enough to tide Delta over until peanuts could return to the inflight menu. (Lotus Bakeries, however, says it never viewed the arrangement as short-term.)

Speculoos was perfect for its new corporate gig: The cookies were sweet but not cloying, lightweight, individually wrapped, and easy to distribute. They seemed to be missing just one thing: a name Americans would embrace, and preferably one that didn’t sound like an unpleasant medical instrument.

According to Fowler, a Delta employee came up with the portmanteau that stuck. “Since the cookie was primed to be enjoyed with a cup of coffee, a team member part of the initial deal coined it ‘Biscoff,’ termed for ‘the biscuit for coffee,’” she says. (Lotus Bakeries also disputed that account of the name’s origin. When asked, however, they did not provide an alternative explanation for who coined it.)

Courtesy of Lotus Bakeries

How Biscoff Cookies Took Over the Air

Biscoff was an immediate hit. “The cookies quickly became a phenomenon with both customers and Delta flight attendants, so much so that the cookies would run out on board,” she says. “Customers loved the cookies so much they started calling Delta headquarters asking where they could buy the cookies.”

The Biscoff proved so popular that Delta Airlines made them a permanent part of the menu. Today, Delta serves 70 million packages of Biscoff annually, and the airline says it remains their most popular onboard snack. Other carriers have caught on. You can now find Biscoff cookies on American Airlines, JetBlue, Qatar Airways, Brussels Airlines, Air Canada, Alaska Airlines, and Hawaiian Airlines.

For many, including Alan Bender, an airline economist and professor emeritus at Embry Riddle Aeronautical University, the cookies are the perfect airline snack. But why? The answer has as much to do with how our senses respond to flying as it does with the practical demands of feeding millions of passengers.

Why Biscoff Works So Well at 35,000 Feet

According to Oxford University experimental psychologist Charles Spence, Biscoff’s distinctive flavor profile is well suited to countering the taste-numbing effects of plane travel at 35,000 feet. In his research, Spence found that several factors, including the constant background noise of an airplane cabin, low humidity, and low air pressure, interact with the brain to dull our perception of certain tastes—specifically sweet and salty— while leaving others, such as umami, unaffected.

“Adding the pungency of ginger is a good way to resist the taste-masking effects of 80 to 85 decibels of cabin noise,” he wrote in an email, describing one of the recommendations he made to airlines based on his research into how to make in-flight meals more palatable.

He also says speculoos’ burnt-sugar notes play a major role in making the brain perceive food as sweeter than it actually is, as aromas detected by the nose influence our perception of flavor. That effect can help counteract the suppression of our sense of taste when we fly.

There are also logistical reasons for Biscoff’s ascendancy in the air. Raphael Girardoni, American Airlines’ managing director of customer experience, says that airlines operate on notoriously tight margins. Carriers need snacks that are not only inexpensive, but also easy to store and distribute. Weight matters, too, as heavier loads increase fuel cost. And as airlines have moved away from full meal service, inexpensive snacks in economy have become increasingly important as a way to improve the customer experience without significantly increasing costs. Biscoff checks all those boxes.

Biscoff’s long shelf life also helps airlines keep costs down. Peanuts can go rancid and pretzels can go stale, but packaged Biscoff cookies can still taste fresh a year or so after they’re made. The cookies’ low moisture content helps them remain crisp and flavorful for months when properly packaged, making them practical for airlines that need to store and distribute enormous quantities of snacks.

Biscoff also benefited from changing attitudes towards peanuts, the previous king of airline snacks. Though the peanut crop recovered from the farming crises of the 1980s, airlines soon faced another challenge. The number of reported peanut allergies among US children tripled from the 1990s through the end of the 2000s. Some airlines moved away from serving peanuts, creating opportunities for other snacks. Biscoff, which Lotus says is manufactured in nut-free facilities, was already a passenger favorite, perfectly positioning it as the heir to peanuts.

Courtesy of Delta

Biscoff Goes From Airplanes to Grocery Stores

Seeing the popular demand for Biscoff, Lotus took the hint and began selling the cookies via mail order in the 1990s; at its peak, the company mailed over 2,000,000 catalogs to US residents. Later, customers could order the cookies directly from the company’s website. However, it wasn’t until 2006 that Lotus Bakeries struck deals with major US supermarket chains, starting with Kroger, to sell the cookies in retail stores.

Biscoff’s expansion into American supermarkets helped transform it into a global snack phenomenon. In a July 2026 company report, Lotus Bakeries stated that Biscoff is the fastest-growing cookie brand in the US. The company reported revenue growth of more than 20 percent in the first half of 2026, driven largely by demand for Biscoff products.

As Biscoff’s popularity grew and Lotus Bakeries realized it had a global phenomenon on its hands, the company began expanding the brand beyond the original cookie. In 2007, for example, a contestant on the Belgian show “The Inventors” created a peanut butter-like speculoos spread for sandwiches, echoing the Belgian workers’ speculoos sandwiches of decades past. Lotus quickly began producing and selling its own Biscoff spread based on the winning recipe, with consumers and retailers asking for it before Lotus Bakeries had even launched the product. According to The New York Times*,* the spread accounted for five percent of the company’s $357 million in sales in 2010.

Courtesy of American Airlines

Today, the Biscoff brand extends far beyond its original cookie, with spreads, sandwich cookies, and even a squeezable topping, to name a few. A Lotus Bakeries’ spokesperson says the company’s priority is to continue offering customers new and exciting ways to enjoy Biscoff. The company has partnered with food giant Mondelēz to create hybrid treats such as Toblerone-Biscoff truffles. Other companies have also incorporated the flavor into their own products, including a limited-time Biscoff Crème Brûlée ice cream from Baskin-Robbins and Shake Shack’s Biscoff Cookie Butter Tiramisu Shake.

Biscoff’s popularity has also helped bring wider attention to—and appreciation for—speculoos, with companies like Ben & Jerry’s and Trader Joe’s introducing their own speculoos-flavored ice creams and spreads.

The cookie’s decadeslong momentum shows little signs of slowing, and it has found a new generation of fans online who don’t necessarily associate the brand with flying. In 2025, the UK’s Sunday Times declared Biscoff a “Gen Z obsession,” and fans ranging from social media influencers to Snoop Dogg have professed their love for the cookies. Viral Biscoff creations, including a no-bake Japanese cheesecake made with just Greek yogurt and Biscoff cookies, have taken off on social media.

It’s been a dramatic four decades for a European cookie that was supposed to be a temporary understudy for peanuts but went on to become a fixture on most major US airlines and beyond. Biscoff’s popularity has carried it far beyond the airline cabins that introduced it to millions of flyers. Today, Biscoff is just as likely to appear in a milkshake, cheesecake, or a jar of cookie butter as it is alongside a cup of airplane coffee.

Courtesy of Lotus Bakeries