OREO, AT 75, WORLD'S FAVORITE COOKIE (Published 1986) (2024)

John Bagli loves his work. The week goes by too quickly for him. ''Every time I turn around, it's Friday,'' he says.

While other employees at the Nabisco Brands bakery here cringe at the thought of eating an Oreo after inhaling their sweet chocolate scent all day, Mr. Bagli has Oreos for lunch. ''They're the best,'' says Mr. Bagli, who started out 28 years ago sweeping up cookie and cracker crumbs at the bakery and is now its production manager.

He slips an Oreo, still warm, off a conveyor belt and pops it in his mouth, asking, ''What do you think kept me here all these years?''

The Oreo is the world's best-selling cookie, according to the 1985 Guinness Book of World Records. Nabisco sold six billion Oreos in 1982, and $1 out of every $10 spent on cookies in grocery stores is spent on Oreos, the Guinness entry says.

Nabisco has been making Oreos since 1911 and this year it is celebrating their 75th year, an event that Mr. Bagli, now 47, says keeps his two Oreo ovens working 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

The Oreo has gained the kind of status achieved by only a handful of American products. Like Kleenex or Xerox, its brand name is better known than its generic equivalent. When was the last time someone walked into a grocery store and asked for a bag of chocolate sandwich cookies?