Byrd's cookies from Savannah will soon be served by the millions to airline passengers -- on the flights of Delta rival United Airlines.
Chicago-based United announced it will serve maple cookies made by the Byrd Cookie Company as a complimentary snack to economy class passengers on early morning domestic flights. Byrd's cookies will replace the Stroopwafel, which will remain only on United's early morning flights departing Europe.
Byrd's small wafer cookies have been served on flights of Atlanta-based Delta Air Lines and United in first class or with meals, and were previously served in Delta Sky Clubs.
But “this is just a big move” on United, said Byrd’s president Geoff Repella. “It’s going to be in the whole plane.”
The maple cookies to be served on United, which Repella calls a “modernization” of benne wafers without the sesame seeds, are baked in Savannah and will be handed out in economy class starting this weekend.
Repella said the United deal will amount to more than 3 million bags of cookies a month, and as a result Byrd’s is expanding its bakery and adding 20 new jobs.
“We’re going to be sending a whole lot of taste of the South around the U.S.,” Repella said.
United is holding an auction for its frequent fliers to bid miles for a trip to Savannah to visit the city and get a tour of the Byrd’s bakery.
The Savannah-based Byrd Cookie Company, founded in 1924, is well-known to tourists and others cookie eaters who have tried different flavors at Byrd’s Savannah shops at City Market, on River Street or at its bakery; at shops in Pooler, Ga. or in Charleston, S.C.
“We’ve been making benne wafers for almost 70 years,” Repella said. “We were doing a tour with some folks from United and they said, ‘What’s a benne wafer?’ I said, well it’s a Southern cookie... it’s just part of the low country kind of thing.”
A United representative said “let’s go from here,” Repella said. The maple cookie “does read kind of breakfasty; it almost tastes like a piece of French toast.”
“This will be the economy giveaway the way that Delta does the Biscoff cookies,” Repella said.
Delta has changed up its mix of in-flight snacks recently -- except for the cookie option.
“As far as the cookie goes, they have not changed that out from Biscoff in years and years and years,” Repella said.
"We would absolutely love the opportunity to do some Georgia cookies right here on the Georgia airline, but so far the only opportunities have been in the first class snack basket and part of a meal, because the Biscoff has been the [cookie] giveaway in the back of the plane," Repella said. "C'mon, not everybody loves a Biscoff."
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