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Like Coke and Pepsi, Oreo and Hydrox have been engaged in a century-long retail product feud. Released in 1908, four years before the first Oreo rolled off the factory lines, Hydrox has long had to contend with the perception they’re the knock-off. Oreo became the preferred chocolate-and-cream cookie snack, with most citing Nabisco (and now Mondelēz) as having the marketing muscle to smother their smaller competitor. But according to a new Federal Trade Commission complaint filed by Hydrox, Oreo’s success isn’t strictly the result of deeper corporate pockets. Leaf Brands, the current owners of Hydrox, are alleging that Mondelēz is...

Excerpt - Hydrox, the defunct chocolate-sandwich wafer, is returning for one more rematch with its nemesis, the Oreo. Bowing to more than 1,300 phone inquiries, an online petition with more than 1,000 signatures and Internet chat sites lamenting the demise of the snack, Kellogg Co. has decided to temporarily relaunch Hydrox, the left-for-dead cookie. WSJ's Christopher Rhoads speaks to Adam Najberg about Hydrox cookies, and why consumers are fighting to bring back the defunct chocolate-sandwich wafers. (May 28) "These loyalists can be proud to know they've been heard," says Brad Davidson, head of Kellogg's snack division. Kellogg quietly killed off...

LONDON -- "It's very dark. It's almost black." May Woodward, an office worker in central London, is holding an Oreo cookie in her hands. It's the first time she has ever seen one "in the flesh as opposed to on an American TV show," and she's not sure she likes what she sees. "It's the color of wet mud!" she complains. "And the bit ... looks like toothpaste rather than cream." She twists and turns the cookie in her fingers, staring at it from every angle with a screwed-up look on her face that seems to say, "Gross!" not "Mmm,...

Robert Fliegel was craving a Hydrox. The 52-year-old computer consultant says he always liked the way the chocolate sandwich cookie, which he found crisper than Oreos, "stood up to the milk" when dunked. But Mr. Fliegel, who used to be able to devour an entire package of the crème-filled biscuits in a sitting, couldn't find them in any stores near his East Stroudsburg, Pa., home. Only when he went online a few months ago to try to order some did he learn the truth: Hydrox is dead. In 2003, without warning or announcement, Kellogg Co. killed off the cookie --...

SAN FRANCISCO - Kids in California may have to give up their Oreos, if a lawsuit filed by a San Francisco public interest lawyer is successful. The lawsuit, filed last week in Marin County superior court, seeks a ban on the black and white cookies, arguing the trans fats that make the filling creamy and the cookie crisp are too dangerous for children to eat. Stephen Joseph said he filed the suit against Nabisco, the maker of Oreos, after reading articles that said the artificial fat is hidden in most packaged food, though consumers have no way of knowing. The...