RGV Falls Victim for Overpriced Airplane Cookies

The Rio Grande Valley has built its reputation on many things. Following trends with religious devotion ranks high on that list. The Dubai chocolate. The matcha lattes. Those have passed. Welcome to the Biscoff craze.

You can see it everywhere: Biscoff conchas, Biscoff tres leches cake, Biscoff coffee,

Somewhere between pumpkin spice season and the great oat milk revolution, Biscoff cookies infiltrated the RGV's consciousness like a paletero's bell on a Sunday afternoon. You don't need it, but you wanted it.

The Belgian speculoos biscuit, produced by Lotus Bakeries since 1932, spent decades as unremarkable airplane food before executing a cultural takeover so complete that grocery stores now dedicate entire shelves to its spread, ice cream, and inexplicable cookie butter iterations.

The transformation began around 2011 when Lotus Bakeries launched an aggressive North American expansion strategy, rebranding their traditional speculoos as Biscoff specifically for the United States market. The name derives from "biscuit" and "coffee," a pairing Europeans have enjoyed without fanfare for nearly a century. Americans, apparently, needed both a new name and permission to care.

It is also known as the "airplane cookie" because Delta Airlines deserves partial credit for this phenomenon. The carrier started serving Biscoff cookies in 1985, creating a captive audience at 30,000 feet with limited snack alternatives. For years, passengers accepted these caramelized wheat flour wafers with the same enthusiasm they mustered for safety demonstrations. Then social media happened, and suddenly everyone needed to broadcast their consumption of what amounts to a cinnamon-adjacent cookie with delusions of grandeur.

The Biscoff spread arrived in American stores in 2011, packaged as if peanut butter had never existed and humanity desperately needed pureed cookies in a jar. Food bloggers lost their collective minds. The spread materialized in recipes where it had no business appearing. Cheesecakes, milkshakes, coffee creations, brownies. Home bakers treated Biscoff like a newly discovered ingredient rather than pulverized cookies mixed with vegetable oil.

Lotus Bakeries experienced substantial growth in North American markets throughout the 2010s as Biscoff products multiplied across retail channels. The company transformed a simple speculoos cookie into a full product ecosystem. Americans, it turns out, will pay premium prices for what Belgians consider standard supermarket fare.

The taste profile itself registers as aggressively ordinary. Biscoff cookies deliver caramelized sugar, cinnamon undertones, and the structural integrity of compressed cardboard. The flavor resembles the marranitos at Mexican panaderias but at a higher price point.

Food trends operate on manufactured scarcity. Try going to H-E-B for these cookies and shoppers will soon find out they're shit out of luck. Biscoff has succeeded by positioning itself as sophisticated. The packaging whispers exclusivity. The price suggests luxury. The reality involves wheat flour, sugar, and aggressive distribution contracts.

The obsession is less about the cookie's merit and more about collective consumer psychology. Mexico's panaderias have sold superior versions for generations at lower costs, but they lack the crucial element of perceived sophistication that drives food trends.

The Valley will move on eventually. But until then, brace for the inevitable: Biscoff sprinkled on elote.

@Santitos

@salinasmariasantos

Copyright © 2026 Maria Santos Salinas for FRONTeras.