Red Velvet Oreos are being discontinued this year

Red Velvet Oreos fan? You might want to stock up on these Oreo sandwich cookies while you can.

If you’re a fan of Red Velvet Oreos, there’s some bad news coming – the flavor is being discontinued.

FoodSided heard of this news through Wide Open Eats, though it was also covered by MSN and Thrillist.

A Nabisco employee told Thrillist that the reasoning behind this decision was to allow for more room on store shelves for new incoming variant flavors. Given the numerous amount of seasonal and special flavors, Oreos might need the shelf space.

The original source for this news seems to come from an Instagrammer at the handle @Markie_Devo.

https://www.instagram.com/p/B8yu8ukHojv/?utm_source=ig_embed

This makes sense, as Red Velvet Oreos have been around for a while – they were introduced around February 2015, and have stayed more or less on shelves since.

Since red velvet cake was clearly one of the flavors of the 2010s decade, as Quartz noted in a 2016 article, it’s understandable that Oreo would try adapting it. And like pumpkin spice, once that became The Next Big Thing, everything in the kitchen had to experiment with the flavor.

But something about the food coloring, in my opinion, ruined the delicious chocolatey cookie, while the cream cheese frosting was too rich and dense. Overall, it wasn’t terrible as far as variant Oreos go, but it was far from the best (Double Stuf forever!).

Also, of course, there’s the color aspect – the crumbs of red velvet cake really do look like dried blood if you aren’t paying attention, and that image doesn’t mesh well with tasty dessert. So it’s no surprise that the red velvet cake at Shelby’s wedding in Steel Magnolias was made up to look like armadillo carcass. That’s why the joke works.

Of course, if you’re a fan of red velvet cake, as many people are, then this is disappointing news. But the loss of Red Velvet Oreos will open the door to other amazing flavors, so that could be exciting, too.