Somewhere along the way, a little Belgian coffee biscuit became an ingredient to put into anything.

What is up with Biscoff?

I like the spicy-sweet biscuits. To me, they scratch pretty much the same itch as Dutch speculaas, my favourite things in the whole mass-produced cookie world.

And lately Biscoff seems unavoidable.

Spread, ice cream, Milka, Côte d’Or, Toblerone truffles, Ferrero Rocher, McFlurries, Krispy Kreme doughnuts, Cinnabon, protein bars…

My kids even came home from Halloween with Cadbury Dairy Milk and Biscoff bars in their bags.

Everything but pizza, I thought.

But there’s Biscoff pizza too. I found an Australian restaurant serving one with Biscoff spread, biscuit crumbs, banana and caramel.

This wasn’t an acquisition-fuelled takeover.

Lotus Bakeries created the biscuit in Belgium in 1932 and remains family-owned. International expansion started decades ago, including airlines in the 1990s.

The huge acceleration came after Biscoff spread launched in 2008, followed by international ice cream in 2019 and chocolate in 2020. With that, folks started to realize the potential.

More recently, partnerships with Mondelēz and Froneri have put Biscoff inside other enormous brands and distribution systems.

And it’s very much global. Biscoff is sold in about 70 countries, the spread in more than 45, and 2025 Biscoff sales reached €670 million after another 13% of organic growth.

I see cleverness here.

Biscoff has escaped being a product and become a flavour. I wrote recently about Reese’s making essentially the same leap: once people recognize and want the taste itself, the original product stops defining the boundaries of the brand.

That gives Lotus access to categories, shelves and customers it could never economically build alone.

The danger is obvious too. Ubiquity can eventually make something distinctive ordinary. Every mediocre Biscoff mashup borrows some equity while potentially giving a little less back.

But so far, demand suggests folks ain’t tired of it yet.

Maybe the real achievement is how Lotus found something consumers recognize with one bite, then discovered there are almost no limits to where that taste can travel.

Including even pizza.

If you’d like help creating and marketing products people feel compelled to buy, the product marketing consultants at Graphos Product can help.