Oreo cookies are not only one of the most popular snacks in the world, but it’s also a billion-dollar brand. A sweet treat consisting of two crispy chocolate biscuits sandwiching a creme center, they are as delicious as they are unhealthy. A single serving of Oreos, only three cookies, contains 160 calories, 7 grams of fat, and 14 grams of sugar.
Sundays is a new brand that scratches that chocolate and creme cookie sandwich itch with a better-for-you option with seven times the protein of an Oreo with no sugar, sugar alcohols, and only one net carbohydrate. The brand was founded by Jody Polishchuk, a veteran of healthy food ventures, having co-created home delivery fresh-pressed juice shop The Juice Box in Vancouver and plant-based yogurt Yooga.
“Nutritionally, Oreos and Sundays couldn’t be further apart. Sundays are not a health food, but they are borderline healthy,” Polishchuk explains. “You can eat them for breakfast, and four cookies have the same amount of protein as two eggs but with zero sugar and more fiber than an apple. No sane person would ever eat Oreos for breakfast. We’ve expanded the consumption occasion from a fairly narrow one to a much wider one and have done it with an iconic food. That doesn’t happen every day.”
Branding and packaging also couldn’t be farther apart between Sundays and Oreo. Designed in-house and featuring illustrations by Dimitri “Jangojim” Sakelaropolus, Sundays’ branding is pure whimsical nostalgia. Everything from glasses of milk and stars to trees and houses gets anthropomorphized into smiling cartoon characters that form a deep Sundays-verse that looks so fun you’ll never want to go home. The cheerful presentation is like a great trip without the poo-tasting mushrooms and better-for-you cookies.
“We were looking to dive deep into fun and retro nostalgia while intentionally creating the foundations for a brand universe that we’re extremely excited to build out and dive super deep into,” Jody says, who co-led the art direction alongside Christine Brown.
The Sundays’ design team didn’t rely on conventional tools and techniques that most agencies would depend on for client work. “We didn’t have a mood board or anything like that. No planograms. No competitive analysis. This was not agency work; this was pure from the heart,” Polishchuck says. “Sundays was a true collaboration, and it came together perfectly. It was a very fast design process. We went from the first rough draft to final art in about a month.”
Many have sought a piece of Mondelez’s billion-dollar Oreo cookie empire, including Newman’s Own and Trader Joe’s. Few have done so while significantly improving the nutritional values of the classic cookie and creme combo. Sundays does just that with bold, nostalgic packaging that provides fertile ground for an expansive world with plenty of room for the brand to grow. Sundays join other low-sugar, better-for-you reinterpretations of beloved childhood foods like Magic Spoon and taps into our fond memories of Oreo cookies with grown-ups in mind.
Sundays is available now from EatSundays.com.
