Oreo Cookie Flavor Contest Turns Bitter For Colorado Woman

LONE TREE, CO -- A Metro Denver woman who entered a contest to create a new Oreo cookie flavor thought she had a chance to win half-a-million dollars, but instead got a note from the cookie company saying "cherry cola" Oreos were already in development.

Taylor Young of Lone Tree, submitted the "cherry cola" Oreo flavor idea in May, 2017. Young got a special package from Oreo in June.

Then in December, she saw the cherry cola Oreo on store shelves.

"I reached out to them and I said, 'I'm seeing that my cookie won," Young told KOAA Channel 5. But the company sent her a note saying the cherry cola flavor was "already in development" so the idea was theirs, not hers. Even though the cherry cola was one of three finalists, Young was not eligible for a prize.

The company's website still does not list the official winners of the contest.

Young said she finally got a list of the official contest winners from a stranger on Twitter.

"Congrats to them all," she wrote. "Would being selected as a winner have been amazing? Absolutely!! But that wasn't what I was seeking. I wanted the truth," she wrote on Twitter. "After a whole year of wondering, I'm glad to be able to put the cherry cola cookie controversy to rest. I guess that was just the way the cookie crumbled."

Image via Brent Hofacker/Shutterstock